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.
