Jockey

Joint champion apprentice, alongside David Probert, as long ago as 2008, Norwegian-born William Buick subsequently became stable jockey to now five-time champion trainer John Gosden between 2010 and 2014, before being offered a lucrative retainer with the powerful Godolphin organisation, under the auspices of Sheikh Mohammed, in 2015. A first jockey to top Godolphin trainer Charlie Appleby, who is based at Moulton Paddocks in Newmarket, Buick won the British Flat Jockeys’ Championship for the first time in 2022 and retained his title in 2023.

Indeed, his 2022 total of 157 winners – in the ‘window’ between the Guineas Festival at Newmarket in early May and British Champions Day at Ascot in October, on which the championship is nowadays decided – left him fully 60 winners ahead of his nearest rival. His 2023 total, of 135 winners in the same period, has not gone unnoticed by the bookmakers either and, at the time of writing, the 35-year-old is a top-priced 8/13 to win his third jockeys’ title in a row.

Again at the time of writing, Buick has a total of 78 Group 1 victories, worldwide, to his name. He has ridden four British Classic winners, namely Arctic Cosmos, Masked Marvel and Hurricane Lane in the St. Leger in 2010, 2011 and 2021 respectively and Masar in the Derby in 2018.

It would be fair to say that Killarney native Oisin Murphy has experienced his fair share of trials and tribulations since attracting the attention of the wider racing public on September 21, 2013. Having just turned 18, and still an apprentice, claiming 5lb, he rode a high-profile four-timer on Ayr Gold Cup Day and has continued to make headlines, for one reason or another, ever since.

Champion apprentice in 2014, under the tutelage of Andrew Balding, Murphy became retained rider for one of the most powerful owners in the sport, Qatar Racing, in 2016. The following year, he recorded the first of his 23 Group 1 victories worldwide, the Prix de la Foret at Chantilly on Aclaim, trained by Martyn Meade. Back in Britain, he went on to become champion jockey three years running, in 2019, 2020 and 2021.

However, despite his talent in the saddle, Murphy has repeatedly fallen foul of the governing body, the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), for disciplinary offences. Most recently, in December 2021, he voluntarily handed in his licence in the face of five charges, two of which related to failed breath tests, brought by the BHA and ultimately served a 14-month ban until February 2023.

Of course, John Francome and Peter Scudamore were legendary jockeys who, between them, dominated the National Hunt Jockeys’ Championship between the late seventies and the early nineties. Indeed, between 1975/76 and 1991/92, apart from Tommy Stack, in 1976/77, and Jonjo O’Neill twice, in 1977/78 and 1979/80, one or the other of them won the jockeys’ title.

Francome was employed, for the whole of his riding career, by another luminary of the sport, Fred Winter, at Uplands Stables, in Upper Lambourn, Berkshire. Having succeeded Richard Pitman as stable jockey in 1972, he became Champion Jockey for the first time in 1975/76 and went on to win six more titles, in 1978/79, 1980/81, 1981/82 (jointly, with Scudamore), 1982/83, 1983/84 and 1984/85. Francome never won the Grand National, and the Cheltenham Gold Cup just once, on Midnight Court, trained by Winter, in 1978. Nevertheless, he surpassed the previous record for career winners, 1,035, set by Stan Mellor, in May 1984 and, at the time of his retirement, the following April, had amassed a total of 1,138 winners.

Peter Scudamore rode his first winner under National Hunt Rules, as an amateur, in August, 1978, but turned professional shortly afterwards. Reflecting on his illustrious career, during which he became stable jockey to David Nicholson, Fred Winter and Martin Pipe, he once said, ‘He [Francome] made the rest of us feel inadequate’. Nevertheless, any such feeing did not stop Scudamore from becoming Champion Jockey eight times – the aforemention joint-title plus seven in a row between 1985/86 and 1991/92, after Francome retired – and amassing a record 1,678 career winners.

Robert ‘Robbie’ Dunne is, or was, a freelance National Hunt jockey, who enjoyed his most successful season, numerically, in 2020/21, when he rode 41 winners. However, while he has signalled his intention to appeal against an 18-month ban imposed by the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), Dunne, 36, faces the prospect of a lengthy spell on the sidelines and, possibly, the end of his riding career. In December, 2021, he was found guilty on four counts of bullying and harassing fellow jockey Bryony Frost, 26, by an independent disciplinary panel at the BHA, which imposed the ban – the last three months of which are suspended – with immediate effect.

Originally from Garristown, Co. Kildare, Dunne did not sit on a racechorse until he was 14 but, in August, 2000, at the age of 15 and weighing just 8st 1lb, left home and school to take up a place on a 42-week residential course at the Racing Academy and Centre of Education (RACE) in Kildare. He was seconded to Dermot Weld, with whom he spent two years, and subsequently worked for Arthur Moore and Michael O’Brien. Dunne rode his first winner, Maswaly, trained by Jeremy Maxwell, at Downpatrick in February, 2005, but, having failed to break into double figures in three subsequent seasons in his native land, he took the bold step of moving across the Irish Sea.

On British soil, he would eventually find fame – thanks in no small part to owner Andrew Wiles – as the regular jockey of Rigadin De Beauchene, on whom he won the Classic Chase at Warwick in 2013 and the Grand National Trail at Haydock in 2014. Other high-profile successes included the Grimthorpe Chase at Doncaster and Scottish Grand National at Ayr on Wayward Prince, trained by Hilary Parrot, in 2015, and the Eider Chase at Newcastle on Mysteree, trained by Michael Scudamore, and Grand Sefton Chase at Aintree on Gas Line Boy, trained by Ian Williams, in 2017.

The late Ridley Lamb was a former National Hunt jockey and trainer, best known for winning the Cheltenham Gold Cup on The Thinker, trained by Arthur Stephenson, in 1987. Lamb retired, due to weight problems, the following November and turned to training at East Fleetham Farm in Seahouses, Northumberland, where his father, Reg, had previously held the licence. However, Lamb was tragically drowned, alongside friend and colleague Alan Merrigan, when the car in which he was travelling left the quayside in Seahouses in the early hours of July 25, 1994 and plunged into the sea. He was just 39 years old.

The youngest of nine children, Lamb rode his first winner, White Speck, trained by his father, at Catterick in 1971, at the age of just 15. As an amateur, he won what is now the Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Challenge Cup at the Cheltenham Festival on Quick Reply, trained by Harry Bell, in 1975. Having subsequently turned professional, he came within half a length of winning the Grand National on Sebastian V, also trained by Bell, in 1977; Sebastian V led over the final fence before finally succumbing to Lucius in a driving finish.

Lamb did, however, taste further success at the Cheltenham Festival, winning what is now the Paddy Power Plate on Brawny Scot, and what is now the Festival Trophy, on Fair View, both trained by George Fairbairn, in 1979. Eight years later, by which time he had enjoyed considerable success as stable jockey to Arthur Stephenson, Lamb enjoyed his finest hour aboard The Thinker in the 1987 Cheltenham Gold Cup.

Heavy snowfall caused the start to be delayed by over an hour but, in what Sir Peter O’Sullevan called ‘quite a carnival atmosphere’, The Thinker survived a blunder at the third-last fence to be one of five horses in contention on the turn for home. Only third jumping the final fence, he was carried right by the front-running Cybrandian in the closing stages, but stayed on best of all to win by 1½ lengths. All told Ridley Lamb rode 547 winners and achieved his best seasonal, 85, in 1979/80, when he finished third behind Jonjo O’Neill in the jockeys’ championship.