For Tom Scudamore, jockeying comes as second nature. The Condicote, Gloucestershire native comes from generations of jockeys, and winning is without a doubt embedded in his DNA. He is son to Peter Scudamore, who is a legend in his own right, with 8 championships under his belt. It stretches back even further to Tom’s grandfather, who took part in 16 Grand Nationals, year after year, winning once, in 1957. The grandfather is famous for riding Linwell and Snakestone.

Early beginnings

Born in 1982, Scudamore was already riding horses at the age of two, showcasing that his pedigree was from the finest stock. Over a decade later, while at Cheltenham College, he embarked upon a part-time career in flat and steeplechase, and has never looked back since then. All through his career, Scudamore has always come across as a highly disciplined jockey, combining flashes of brilliance with mettle born out of years of practice and pushing limits. While he has had several injury setbacks, Scudamore is known as the kind of jockey who dusts his shoes and gets right back to the game.

Professional highlights

The first flat in a slew of grand victories for Tom Scudamore came in 1998, when he pulled up ahead on the homestretch astride Nordic Breeze in Warwick. Toward the end of the same year, the jockey grabbed his second popular trophy, this time a steeplechase victory while riding Young Thruster. In 2001, Scudamore became the Amateur Jockey Champion for Britain. In all these victories, he was considered an amateur until he won the Chepstow Racecourse toward the end of the year 2001. Since then, the jockey has won an avalanche of accolades, with the most popular ones being the Red Square Gold(astride Heltornic), VC Casino Gold Cup(astride Madison Du Berlais), Ladbroke Hurdle(astride Desert Air), as well as Eider Chase on the back of Nil Desperandum.

One of Tom’s most recent victories was the King George Chase, coming on the back of Thistlecrack towards the close of 2016, where he walked away with a cool £119,026 prize. His biggest payday was back in March 2016, when he took home £170,850 at Ryanair World Hurdle.

 

Born on 4th May 1976, Tony McCoy is a widely reputed Northern Irish jockey. Based in the United Kingdom, he has countless achievements in racing, including registering 20 consecutive Champion Jockey titles – a feat that more than confirmed his status as a top class jockey. McCoy was a consummate professional throughout his career in racing. At 1.78m in height (5ft 10in) he’s unusually tall for a jockey, but this certainly hasn’t help him back.

Tony McCoy made history as one of the youngest jockeys ever to achieve track success, at the young age of just 17. The heights he’s reached are well illustrated by fact that he gained his 4000th triumph in 2013 at Towcester on Mountain Tunes. He total career wins come in at 4,358, a number of victories that’s almost hard to fathom.

Even before these exemplary showings, McCoy had already attained a record 74 wins participating as a conditional jockey for trainer Toby Balding. Since he earned his championship title in the 1995/1996 racing season, Tony McCoy attained a notable racing title every year until he ultimately left the tracks for his much-deserved retirement in 2015.

It has been remarked over the years that Tony McCoy won all that there was to win. His most celebrated exploits include the Cheltenhem Gold Cup, Queen Mother Champion Chase, Champion Hurdle, the 2010 Grand National, among other much respected and legendary races. These spectacular victories endeared him to casual punters and professional gamblers alike.

As an enduring testament to the space he’s carved out for himself in horse racing history, the BBC named Tony McCoy as the Sports Personality of Year in 2010. Although the Sports Personality award has been given out annually from 1954 onwards, this was the very first time the prestigious honour had gone to a jockey, or indeed anyone involved in the sport of horse racing. In fact that’s a fact that is true even today. As if that wasn’t enough McCoy won RTE Sports Person of the Year in 2013 and to top it all off he was knighted in 2016.

Sam Twiston-Davies is a talented and much respected National Hunt jockey. His illustrious sporting profile has profited a lot from Paul Nicholl’s able tutelage. Serving under  Nicholls, the younger man has managed to sharpen his jockeying skills quite considerably. Nicholls has clinched the British jump racing Champion trainer honours on more than eight occasions and so is certainly a person able to bestow a great deal of racing knowledge.

In a similar vein, Twiston-Davies must also have learned  from his father’s riding experience. Son of the iconic jockey Nigel Twiston-Davies, the father-inspired rider appears set on the ultimate goal of surpassing the older Twiston-Davies’s sporting milestones in the near future. And, going by what he’s accomplished at the moment, there’s no denying that this long-avowed dream is in the course of unfolding.

According to a recent face-to-face interview by a BBC interviewer, Twistin-Davies admitted that much of what he’s achieved so far is due to his parents’ involvement in racing. Asked what keeps him going, Sam said that he genuinely loves everything about horse racing. In short, the renowned jockey is in the game for the sheer thrill of it.

Sam Twiston-Davies registered his maiden win when he steered his father’s trainee – “Baby Run”. The outstanding achievement attracted thundering applause from the thousands of racing fans watching the Irish Champion Hunter Chase at Punchestown. The indomitable champion’s career received another boost after he pulled off a fourth-place finish in the 2010 Scottish Grand National aboard ‘Razor Royale’.

With a racing profile that goes from strength to strength, Sam Twiston-Davies had 100 winners within a single sporting season. These noteworthy exploits had been preceded by a whopping £1million earnings pocketed during the 2012/13 racing calendar.

If you were to reel off a list of racing greats, it certainly wouldn’t be long before the name Richard Dunwoody passed your lips. Born in January 1964 in Northern Island, Dunwoody came from a family where there was already a firm racing interest (his father had himself been a succcessful jockey and trainer). This family link is quite typical with many noteable names in racing, it certainly helps to have racing pedigree.

 

With some jockeys there is the grind and toil of getting to the top, but Dunwoody impressed from the off, and accumulated some of the most sought after titles in racing. It’s no surprise then that he was Champion Jockey not once, not twice, but three times over the course of his glittering career (and jump jockey of the year five times). He worked with other racing greats, such as when he steered the legendary Desert Orchid to multiple victories, and won Grand Nationals on West Tip and Miinnehoma.

 

Richard Dunwoody will certainly go down as one of the greats, and unlike some of his peers he’s utilised that fact to good effect by continuing to put himself in the public arena. This has resulted in a brief Stint on Stricly Come Dancing and a revealing autobiography. Aside from that, the ever active Dunwoody is a motivational speaker, has walked 2000 miles across Japan for charity (as you do!), hiked to the South Pole, and has marched 1000 mile in 1000 hours.

 

His next challenge involves running the Norh Korean Pyongyang marathon, with money raised going to the Injured Jockeys’ Fund and the Ebony Horse Club in Brixton “I’ve never been to North Korea before and I want to see what it’s like,” said an understaed Dunwoody.

 

It would appear that the man is very much alien to the idea of procrastination!