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In short, John Durkan was a successful amateur rider and, subsequently, assistant trainer to Oliver Sherwood and John Gosden, who died of leukaemia in January 1998, aged 30. He is commemorated by the John Durkan Memorial Chase, run at Punchestown in December and thus renamed in the year of his death.

Born in February 1967 and raised on the family farm in Glencullen, County Dublin, John Durkan was the son of Bill Durkan, who was credited as the trainer of the remarkable mare Analogs Daughter, winner of the Arkle Challenge Trophy at the Cheltenham Festival in 1980. As a jockey, John Durkan rode 93 winners rules, including Run And Skip and Brown Windsor in hunter chases, before becoming pupil assistant to Charlie Brooks, in Lambourn, Berkshire in 1986.

Fast forward a decade or so and, after two years as assistant trainer to Gosden, Durkan decided to take out a training licence in his own right. By that stage of his career, he had already acquired the historic Green Lodge Stables in Newmarket from the retiring Harry Thomson ‘Tom’ Jones and bought Istabraq for 38,000 guineas on behalf of owner J.P. McManus.

Oliver Sherwood said of his former assistant, “If he can’t make it as a trainer, no one will.” Sadly, those words proved improvident, because Durkan fell ill towards the end of 1996 and Istabraq – who would, of course, win the Champion Hurdle three years running, in 1998, 1999 and 2000 – was transferred to Aidan O’Brien.

By way of testament to the perils of National Hunt racing, at the time of writing, pioneering jockey Rachael Blackmore is sidelined as she undergoes rehabilitation for a neck injury sustained at Downpatrick on September 20, 2024. She will, of course, be forever immortalised in Grand National history after becoming the first female jockey to win the iconic steeplechase on Minella Times in 2021, but she is anything but a one-trick pony. Indeed, at the time of her injury she jointly led the Irish jump jockeys’ championship, with 23 winners from 131 rides at a strike rate of 18%.

Blackmore, 35, did not ride her first Cheltenham Festival winners – A Plus Tard in the Close Brothers Novices’ Handicap Chase and Minella Indo in the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle – until 2019, but Prestbury Park has since proved a happy hunting ground. In 2020, she won the David Nicholson Mares’ Hurdle on Honeysuckle and a year later had the distinction of becoming the first woman to win the Ruby Walsh Trophy, awarded to the leading rider at the Festival, courtesy of six winners, including Honeysuckle, again, in the Champion Hurdle.

Lo and behold, in 2022, Blackmore completed the Champion Hurdle – Cheltenham Gold Cup double, on Honeysuckle and A Plus Tard, and in so doing became the first female jockey to win the ‘Blue Riband’ of steeplechasing. She has since added four more winners to her Cheltenham Festival tally, including Envoi Allen in the Ryanair Chase in 2023 and Captain Guinness in the Queen Mother Champion Chase in 2024, for a total of 16 altogether.

To anyone with even a passing interest in horse racing, Lanfranco “Frankie” Dettori requires little or no introduction. Born in Milan, Italy, on 15 December 1970, Dettori rode his first winner on British soil, Lizzy Hare, trained by compatriot Luca Cumani, at Goodwood on June 7, 1987, as a 16-year-old apprentice and the rest, as they say, is history.

In a ridng career spanning four decades in Britain, Dettori became champion apprentice in 1989, champion jockey three times, in 1994, 1995 and 2004 and, of course, achieved his unforgettable ‘Magnificent Seven’ when going through the seven-race at Ascot on British Festival of Racing Day in 1996. Having ridden hundreds of winners at the highest level, in just about every racing jurisdiction round the world, including 21 British Classic winners, Dettori embarked on a “farewell tour”.

However, having increased his British Classic tally, courtesy of Chaldean in the 2,000 Guineas and Soul Sister in the Oaks, Dettori decided not to retire after all, but rather to continue his career in the United States. In North America, Grade 1 races are those of the highest calibre, such as the Kentucky Derby, which must carry minimum prize money of $300,000. Following his arrival in California in December 2023, Dettori more or less carried on where he had left off in Britain. Most recently, he has added the Santa Anita Handicap and the Jenny Wiley Stakes, at Keeneland, to his Grade 1 tally Stateside, making 18 winners in all, dating back to 1999.

The short answer is no, he didn’t, but it’s also fair to say that victory in the Longchamp showpiece was he one glaring omission from the CV of Kentucky-born Cauthen. His best chance, at least in theory, came in 1987 aboard Reference Point, trained by Henry (later Sir Henry), on whom he had already won the Derby, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and the St. Leger. Odds-on at Longchamp, Reference Point attempted to make all, as was customary, but weakened quickly once the race began in earnest and was later found to be suffering from a foot abscess.

Back in Britain, Steve Cauthen won the Flat Jockeys’ Championship for the third time that year, no mean feat considering he was a direct contemporary of Lester Piggott, Pat Eddery and Willie Carson, who won 27 jockeys’ titles between them. Dubbed “The Six Million Dollar Man” on home soil after riding 487 winners and amassing over $6 million in prize money in 1977, Cauthen won the American Triple Crown on Affirmed in 1978, making him the youngest jockey to do so.

Alongside Cecil, for whom he rode nine of his ten British Classic winners – including the Fillies’ Triple Crown on Oh So Sharp, and the Derby on Slip Anchor, in 1985 – he became a force majeure on the opposite side of the Atlantic in the second half of the eighties. Cauthen retired relatively early, aged 32, in 1993, but remains the only jockey ever to ridden the winner of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs and the Derby at Epsom.