Born and raised in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, Richard Kingscote spent much of his spare time in his early teenage years riding ponies on Brean Beach, a seven-mile stretch of sand just a mile or two down the coast from his hometown. He subsequently attended the British Racing School, on the Snailwell Road in Newmarket, and on completion of a mandatory jockeys’ licence course became apprenticed to Roger Charlton at Beckhampton Stables, near Marlborough,Wiltshire.
By his own admission, Kingscote was anything but an instant success, but nonetheless rode his first winner, Maystock, trained by Gerard Butler, in an apprentices’ handicap at Lingfield on November 10, 2004. The Magic Ring mare proved to be just one of two winners in his inaugural campaign, but he improved his tally to 31, 33 and 44 winners in subsequent seasons.
In August 2007, Kingscote was offered the job as stable jockey to Tom Dascombe at Manor House Stables in Malpas, Cheshire. He had to wait a few years for his first Group 1 winner, Brown Panther, trained by Dascombe, in the Irish St. Leger at the Curragh on September 14, 2014, but has since added three more to his career tally. He won the Flying Five Stakes, back at the Curragh, on Havana Grey, trained by Karl Burke, on September 16, 2018 and, having headed south in search of richer pickings with ten-time champion Sir Michael Stoute, won the Derby on Desert Crown on June 4, 2022 and the Champion Stakes on Bay Bridge on October 15, 2022.
Kingscote rode over a hundred winners for the first time in 2016 and did so again in four of the next five seasons. Following his move to Freemason Lodge in Newmarket, he fell just two short of another century in 2022, but his two Group 1 victories – Desert Crown was, in fact, just his second ride in the Derby – boosted his total prize money to over £3.2 million, making it far and away his most successful season, financially, so far.
