<div dir="ltr">Some great stories about Piggot abound. One of the best is how he struck a rival horse on the rump with his whip and got it to take off mid-race,<div>thereby giving his own mount much needed galloping room and a better trip, whilst the afore mentioned rival wouldn't</div><div> settle after the mid-race whack and finished well back.<div>Hume is Spiked's resident hard lefty, isn't he? Good to see racing transcends class warfare!</div><div>Be interesting to see if it does in Oz, now that the loony Green sheilas are in the ascendant. 2YO races will be in their crosshairs</div><div>and possibly racing generally.</div><div><br></div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, 31 May 2022 at 07:21, L.B.Loveday <<a href="mailto:lloveday@ozemail.com.au">lloveday@ozemail.com.au</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12px"><br><p> </p><br><div>
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<h1>RIP Lester Piggott – your legend lives on</h1>
<p>The greatest flat jockey of all time changed horse racing forever.</p>
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Mick Hume <br>Columnist </a></h3><a href="https://www.spiked-online.com/author/mick-hume/" target="_blank">
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</a><div><a href="https://www.spiked-online.com/author/mick-hume/" target="_blank">30th May 2022</a></div><a href="https://www.spiked-online.com/author/mick-hume/" target="_blank">
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<img src="https://www.spiked-online.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/lester-1536x864.jpg" alt="RIP Lester Piggott – your legend lives on" width="1200" height="864"></div>
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<p>Every media obituary has rightly hailed Lester
Piggott, the great champion flat jockey who died on Sunday aged 86, as
‘a legend’ of horse racing. Yet Lester’s legend was built on
characteristics that might be frowned upon in fashionable sports
coverage today, from his ruthless will to win at all costs to his
refusal to play the celebrity game.</p> </div>
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<p>Piggott in later life became officially revered as an icon: hailed as
‘the queen’s favourite jockey’, recognised with a statue at Epsom
racecourse – where he won the Derby a remarkable nine times – and by
having the annual jockey awards named ‘the Lesters’. </p>
<p>During his riding career, however, the younger Lester was an unlikely
rebel. Frowned upon and persecuted by the upper-class racing
establishment, he changed the sport forever and helped free professional
jockeys from their lowly status as bonded servants in riding breeches. </p> </div>
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<p>Piggott’s father and taskmaster, Keith, himself a successful jockey
and trainer, taught the young Lester that winning was what mattered.
Lester rode his first winner in 1948, when he was just 12 years old;
these days he would not legally be permitted to do a paper round riding a
bike at that age. He rode his first Derby winner, fittingly called
Never Say Die, in 1954, aged 18; none of today’s young star protégés has
come anywhere near that. </p>
<p>Over his career, Piggott rode 4,493 winners in the UK, his record
nine Derby triumphs among a record 30 winners in British Classics. He
finally retired in 1985. But after serving more than a year in jail for
tax evasion, he staged one of the greatest sporting comebacks of all
time. Arriving in the US to ride Royal Academy in the prestigious
Breeders’ Cup Mile days before his 55th birthday, he duly came from last
to first to win on the line, the richest victory of his long career.</p> </div>
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<p>Only his iron discipline and drive allowed Lester to ride any winners
at all. At five foot eight, he was really too big to be a flat jockey.
Known as ‘the Long Fellow’ he spent his life constantly fasting,
apparently living on little more than a cigar in order to ride at up to
30 pounds below his natural bodyweight. (Asked why he famously rode with
his backside stuck high in the air, the relatively long-legged Piggott
replied, ‘I’ve got to put it somewhere’.) </p>
<p>But the lithe Lester had the strength to push his horse to win in
countless driving finishes, often using the whip in a rat-a-tat style
that would be frowned on today. He was also notoriously unafraid to push
rival jockeys out of his way, whether physically during a race or
beforehand by persuading top trainers and owners to ‘jock off’ their
regular riders and let him ride a promising horse instead. </p> </div>
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<p>It may not always be true that nice guys come last, but champions
surely often have to be hard. And as veteran racing commentator Brough
Scott writes, Piggott was ‘the hardest of the hard’, capable of winning a
Classic race only days after being trapped in a starting stall by a
bucking horse and almost having his ear torn off. </p>
<p>The taciturn Lester’s apparent standoffishness (a condition
exacerbated by his partial deafness) earned him the alternative nickname
of ‘Old Stoneface’. Despite reportedly displaying a dry wit in private,
Piggott exuded none of the public charm of friend and admirer Frankie
Dettori, racing’s national treasure and the only more recent jockey fit
to pull up Lester’s riding boots. </p> </div>
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<p>As Piggott’s old rival, Willie Carson, observes, unlike today’s
celebrity sportsmen the ‘iconic’ Lester ‘didn’t care what people were
going to think about him’. But never mind the PR. More importantly, as
Carson also says, Lester ‘changed the way things were done from his
early days until he retired’, and other jockeys ‘were better off for his
endeavours’.</p>
<p>Not only did Piggott raise the professional standards of jockeyship
and force others to follow suit – he also changed the status of
professional jockeys. </p> </div>
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<p>The old-school-tie establishment that ran British racing never liked
the young upstart, frequently punishing Piggott with longer-than-normal
bans for ruthless riding. It liked Lester even less when, in 1967, he
tore up convention, gave up his job as stable jockey to trainer Noel
Murless and became the first top rider to go freelance. Everybody
predicted it would be a disaster. Instead, Piggott’s career and finances
reached new highs. </p>
<p>Until Piggott came along, even champion jockeys were supposed to be
cap-doffing serfs, calling owners and trainers ‘Mister’ and doing as
they were told. Lester broke that old mould forever and created the
modern superstar jockey. His obsession with money as well as winning
would eventually lead to his conviction and jail sentence for tax
evasion. (Even then, some thought Piggott was the fall guy for the top
hats who had willingly paid him off the books, none of whom were ever
charged.)</p> </div>
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<p>I grew up surrounded by prints of Piggott’s great rides on the walls
of our family home, with one of 1970 triple crown winner Nijinsky
enjoying pride of place. (I still have it, sporting Lester’s signature
next to a hair from the history-making horse’s tail.) If George Best was
my 1960s sporting hero, Piggott was my father’s. It was a happy day in
the Hume household when Lester won the Derby on Sir Ivor in the
afternoon, and Georgie scored as Manchester United won the European Cup
the same evening. It was 29 May 1968, and Lester died on the 54th
anniversary of that great day</p>
<p>The last time I saw Piggott in person was almost 20 years ago at the
late, great Walthamstow dog track, giving out prizes alongside a TV
racing personality of the time. A youngish punter next to me asked,
‘Who’s that little old bloke with Big John McCririck?’. Such is the
fickle culture of celebrity with which we now live. McCririck might be
long gone and largely forgotten. But a legend such as Lester will live
on in the memories of all who saw him, and hopefully the hearts of all
who love real sport.</p> </div>
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<p>As no finer judge than Frankie Dettori <a href="https://twitter.com/FrankieDettori/status/1530853375167832067?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" target="_blank">tweeted</a> on Sunday, ‘The greatest of all time. Rest in peace my friend.’</p>
<strong>Mick Hume</strong> is a <em>spiked</em> columnist.</div>
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