Category: Jockeys

The Welsh Grand National was founded in 1895 at Ely Racecourse in western Cardiff – which, in its time, was the most important racecourse in Wales – where it remained until horse racing at Ely came to an end in 1939. The race wasn’t run again until 1948, at Caerleon Racecourse, on the northern outskirts of Newport, but that course also closed later the same year.

The Welsh Grand National was transferred to Chepstow Racecourse in 1949 and has remained at the Monmouthshire venue ever since. The inaugural running at Chepstow was won by Fighting Line, trained by Ken Cundell, father of Peter, and ridden by none other than Richard Stanley ‘Dick’ Francis. Of course, Francis would go on to ride 350 winners and win the National Hunt Jockeys’ Championship in 1953/54 but, having only turned professional the previous April, the Welsh Grand National was his most important win to date.

Francis would have won the Grand National proper, too, but for the inexplicable collapse of his mount, Devon Loch, on the run-in in the closing stages of the 1956 renewal. The shadow of the water jump, the noise of the crowd, false ground and cramp have all been blamed for the puzzling incident, but ESB, the principal beneficiary, was arguably the luckiest National winner in history.

At the time of writing, Lanfranco ‘Frankie’ Dettori, 50, has recently demonstrated that he is no back number when it comes to Classic success by riding Mother Earth, trained by Aidan O’Brien, to victory in the 1,000 Guineas at Newmarket. The evergreen Italian veteran had previously won the first fillies’ Classic three times before, but his past victories, on Cape Verdi (1998), Kazzia (2002) and Blue Bunting (2011), all came during his time as a retained jockey for Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin operation.

All told, Dettori has won 20 English Classics, most of them in the iconic royal blue silks of Godolphin. However, after his retainer came to an end in 2013 and he returned from a six-month worldwide ban for failing a drugs test, Dettori worked his way back to the top of his profession in a freelance capacity. In 2015, won his second Derby, on Golden Horn, trained by John Gosden, and the following year his third 2,000 Guineas on Galileo Gold, trained by Hugo Palmer. Since then, Dettori has ridden his fourth and fifth Oaks’ winners, Enable and Anapurna, in 2017 and 2019, respectively, and his sixth St. Leger winner, Logician, in 2019. All three horses were trained by John Gosden.

Sir Anthony Peter McCoy, popularly known as ‘A.P.’, was Champion Conditional Jockey in 1994/95 and, thereafter, Champion National Hunt Jockey in each of the 20 seasons he rode as a fully-fledged professional in Britain. Richard Johnson OBE famously finished runner-up in the National Hunt Jockeys’ Championship in 16 of those 20 seasons but, following McCoy’s retirement, at the end of the 2014/15 season, became Champion Jockey himself in 2015/16, 2016/17, 2017/18 and 2018/19. Apart from Johnson, the four other jockeys to play ‘second fiddle’ to the perennial champion were David Bridgwater in 1995/96, Jamie Osbourne in 1997/98, Timmy Murphy in 2004/05 and Jason Maguire in 2012/13.

Bridgwater was, at the time, stable jockey to Martin Pipe, with whom McCoy would subsequently form a partnership that would dominate National Hunt racing for nearly a decade. Likewise, Timmy Murphy also signed a retainer with Champion Owner David Johnson in 2004, replacing McCoy, who left Pipe in favour of a more lucrative retainer with the J.P. McManus operation. Nevertheless, Bridgwater finished 45 winners behind McCoy, Murphy 58 behind and Osbourne and Maguire 44 and 41 winners behind, respectively. In fact, the closest McCoy ever came to being usurped as Champion Jockey was in 2005/06, when Richard Johnson finished 11 winners behind.