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Racing history, full of interesting twists and turns

By: Rolf Johnson   June 27 , 2022
   

A hundred consecutive losers after winning the 1978 American Triple Crown on Affirmed saw Steve Cauthen ‘jocked off` his champion. And the rest is history. Cauthen came to Britain, to be enthroned as the only rider to win the jockey`s titles of the USA and the UK. He replaced Lester Piggott as Henry Cecil`s stable jockey; won the Derby twice.

None of these facts would be of any comfort to Rob Hornby. ‘Jocking off` is part and parcel of horseracing – for a multitude of reasons, which usually come back to money. Juddmonte, the racing empire founded by the late Khalid Abdulla, replaced Hornby, unfortunate third on Frankel`s son Westover in the Epsom Derby, with reigning Irish Champion jockey Colin Keane for the 157th Irish Derby. Westover won by a street on the Curragh.

“It certainly wasn`t the fault of the jockey” was the post-Epsom Derby chorus. Majority opinion exonerated up and coming Hornby, 26, from blame for Westover`s defeat on what was the jockey`s first Derby ride.

Who had Juddmonte`s ear? They ditched Hornby and three weeks on from Epsom, Keane gathered plaudits for what was no more than an armchair ride. As Westover galloping seven lengths clear across the Curragh, Hornby`s day just got worse at Windsor where he extended a losing streak to fifty, adding two last placings to a beaten favourite.

Hornby may have lost the ride on Westover but Keane acknowledged the discarded jockey`s contribution. “Fair dues to Rob Hornby. I rang him this morning and he told me everything I needed to know about the horse. He`s a true gentleman.”

Winning trainer Ralph Beckett said: “Colin was positive on him from the outset and took the bull by the horns. Rob spoke to him earlier today and encouraged him to ride him that way.”

For Oaks winner Tuesday, sent off joint favourite with Westover, the exertions of a fourth Classic in less than two months proved her undoing and she finished over ten lengths behind the winner.

There are strong feelings on both sides over Juddmonte`s decision – some commentators, admittedly with the benefit of hindsight, insisted that any rider worth his salt could have steered Westover home. At Epsom the jockey is usually fall guy for defeat – it was ever thus – but in your correspondent`s judgment Hornby could not be held responsible for his 25-1 shot being repeatedly baulked when they were a strong finishing third to Desert Crown.

“I am not so poor a horse that they might not make a botch of it in trying to swap,” said President Abraham Lincoln, his version of the folly of changing horses in midstream – the phrase ‘jocked off` hadn`t been invented in the 1850s. (Not in America anyway but Lincoln had his detractors – not least the man who shot him).

American Darrel McHargue had every reason to be belligerent when as contract jockey for the Luca Cumani he was looking forward to his first classic ride, on the stable`s Commanche Run, favourite for the 1984 St Leger, only to have it snatched away.

Lester Piggott was a friend of the owner Ivan Allan; on the day Piggott was the pilot. A bold reporter asked Lester, “Don`t you feel sorry for Darrel?”

Some say Lester responded with, ‘I hope he enjoys his game of golf`. Actually the great man, questioned as to whether forecast rain might affect Commanche Run`s chances, replied, “No, but it`ll ruin McHargue`s tennis!”

Piggott got the credit for Commanche Run`s hard-fought victory but even he couldn`t have done it without his mount`s whole-hearted co-operation. Piggott`s penchant for ‘stealing` other jockey`s rides was something the weighing room had to grin and bear in face of the master`s supremacy over his contemporaries: even Derby winning jockey John Reid, after finishing runner-up on Madam Gay in the 1981 Oaks behind Lester on Blue Wind, had to bow down.

Reid said: “I came back to unsaddle and told her trainer Paul Kelleway that I`d love to ride the filly in the French Oaks.”

“Too late,” said Kelleway. “Lester`s already bagged her.”

En route to his winner`s circle reception Piggott had leaned out of the saddle to say to Madam Gay`s trainer that he would ride the filly in the French Oaks. It wasn`t a suggestion; what he was actually saying was, “I WILL ride Madam Gay in the French Oaks”.

He duly did and duly won.

Lester had every trainer`s ear (ironically he was hard of hearing himself and all but lost one of his ears in a stalls accident at Epsom). In 1972 he`d been due to ride the Derby favourite Crowned Prince whose breathing went wrong. Roberto replaced Crowned Prince as favourite. Roberto was the mount of Bill Williamson, described by Piggott as “the best big-race rider in the world”. ‘Weary Willie` had won the 1969 Prix de l`Arc de Triomphe on 50-1 shot Levmoss. Williamson asked the horse`s owner which one he`d backed? The owner replied sheepishly, “The second”. That was Lester on Park Top.

But retribution came four years later. Williamson was due to return after short injury absence but Roberto`s American owner said, “A boy who hasn`t ridden for nine days can`t be 100 per cent fit.” Williamson was ‘a boy` of 49, winner of thirteen classics and every top race in his native Australia. But he still lost the ride on Roberto to Piggott.

Another top jockey, Adam Kirby, looked to have secured the sought-after ride on John Leeper in the 2021 Derby. But with Frankie Dettori`s intended mount scratched, trainer Ed Dunlop swooped to secure the services of the legendary dual Derby winning Italian. John Leeper`s odds were slashed accordingly.

What isn`t generally acknowledged is that Oisin Murphy had been engaged to ride Adayar (a misspelling of River Adyar in Chennai) in the race but because Kirby rode out regularly for Godolphin`s Moulton Paddocks trainer Charlie Appleby, he was given the mount on what was the stable`s second string – first home.

Murphy was, in effect, jocked off - something unthinkable when he later became champion. Then again he had long been skating on thin ice stacking a variety of transgressions, including drug abuse, before the authorities ‘jocked him off` riding in any race, suspending his licence until 2023.

Irony abounds in this field of human endeavour. Tyro Tom Marquand was booked to ride the favourite, English King, for trainer Ed Walker in the 2020 Derby. English King ran in the black jacket, yellow cap of strong-minded Bjorn Nielsen also the owner of Stradivarius. Dettori had won three Ascot Gold Cups on Stradivarius but was blamed for the horse`s defeat in both 2021 and then again this year - which almost certainly precipitated his subsequent break with John Gosden.

Going back to English King, Walker had warned the up-and-coming Marquand, understandably concerned that he would keep the ride at Epsom, “Your only danger is Frankie and you just need to hope that John (Gosden) has got a runner in the Derby.” Gosden hadn`t and Nielsen exercised his right to put up ‘the man for the job`.

English King ducked left with Dettori at the start and was ‘never at the races`. Marquand acquired a ‘spare` on Khalifa Sat - and finished second at 50-1.

Now Marquand is challenging for the jockey`s title and Dettori is out in the cold. After a largely abortive Royal Ascot - especially contentious was that defeat on Stradivarius - the former pin up boy of Ascot is not so much furloughed as had a “sabbatical” (extended period away from work) thrust upon him by his principal employer, John Gosden.

Frankie Dettori is, in effect, jocked off Clarehaven Stable runners: his successor is still in the offing.

Early in his career Dettori, now 51, said that as a child his ambition had been “to become a petrol pump attendant” - the kind of flippant throwaway remark with which he has his tickled fans over the years. Now, in the evening of his remarkable career, he is in search of the acceptance and adulation to which he had grown accustomed to receiving. He might reflect that Lester Piggott was ‘jocking off` his fellow weighing room colleagues well into his fifties.

Racing has revolved around Dettori for three decades, just as the game placed ‘the Long Fellow` on a pedestal: indeed added to this year`s Derby title was the citation “In commemoration of Lester Piggott”. Piggott didn`t feel the need to trade on such showmanship as sustains Frankie. “A good jockey doesn`t need orders and a bad jockey couldn`t carry them out anyway,” Piggott would say. “So it`s best not to give them any.” Certainly best not to dictate to L Piggott.

Having himself been replaced at Ballydoyle by Pat Eddery, in the 1984 Derby the new Irish partnership`s narrow odds-on defeat with El Gran Senor (Secreto was the winner with Piggott fifth on second favourite Alphabatim) the former champion on his way back to the weighing room, sought to rub salt into the wounds of trainer Vincent O`Brien and owner Robert Sangster, muttering: “Do you miss me?”

A rematch between Westover with his Epsom conqueror Desert Crown could now be on the cards in the King George and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot next month. Someone impishly suggested that Frankie Dettori might be asked to ride Westover there – after all he holds the joint record in the race of seven victories – along, inevitably, with Lester Piggott. And three of those Dettori wins were for Juddmonte on Enable.

Sacked from Godolphin in 2012 Dettori went downhill to the extent of a six-month ban, testing positive for cocaine. At the time he admitted: “It started from there (the demotion). There was never an explanation why or what. I had to kind of accept it for unknown reasons. But then you think ‘maybe I`ll be all right next week, maybe I`ll be back in favour.`”

But he wasn`t and now he has to combat this current setback, with age against him too.

Trainers are in as much if not more jeopardy than jockeys from the slings and arrows of contrary owners. Not all that long ago someone high up at Juddmonte begged the question of me, “Is he (Beckett) a Juddmonte trainer?”.

The latest classic winning handler Beckett is a by no means dormant volcano and ‘outspoken` barely does justice to his strongly held opinions as President of the National Trainers Federation.

After the Irish Derby he was less strident, pursing his lips, giving nothing away about future riding plans for Westover – certainly not before consultation with those at Juddmonte.

Westover`s outstanding performance on the Curragh speaks for itself.

 
 
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Total Comments : 1
Posted by Murari on ( June 27 , 2022 )
That`ll be the last time Lincoln invites anyone into his private theatre box again.
You`ll be much better informed on this, Rolf, but did Frankie not get fired in 2012 by Godolphin because he chose some else`s `Favourite` over the Sheikh`s horse in a previous race? Despite being his favoured Jockey?
The Sheikh, I understand, values Loyalty above everything else (a hangover from his less secure days as a youngster when attempts were made to get rid of him).
 
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