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The short answer is yes, he did, not once, but three times in all. The late Lester Piggott, who died on May 29, 2022, aged 86, will likely always be best remembered for his unprecedented 30 English Classic wins. Between 1954 and 1992, “The Long Fellow” won the Derby nine times, the St. Leger eight times, the Oaks six times, the 2,000 Guineas five times and the 1,000 Guineas twice, thereby setting a record that may never be broken.

Piggott rode 4,493 winners on the Flat in Britain, plus an estimated 800 or so more worldwide and, unlike his illustrious predecessor Sir Gordon Richards, was no stranger to Classic success on the other side of the Irish Sea. He won the Irish Derby five times, on Meadow Court (1965), Ribocco (1967), Ribero (1968), The Minstrel (1977) and Shergar (1981), the Irish Oaks and the Irish St. Leger three times apiece, on Santa Tina (1970), Juliette Marny (1975) and Godetia (1979) and Dan Kano (1967), Caucasus (1975), Meneval (1976), respectively, and the Irish 1,000 Guineas twice, Favoletta (1971) on Godetia (1979).

His career total of 16 Irish Classic wins was completed by Decies (1970), Jaazeiro (1978) and Rodrigo de Triano (1992) in the Irish 2,000 Guineas. The last named was not quite Piggot’s last Classic winner anywhere; he went on to win the Slovenske Derby in Bratislava, Slovakia on Zimzalabim, trained by Barry Hills, before retiring for the second and final time in 1995.

At the time of writing, less than two weeks of the 2024 Flat season remain, but with the result of the recently-run Fillies’ Mile and Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket yet to be reflected by published Timeform ratings, and the Futurity Stakes at Doncaster yet to be run, further adjustments are possible. As it stands, though, the highest-rated two-year-old is the Lope De Vega colt Shadow Of Light (120), owned by Godolphin and trained by Charlie Appleby. Beaten just once in five starts, Shadow Of Light recently completed the Middle Park Stakes /Dewhurst Stakes double and is now a top-priced 12/1 second-favourite for the 2,000 Guineas back on the Rowley Mile on May 3, 2025.

Speaking of the 2,000 Guineas, one of the joint-second highest-rated two-year-olds of 2024, The Lion In Winter (119p) remains ante-post favourite for the first colts’ Classic at a top-priced 5/1. The twice-raced son of Sea The Stars, owned by Coolmore and trained by Aidan O’Brien, was ruled out of the Dewhurst Stakes witha bruised, but may yet test his mettle at Group 1 level in the Futurity Stakes, for which he is currently trading at 2/1 favourite ante-post.

Alongside Lion Of Winter in the seasonal juvenile standings, so far, comes another Ballydoyle inmate, the hitherto unbeaten Frankel filly Lake Victoria (119p). An impressive, three-length winner of the Cheveley Park Stakes at Newmarket, she has already advertised her Classic credentials and looks a worthy winter favourite for the 1,000 Guineas at a top-priced 7/2. Incidentally, the “p” alongside her rating, and that of Lion Of Winter, indicates that she is “likely to make more than normal progress and to improve on his rating.”

Run annually on the first Saturday in May, over a mile and a quarter, on dirt, at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky, the Kentucky Derby is the first leg of the American Triple Crown. The race was founded in 1875 by Colonel Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr. and based on the Derby at Epsom, which had already been in existence for the best part of a century. Indeed, the Kentucky Deby was originally run over a mile and a half, the same distance as the Epsom Classic, before being shortened to the current yardage in 1896. Three-year-old colts, fillies and, unlike the Derby, geldings are eligible to run in the Kentucky Derby.

The Kentucky Derby is a Grade 1 stakes race in which colts and geldings carry 126lb, or 9st 0lb, and fillies receive a 5lb weight-for-sex allowance, such that they carry 121lb, or 8st 9lb. The race is a test of class, such that long-priced winners are few and far between. The longest-priced winner of the race nicknamed “The Run for the Roses” was, in fact, Donerail, bred, owned and trained by Thomas P. Hayes and ridden by Roscoe Goose, who in 1913 belied odds of 91.45/1 when beating favourite Ten Point by half a length. Second on the all-time list comes Giacomo, trained by John A. Shirreffs and ridden by Mike Smith, who in 2005 was returned at 50.3/1 when, coincidentally, beating another favourite, Bellamy Road, by the same margin.

Run annually, usually on the first Sunday in October, over 2,400 metres, or approximately a mile and a half, on turf at Longchamp in Paris, France, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe is the most presitigious horse race run in Europe. Open to thoroughbreds aged three years and upwards and boasting €5,000,000 in total prize money, the “Arc”, as the race is popularly known, attracts the crème de la crème of middle distance performers from around the world.

The Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe was founded by the Société d’Encouragement, a predecessor of the current governing body, France Galop, in 1920, by of advertising French thoroughbred breeding. Nowadays, the major “domestic” trials are the Prix Niel, the Prix Foy and the Prix Vermeille all of which are Group 2 contests run over the same course and distance as the Arc in September. Internationally, the Epsom Classics, the Derby and the Oaks, both run of a mile and a half in June, provide good yardsticks in Britain, as does the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, run over a similar distance at Ascot a month later.

On the other side of the Irish Sea, similar comments apply to the Irish Derby and the Irish Oaks, run at the Curragh in late June or July. Further afield, the Japan Cup, run over the same distance as the Arc at Tokyo in November, can also be considered a key trial, for all that, in over a century, a Japanese-trained horse has yet to win the Longchamp showpiece.