How did Daniel Tudhope fare in the 2021 Flat Jockeys’ Championship?

In the 2021 Flat Jockeys’ Championship, decided on winners between May 1 and October 16, Daniel Tudhope finished eighth, with 76 winners from 489 rides, at a strike rate of 16%. He finished 77 winners adrift of eventual winner Oisin Murphy. In 2021, the vast of majority of his winners, 41, have been supplied by Upper Hemsley trainer David O’Meara, with whom Tudhope has formed a fruitful partnership since becoming his stable jockey a decade ago.

A graduate of Northern Racing College, Tudhope became apprenticed to Malton trainer Declan Carroll in 2003 but, after riding 95 winners in two and a half years as an apprentice, experienced what he later described as a ‘sticky period’. After losing his claim, his fledgling career reached his nadir in 2010, when he rode just six winners. The following season, though, Tudhope joined forces with O’Meara, embarking on a path that would take him right to the top of his profession.

Tudhope rode 100 winners in a season for the first time in 2013 and did so again in 2014, 2017, 2018 and 2019. Indeed, at one point in 2019, he was odds-on favourite to win the jockeys’ title, before narrowly losing out to Oisin Murphy. He did, however, enjoy his most successful season so far, with 159 winners, and reached the career milestone of 1,000 domestic winners on Ingleby Hollow, fittingly trained by O’Meara, at Thirsk in June. At that point, Tudhope acknowledged the role O’Meara had played in building his career, saying, ‘You have your ups and downs in this game. I was lucky enough to find David at the right time, and if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t have got here.’