Known throughout the world, Lester Piggott won the Derby 9 times. His nickname was “The Long Fellow” due to his height, which is unusual among jockeys. His recognizable and innovative style of his broke a new path in twentieth-century horse riding.
AGI – Goodbye to Lester Piggott, perhaps the best jockey of all time, an iconic figure in the world of horse racing, nine-time winner of the Epsom Derby: known all over the world, thanks to a legendary career that lasted almost 50 years, Lester Piggott died at the age of 86. He leaves an individual legacy that has marked the sport of horse riding and has even changed the way of riding. Last week Piggott was hospitalized in Switzerland, where he lived. The cause of death has not yet been determined.
The victories of a long career
He had defied nature Lester Piggott: endowed with an uncommon height and weight in jockeys, so much so that he was called ‘The Long Fellow’, he rode his first winning horse, The Case, at Haydock in 1948 when he was just 12 years old. With a prodigious and precocious talent, for decades at the top, he has known longevity that few athletes will be able to equal: 4493 victories (including 30 national classics), eleven jockey championships conquered.
As for the Derby, at the time the most important race in the world, he won it for the first time in 1954 on the saddle of Never Say Die and the last in 1983 with Teenoso. Strengthened by the long collaboration with coach Vincent O’Brien, which guaranteed him the most prolific period of his career, he also won the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe three times, retiring definitively from racing in 1995, at the age of sixty. His last victory, that of him with Palacegate Jack at Haydock, the same track on which he had made his debut, in 1994, a few weeks before his 59th birthday.
A style that was never seen before
Lester Piggott innovated the way of riding, shortening the stirrups, with his famous ‘derriere’ in the air, in precarious balance; an inimitable style that everyone tried to follow.
Taciturn, a lover of long silences but also salacious jokes, he had an intense life: convicted of tax fraud in 1987 to three years in prison, he made a triumphal return to horseback riding after a year spent behind bars: he had just gotten back into the saddle 10 days when he won the prestigious Breeders’ Cup Mile at the Royal Academy at the age of 54.
But by now he was so famous, adored even by housewives, that his statue adorns nine racetracks in England, and just a week ago the one at Ireland’s premier racecourse, The Curragh, was unveiled.
At the news of his death, Frankie Dettori, the son of Gianfranco Dettori, the Italian among the most popular jockeys of the 21st century, paid tribute to him. “Lester was my hero and a good friend. The impact he has had in racing on all of us is second to none. A legend”.
Amelia Warner
Amelia Warner writes all the Latest Articles. She mostly covers Entertainment topics, but at times loves to write about movie reviews as well.
