Tag: champion jockey

How many times was Richard Hughes Champion Jockey?

Nowadays, Richard Hughes is a respected trainer in Upper Lambourn, Berkshire, where he is following in the footsteps of his late father, Dessie, who was a much-admired jockey-turned-trainer.

However, prior to August, 2015, when he made an unexpectedly early exit from the saddle, at the age of 42, immediately after Glorious Goodwood, he had been one of the most successful jockeys for two decades. Indeed, when he finally called time on his 27-year riding career, Hughes had been Champion Jockey for the past three seasons, with 172, 208 and 161 winners in 2012, 2013 and 2014, respectively.

Unusually tall for a Flat jockey, at 5′ 10″, Hughes first moved to Britain in 1994 and rode his first Group One winner, Posidonas, trained by Paul Cole, in the Gran Premio D’italia at San Siro in September, 1995. In 2000, Hughes rode over a hundred winners in a season for the first time and, the following year, became the retained jockey to Prince Khalid Abdullah, owner of Juddmonte Farms. That association, which was to last until 2007 and yield Hughes’ first and second Group One winners, courtesy of Cartier Champion Sprinter Oasis Dream, trained by John Gosden, who completed a notable Darley July Cup – Nunthorpe Stakes double in 2003. Hughes also rode regularly for his father-in-law Richard Hannon Snr. and, following the retirement of the four-time Champion Trainer in 2013, his brother-in-law Richard Hannon Jnr..

In which season did Tony McCoy ride most winners?

Undoubtedly the greatest National Hunt jockey in history, Sir Anthony McCoy, a.k.a. Tony McCoy, requires little introduction. Born in County Antrim, Northern Ireland in 1974, McCoy was Champion Conditional Jockey in 1995/96 and, thereafter, Champion Jockey every year for two decades until his retirement in April, 2015. All told, McCoy rode a record 4,348 winners over obstacles, an achievement made all the more remarkable by the fact that he stands 5’10” tall and, throughout his career, required a punishing regime to maintain his weight at around 10st 3lb. In 2016, McCoy was knighted for services to horse racing, making him just the second jockey in history, after Sir Gordon Richards in 1953, to be awarded a knighthood.

Indeed, in 2001/02, en route to his seventh Jump Jockeys’ Championship, McCoy rode 289 winners, thereby breaking the British record for the most winners in a single season, 269, set by Sir Gordon Richards in 1947. In August 2002, McCoy also succeeded Richard Dunwoody as the most prolific jockey in British National Hunt history, when Mighty Montefalco, trained by Jonjo O’Neill, landed odds of 8/13 at Uttoxeter to bring up winner number 1,700. After winning the Jump Jockeys’ Championship again in 2002/03, with 258 winners McCoy set his sights on riding 300 winners in 2003/04; he suffered a major setback when breaking his arm in a fall at Worcester in June, with just 36 winners on the board, but still managed 209 winners in the season as a whole.

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