Jockey

A Co. Tipperary native, Jamie Spencer is the son of Champion Hurdle-winning trainer George Spencer, but has the distinction of having been Champion Flat Jockey on both sides of the Irish Sea. Champion Apprentice in his native Ireland in 1999, he graduated to the senior jockeys’ title in 2004, having ridden 93 winners that season, during a brief spell as stable jockey to the all-conquering Aidan O’Brien at Ballydoyle Racing Stables.

However, after just one turbulent year at Ballydoyle, Spencer resigned his position as retained jockey and moved, instead, to Britain. The relocation certainly did his career no harm because, in 2005 as a whole, he rode 180 winners, including Goodricke in the Sprint Cup at Haydock Park and David Junior in the Champion Stakes at Newmarket, to become British Champion Jockey for the first time. He did so again in 2007, albeit on that occasion sharing the title with Seb Sanders, with 190 winners apiece.

The last time Spencer rode over a hundred winners in a season was back in 2013 but, on August 12, 2017, he nonetheless reached the milestone of 2,000 British winners when partnering Stake Acclaim to a last-gasp success in the Shergar Cup Dash at Ascot. All told, he has ridden a total of 32 Group 1 winners worldwide.

Kevin Darley, who retired from the saddle at the end of the 2007 Flat season, with over 2,500 winners to his name, was Champion Jockey just once, in 2000. However, his achievement was all the more remarkable for the fact that he was the first jockey based in the North of England since Elijah Wheatley, 95 years earlier, to win the jockeys’ title. Indeed, Darley went close to doing so again in 2001, but had to settle for second place, just five winner behind the eventual winner, Kieren Fallon.

A product of the renowned apprentice academy of Reg Hollinshead at Upper Longdon, near Lichfield, Staffordshire, Darley was Champion Apprentice in 1978, with 71 winners. His second title-winning season, during which he rode 161 winners was, numerically, the most syccessful of his career. However, he rode 100 winners or more in every season, bar two, between 1993 and 2005; the exceptions were 1998 and 2004, when he rode 94 and 85 winners, respectively.

All told, Darley rode a total of 26 Group 1 winners at home and abroad. Career highlights included winning the Racing Post Trophy and Prix du Jockey Club on Celtic Swing, the St. Leger on Bollin Eric and the English and Irish 1,000 Guineas on Attraction.

Born on May 17, 1954 in Cape Town, South Africa, Michael Roberts was Champion Jockey 11 years running in his native land, on the first occasion while still an apprentice, so his subsequent success in Britain was hardly a surprise. Nicknamed ‘Muis’ or, in English, ‘Mouse’, because of his slight stature, Roberts is probably best remembered, internationally, for his association with Mtoto, trained by Alec Stewart, on whom he won consecutive runnings of the Eclipse Stakes at Sanodwn Park in 1987 and 1988.

Roberts was British Champion Jockey just once, in 1992, by which time he had become first jockey to Sheikh Mohammed, Ruler of Dubai, in the days before Godolphin. However, his title-winning season was notable for the fact that he rode 206 winners, making him, at the time, just the fourth jockey in history, and the first since the legendary Sir Gordon Richards, to reach a double-century in a single season.

Seasonal highlights included three Royal Ascot wins, courtesy of Lyric Fanstasy in the Queen Mary Stakes, Shalford in the Cork and Orrery Stakes (now the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes) and Armarama in the Ribblesdale Stakes. Roberts also partnered three Group 1 winners at home and abroad, including Lyric Fantasy in the Nunthorpe Stakes at York and Ivanka in the Fillies’ Mile at Ascot.

The name of Thomas ‘Tommy’ Stack is, of course, immortalised in the annals of Aintree folklore by virtue of his history-making, 25-length win on the inimitable Red Rum in the 1977 Grand National. Less well remembered, perhaps, is the fact that he had ridden ‘Rummy’ numerous times in his early hurdling and steeplechasing career, when in the charge of Robert ‘Bobby’ Renton at Oxclose, near Ripon, North Yorkshire.

Born in Moyvane, Co. Kerry on November 15, 1945, Stack had joined Renton, as a 19-year-old, in 1965 and, on his retirement, briefly became both jockey and trainer at the yard. He subsequently became stable jockey to Arthur Stephenson at Leasingthorne, near Bishop Auckland, County Durham and became Champion National Hunt Jockey twice, in 1974/75 and 1976/77, with 82 and 97 winners, respectively.

At the time of his retirement from the saddle, at the relatively early age at 32, in May 1978, Stack had accrued at total of 602 winners. Aside from the Grand National, his career highlights included winning Schweppes Gold Trophy, now the Betfair Hurdle, on True Lad in 1977 and the Whitbread Gold Cup, now the Bet365 Gold Cup, on Strobolus in 1978.