Interview: Lester Piggott | Sport | The Guardian Share on Messenger Close Sitting in the lounge of his Newmarket home, Lester Piggott is as cool and collected as he was in the saddle, the composed exterior concealing an extravagant genius that dominated British racing for almost half a century, an icon recognised simply by his Christian name. Only once since his second retirement six years ago has Lester ridden in public, a veterans' race in Australia last November, six days after he had qualified for a state pension. 'Yes, I enjoyed it, and I'd consider doing it again, given the right circumstances. I'd been riding out for William [Haggas, his son-in-law] to get myself into shape, but I wasn't 100 per cent fit. Nowhere near.' His mount, Bay Scenery, finished third. 'The horse was outpaced after 100 yards and got a long way behind,' he says curtly. 'He wanted a lot further.' Piggott returned to the unsaddling enclosure with a face like a thundercloud; winning has been the haemoglobin of his life.

The generous room, furnished in shades as sober as its owner, would be sombre from the gloom outside but for the kaleidoscope of colour on the walls Ü paintings, prints, photographs, a gallery of glory celebrating a career that yielded a record 30 Classic winners, including nine Derbies. A new Flat season has begun, but the cream of the crop are unlikely to match last year's superb vintage. For a few hours last August Dubai Millennium and Montjeu, two horses fast enough to dominate any year, were destined for a $10m match.'It was a great year,' Piggott says, 'and if the two horses had met somewhere in July, Montjeu would have had a chance. Then Dubai Millennium broke down, and I thought Montjeu was never quite the same after his injury in the autumn. It was sad to see him beaten, but they do get beat, don't they?' Giant's Causeway, another outstanding horse from last season, also took Piggott's fancy. 'He was very tough.

In some ways he reminded me of The Minstrel [on whom Piggott won the 1977 Derby], beaten in the Guineas but he went on to win all those good races.' Piggott was impressed. But not that impressed. 'Yes, they were top horses,' says the man probably best qualified to make historical judgments about the true qualities of British racehorses, 'but I really don't think they were any better than the ones I rode.' Indeed none of last year's champions qualifies as the best horse Piggott has seen since his retirement. That honour goes to the dynamic French horse, Peintre Celebre. 'On the day he landed the Arc in 1997, breaking the track record, he was really outstanding.' Piggott won three Prix de l'Arc de Triomphes, the first on Rheingold in 1973. 'The mile and a half course at Longchamp is one of the hardest in the world to ride.

You get a number of half turns before you get to the straight, which is relatively short.' His other two Arc winners came in 1977 and 1978 on Alleged, a horse whose quality still rings down the ages. 'He was one of the best half dozen horses I ever rode.' Looking back, though, Piggott confesses he should have won a fourth Arc, and blames himself for his failure to win on Park Top in 1969. The Duke Of Devonshire's filly flew home in the final furlong, but could not catch the Ascot Gold Cup winner, Levmoss. 'It was my fault. She needed to be held up until the last minute, and I left it too late. If I'd moved sooner I'd have won.' Lester Piggot rode his first winner, The Chase, at Haydock Park in 1948. He was 12 years old. Already a prodigy, the young Piggott was flouting authority long before flared trousers and nostrils assaulted the Sixties.

The teenager was by many lengths the most gifted apprentice of his generation, insolently superior to some of the formulaic veterans he encountered, and they resented it. Consequently, he was suspended more times than a chorus girl's stocking. After the King Edward VII Stakes at Royal Ascot of 1954, Piggott was wrongly blamed by the local stewards for causing a scrimmage early in the straight. The stewards of the Jockey Club, bred to stifle precocity, banned him from the racecourse for six months, and demanded that he complete his apprenticeship away from the cocoon of home. Piggott took refuge with Jack Jarvis at Newmarket. 'Life was very different then,' Piggott recalls. 'The whole racing world has changed for the better. The stewards have got camera patrols to help them, and everyone's much more aware of safety. When I was young, I didn't want to get beaten and go back with excuses. It was every man for himself. You went out to win. Yes, I did cut up one or two, and them me.

But you can't do two things, do your best to win all the time, and be careful all the time.' His disdain for authority, his palpable talent, his election as the people's jockey, made him the 'housewives' favourite'. When as an 18-year-old he landed his first Derby on Never Say Die in 1954, the winner's name celebrated the blitz mentality of a nation barely weened off ration books. A 33-1 outsider, Never Say Die should have been a good result for the bookmakers, but many thousands had backed the boy wonder and in one ride Piggott had captured the hearts and minds of punters up and down the country. His arch opponent throughout his early career was Scobie Breasley, the best jockey to leave Australia. Breasley liked to settle horses, shave the inside rail, challenge late. 'That was his way. It was a good way, but it didn't always pay off. We rode against each other for a long time, and had the pick of the rides.

We carved it up between us, really.' In 1961 Piggott married Susan Armstrong, the daughter of trainer Sam Armstrong, and the couple moved to Newmarket. They have never left. Their first house was near Tattersalls' sales arena; they now share a luxury bungalow in Hamilton Road. He lives there with Susan in close proximity to both his elder daughter, Maureen, (who is married to William Haggas) and to Jamie, a son born to his former assistant, Anna Ludlow. Ego drives champions, and ever since Piggott realised that he was the best he has treated the law with steadfast indifference. Regulations - be they on the racetrack, on the road, about paying taxes or in life - are obeyed only if convenient. In one race at Deauville he snatched a whip from Alain Lequeux when his own had gone flying; in another at Sha Tin, he pushed away the head of a persistent challenger with his hand. The inevitable penalties were shrugged off as inconsequential. In 1987 he was given a three-year sentence for tax evasion, of which he served 366 days.

Many thought that Piggott, who had travelled Pullman class for most of his life, would be destroyed by the experience. They failed to understand that the taciturn veil he had worn so devotedly to protect him from the public, imposed by partial deafness and a minor speech impediment, proved to be a perfect apprenticeship for the alienation of prison. 'I decided to keep my head down,' he says now, 'keep my nose clean.' The year passed; 'a waste,' he says. He survived, emerging a little softer. Two years before going to jail Piggott had retired and taken up training. At its peak his Eve Lodge stables had housed 97 residents and sent out 34 winners, but on his release he returned home to a handful of horses, and it was not enough. In the autumn of 1990 he returned to what he knew best. Within a few days of his picking up the reins, he landed one of the most prestigious races in America, the Breeders' Cup Mile, at the age of 54.

Racing celebrated the return of its fallen idol; he might have been stripped of his OBE, but to the devout congregation it was a second coming, the flair, the drive, the equilibrium seemingly undiminished by the passing of the years. Even the jockey found a smile. He doesn't drop his guard easily, though. Those who thought David Beckham was a trifle timid when interviewed by Ali G for this year's Red Nose Day should try Lester; he makes the England football captain seem as extrovert as John McCririck. If Lester owned a Classic colt, which present day jockey would he engage to ride? 'That's a hard one. I'm not answering that one.' To nominate the most talented horse he rode is, he thinks, to diminish the other champions. He knows, of course, but would rather keep it to himself than offend those he has passed over. Nijinsky, who won the Triple Crown in 1970, was the most charismatic of his champions. The familiar figure of Lester's lean torso balanced against Nijinsky on the bridle was the sight of a lifetime; irons short, reins long, man and horse flowing over the turf in perfect harmony.

When most jockeys want their horses to quicken they shorten the reins and start to pump, jack-in-the-box, all action. No jockey could be more severe in a finish than Piggott, but his composure on a thoroughbred galloping at 40 miles an hour was unique. His superior judgment of pace allowed him to challenge at the optimum moment, seemingly without effort, his horse full of running, given the confidence to quicken way from the herd, to confront the unknown. 'In terms of raw ability, Nijinsky was probably the best,' he finally concedes. 'He got nervous before his races, and I was always anxious until he had jumped out of the stalls. Then he'd drop the bit and you could put him anywhere in a race. Soon after the King George he got ringworm, and ran in the St Leger, probably before he'd really got over it. It was the Triple Crown and no horse had landed it since Bahram in 1935, so you can understand why they wanted him to go. He won all right, but not as easily as people thought.

' By now Nijinsky's reputation had grown beyond peers and punters, and the Irish-trained horse had been adopted by the whole of Europe when he lined up for the Arc in October. Victory would have bestowed immortality and thousands travelled to witness the moment. It was not to be. 'The St Leger left its mark,' Piggott reflects. 'He didn't have the same feel at Longchamp. In the straight Sassafras was in the lead and I went after him. We got to the front 100 yards out, but then he went a bit to the left - he hadn't done it before - and Sassafras got back up on the line. At the time it was a catastrophe!' Some 30 years on, he can afford a chuckle. 'Seriously, though, it was disappointing. He was unbeaten in 12 races. Everybody expected so much. The public were disappointed, but so was I. We all wanted him to win and it hurt.' The 1968 Derby winner Sir Ivor remains another favourite.

There is a film of his Classic year, still one of the best documentaries on racing, from which two truths emerge: Sir Ivor had a brilliant turn of finishing speed; and he was tough, winning the Laurel Invitation in America at the end of a gruelling season that had begun in a Guineas trial at Ascot seven months earlier. Piggott settled him so successfully at Epsom that the horse was all but asleep by the time the field swept around Tattenham Corner. 'He had a lot of speed, and I wasn't sure he'd get the trip so I held him up on the inside. With two furlongs to go Sandy Barclay was out in front on Connaught and I was still four lengths behind. I pulled him out and asked him to go, but he didn't quicken up straight away. Perhaps I'd got him a bit too relaxed. Then suddenly he just took off, flew, and won easily.' Nijinsky and Sir Ivor were trained in Co Tipperary by Vincent O'Brien, a man as reticent yet as accomplished as Piggott himself. Together they shared nine Classic winners.

Piggott's formal association with the demure Irishman began in 1966, ending a long and successful partnership with Noel Murless, the leading postwar trainer in England. Such naked disloyalty affronted a public still nursing a sense of fair play which had long been suffocated by the onslaught of the commercial imperative. They could not understand why Piggott was deserting someone who had provided him with such a regular supply of Classic winners. The Jockey Club held an impotent inquiry, but Piggot simply wanted the freedom to pick and choose the most likely winners; he was the best, he wanted to ride the best. Those who thought his self-interest would bring about his downfall were silenced when he retained his jockeys' championship (one of nine, though it would have been many more if he had been a few pounds lighter). 'Noel was a great trainer,' Piggott recalls, 'but many of his owners had their own stallions and mares, and he was sent their stock.' The champions, though, were emerging from the sales rings of Newmarket and Kentucky.

Economic power was drifting away from the aristrocracy, who could only watch helplessly as death duties destroyed the wealth which maintained large private studs. The Sport of Kings became a genetic casino for new money. The pools magnate Robert Sangster was spending millions on the progeny of the great stallion Northern Dancer in America and Piggott wanted to ride them. 'Noel was extraordinarily kind to horses, not necessarily the way they were all treated in those days. Crepello was a bit lazy, never did more than he had to, but he had tremendous speed. He had fragile tendons and broke down in the summer, but was one of the best horses I ever rode.' Murless rated the ride Piggott gave tough little Carozza to win the 1977 Oaks for the Queen as the best he could recall, but the most memorable filly of their partnership was Petite Etoile. The grey won the 1,000 Guineas, the Oaks, two Coronation Cups and a Champion Stakes; she was never out of the first two in 19 races over four seasons in the Fifites and Sixties, but scarcely lasted a mile and a half.

His gossamer rein persuaded the petulant filly that she was barely exerting herself. 'She was a right monkey at the best of times,' was Murless's euphemistic observation, but their combined finesse controlled her temperament. Piggott's light touch could be matched by a shade of violence, and the victory of Roberto in 1972 was the most controversial of his Derbies. Bill Williamson, the colt's regular jockey, was recovering from injury and the owner wanted Piggott to ride. Lester had a reputation for easing his rivals out of the saddle, but, for once, Piggott was wrongly blamed by the press and public. With less than two furlongs to run, Roberto was given a hefty bump by the weakening leader, Pentland Firth, at the same time as being squeezed on his outside by Rheingold, ridden by the lightweight Ernie Johnson. Rheingold was half a length ahead entering the final furlong, and should have won, but he hung into his rival, persistently bumping him. With Rheingold so close, Piggott could not use his whip effectively until well inside the final furlong.

Then, with Roberto balanced, Piggott let loose. The crack of his flailing whip cut through the roar of the stands, compelling Roberto to respond. The two exhausted colts flashed across the line eye to eye. 'The Minstrel had a hard race in the Derby, when he just got up to beat Willie [Carson] on Hot Grove, but I was harder on Roberto,' Piggott admits. 'I had to win, you know, and he wasn't doing much for me. I felt he could go faster if only he would. When we passed the post I thought I was beat, but I wasn't worried because I was sure I would get the race in the Stewards' Room.' To Lester, Roberto's reluctance justified the ferocity of his ride, one of the greatest in racing, a flagrant imposition of one man's will on history, seared in the memory as surely as an oak scorched by lightning. In public, Piggott's temperament remained equable throughout a career peppered with injuries, with death threats, with physical deprivation.

At over 5ft 7in tall, he has spent most of his life weighing 8st 4lb, two stones light, riding daily on little more nourishment than the famous regime of small coffees and large cigars. In retirement he likes ice cream, but still watches his weight. The lizard-lined face of his fifties is fuller now, the skin softer, easing the labyrinth of wrinkles. Most days at Newmarket he calls into the Somerville Lodge stables of his son-in-law, in which he owns shares in four horses, the useful handicapper Royal Artist, and three two-year-olds, Horoscope, Prima Diva and La Perla. Last season his syndicate's colours were carried to victory by Superstar Leo in the Norfolk Stakes at Royal Ascot, the meeting at which he rode 114 winners. The owners sold their filly, prematurely as it transpired, but you can bet that Lester made a substantial profit. He has always hated the cold, and in winter travels widely with his wife Susan. Over forty years their marriage has been tempered from passion to devotion by the flames of fame and shame.

The man who was born on Guy Fawkes' Day may no longer burst into an explosion of colour and power on flying thoroughbreds, but never has he seemed so content. Piggott on His reputation for ruthlessness 'When I was young, I didn't want to get beaten and go back with excuses. It was every man for himself. You went out to win. Yes, I did cut up one or two, and them me. But you can't do two things, do your best to win all the time, and be careful all the time' The best horse he has ever ridden 'In terms of raw ability, Nijinsky was probably the best. He got nervous before his races, and I was always anxious until he had jumped out of the stalls. Then he'd drop the bit and you could put him anywhere in a race' Why he had to whip Roberto hard to win the 1972 Derby 'I had to win, you know, and he wasn't doing much for me.

I felt he could go faster if only he would' His time in jail 'I decided to keep my head down, keep my nose clean' On Piggott 'One of the grandest sights in racing has always been to see Lester hauled before the stewards. He goes in there like Clint Eastwood, and he comes out like Clint Eastwood. Lester doesn't give a monkey's' Bryn Crossley, jockey 'He is quite a good rider, but will never be as good as his father. Don't make a fuss, Lester is just a very ordinary boy' His mother Iris after 12-year-old Lester made his debut 'He would lock away his Yorkie bars and cigars and when he unlocked the cupboard he would take out one piece of Yorkie at a time' Walter Swinburn, jockey 'I have seen Steve Donoghue, Gordon Richards and the great Australian jockeys, but he was in a class of his own' Lord Carnarvon, the Queen's racing manager 'The best jockey ever. Gordon Richards was a better rider, but Piggott was always one step ahead.

He could come home in sixth, but see another horse in the pack and work out where and why it went wrong. He would go to the owner and say, "Let me ride your horse at Beverley on Tuesday and I'll win." And it would' Terry Pritchard, agent 'I kept a scrapbook on him when I was younger. Unbelievable man. He could even think like a horse' Graham Bradley, jockey Lester Piggott: 'If I could just ride a couple of races a week...' | The Independent Profiles Lester Piggott: 'If I could just ride a couple of races a week...' The Brian Viner Interview: He rode his first winner at 12, his 4,493rd at 58. He also won the Derby nine times. Now a dapper 75-year-old, he is simply the greatest jockey who ever lived Thursday 2 June 2011 23:00 BST Click to follow The Independent Online Of all the remarkable sportsmen we have seen, through all the decades, it is hard to think of anyone whose exploits compare with those of Lester Piggott.

Maybe only Muhammad Ali can stand comparison for sheer singularity, of personality and life story as well as deed, although it will tickle those who know Piggott to find him compared with Ali. Braggadocio in rhyming couplets was never exactly Lester's style. Nor, it has to be said, is feeding journalists long and lyrical answers to their questions. Piggott rarely gives interviews, and those he does give tend to be dominated by long silences, punctuated by curt statements of the obvious. And yet for all that, an encounter with him still feels like the greatest of professional privileges. Moreover, what better day than the eve of the Derby to consider his extraordinary record as a jockey. He first rode in the race 60 years ago aged 15, first won it (in 1954) aged 18, and last won it (in 1983) aged 47. He had 36 Derby rides and won one in four of them. Not since the race was inaugurated, during the reign of George III, has any other jockey come close to winning it nine times.

If the successes had been limited to those marvellous deeds on Epsom Downs, his would still have been one of the great careers. Yet there was so much more besides. He was just 12 when he rode his first winner on the Flat, at Haydock Park in August 1948, and 58 when he rode his 4,493rd and last, coincidentally also at Haydock, in October 1994. Opinions vary as to what was the transcendent achievement in those 46 years, but there is nothing more spine-tingling than a comeback, and Piggott's thrilling win on Royal Academy, hitting the front in the final yards of the 1990 Breeders' Cup Mile on Long Island, surely offers a more poignant definition of the word "comeback" even than the Rumble in the Jungle, when that man Ali sensationally recaptured the world heavyweight boxing crown. In 1990 Piggott had been out of the saddle for five years, more than 12 months of which had been spent in prison, following his conviction for tax evasion.

By the time he and Royal Academy entered the Belmont Park stalls to chase the richest prize of his life, he had been racing again for less than a fortnight. He was 54. And how did he describe the greatest comeback in sporting history? Succinctly. "You never forget," is all he said to his television interviewer, Brough Scott. Well, nor will the world of sport ever forget Lester Piggott, yet there is no particular aura of greatness around the dapper septuagenarian who walks into the lobby of the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane at the appointed hour, looking cautiously around him, as if for a potential mugger. He mumbles a hello and we retire to a discreet sofa. I have heard that he is extremely partial to smoked salmon so I've brought him a pack of Selfridges best. It would have been a cigar but he has given them up. Anyway, as he takes the salmon, there appears on the face that the racing writer Jack Leach once likened to "a well-kept grave" a small, sweet smile.

I know smoked salmon won't buy me eloquence, but it's nice to make him happy, and I know my late father, despite briefly and unsuccessfully being a bookie, who cursed Lester as much as he revered him, would have approved. So, what does he remember of riding Zucchero, his first Derby mount, in 1951? "His owner had given him to his bookmaker, to settle his debts. He was very difficult. But he was a good horse. He finished second in the King George, the first King George there ever was." As so often with Piggott, his matter-of-fact response hides a heck of a story. Zucchero's trainer, Ken Cundell, recognised in the youngster's precocity the first stirrings of genius. "That boy is going to be the greatest jockey who ever lived," he would say, and he was right. Nobody else could even get the temperamental Zucchero to start, though not even 15-year-old Piggott could get him going that day, not until the others were almost out of sight. Three years later, he became the youngest jockey to win the Derby, on Never Say Die.

"He was quite an outsider, really," Piggott recalls. "He'd been disappointing before the Derby. But that day he was good." Again, there is a hidden story. Never Say Die won the race at 33-1, but Lester had chosen him as his mount when he was 100-1, spotting something in the horse hardly anyone else could see. His judgement of horseflesh was innate; his grandfather, Ernie, had won the Grand National three times as a jockey, and his father, Keith, was also a fine National Hunt jockey who became a top trainer. In fact, it seemed for much of his boyhood as if Lester would be more likely to win the National than the Derby. "Yeah, I was quite heavy. It looked like I'd have to go jumping." But he didn't, and three cheers for that. Instead he became the master of Epsom, not that he enjoyed the idiosyncrasies of the famous Surrey track any more than anyone else. "It's not a good racecourse," he tells me now. "Whoever invented it must have been a bit off their head, really." Another fleeting, beguiling smile.

"You wouldn't do it, would you, if you were going to build a racecourse? It's impossible, really. A good test for horses, I suppose, but it's not a good track. Too much downhill, and on a camber, making horses go down towards the inside. I'd rather see the Derby run somewhere else, but that's not going to happen." Nevertheless, something about the race manifestly suited him. So if not the course, was it the occasion? "I think so, yes. There are so many other big races now. But that was the race." And can he explain why he won it so often? Why, indeed, he was so damned brilliant for so long? "It's very difficult [to analyse], really. I used to get on very well with horses, had done all my life. But why is one jockey better than another, one tennis player better than another? They all train hard. A lot of it is instinct." His favourite Derby horse was his 1968 mount for Vincent O'Brien, Sir Ivor, which reminds me of a story about the late Dick Francis, the truth of which Francis confirmed to me himself.

When he sat down to write the official Piggott biography, knowing his subject's notorious parsimony with words, he decided to get things going by inviting Lester to rhapsodise about Sir Ivor. After much silent thought, Lester said, simply, "Good horse". And Francis thought, "this could take a while". With me, perhaps because we don't have as much time, or maybe thanks to the salmon, he's a little more forthcoming. "Terrific finishing speed," he says, acknowledging that he preferred Sir Ivor even to his more celebrated 1970 ride for O'Brien, Nijinsky. And what of the failures, impertinent though it seems even to ask? What of those Derby rides from which he expected more? "There was one horse that was favourite. Right Noble. He won a Derby trial at Ascot by eight lengths. But he wasn't any good." Judging that I'm better off sticking with the successes, I ask Piggott about his 1972 win on Roberto, another O'Brien horse, which he encouraged to the line with sustained use of the whip.

"Yes, he didn't always try very hard," he says, with mock guilelessness; he knows what I'm driving at. "It was different then. And I think the changes are for the best. It's progress, isn't it? The only trouble is that there's too much racing now, isn't there? Weekday meetings are so ordinary, just a lot of handicaps. But the whip, the thing about the whip is a bit overdone. The whips they have now are harmless. And they've got to have them, to keep them straight." A long silence. After a while interviewing Piggott, you learn that his silences are marked by a constant meandering of his eyes from side to side, and that when they finally settle on a point in the middle distance, he is ready to speak again. "I didn't use the whip much on Roberto. I couldn't, the other horses were too close to me. Not until the last 50 yards, that was about all. The Minstrel, I had to ride him hard too [in 1977].

I'd probably have got [banned for] a week now." Had his time come later, he says that more than any other horse of the past 15 years, he'd like to have ridden Sea The Stars. "Perfect horse, wasn't he?" Even at 75, having suffered heart problems, he'd really like to be racing still. "It would be nice to think you could go on for ever. The big races are worth 10 times more now. Fabulous, isn't it? If I could still ride a couple of races a week, you know." The smile again. "But it's not possible." In any case, he laments the conformity in modern riding styles. "They all sit lower in the saddle, don't they? It makes them look tidier, but they're all riding the same, more or less, all over the world." He still has interests in a breeding operation, still follows the Flat season with a keen eye, indeed there is none keener. I ask him which modern jockey he admires most, expecting him not to give me a straight answer, but he does. "I think Dettori is still the best.

There are probably five very good ones, and the others are not far behind him. But he has terrific balance. And experience helps. It helped me. As you get older you're not as strong as you were, but you know what's going to happen in the race. I can always tell the jockeys with experience." It was experience and instinct, the two assets he seems to value most in a jockey, that landed him the Breeders' Cup Mile 21 years ago. Did that race bring him more satisfaction even than any of his wins in the Derby? This time, I don't quite get a straight answer. "It's wonderful, really, how it came about. I never intended to come back, and if it hadn't been for Vincent O'Brien, I wouldn't have done it. He said 'why don't you?' and I'd never really thought about it, but I thought it was probably a good idea. I was pretty fit. I'd been riding out. It didn't take long to get going." It is a predictably understated assessment of a remarkable episode in even his remarkable life.

And of course it is a life which has also included a jail sentence, perhaps the one jail sentence to have made a mockery of the notion of being detained at Her Majesty's pleasure, for it can only have caused Her Majesty considerable distress. His many wins in the Queen's colours included the Oaks in 1957, on Carrozza. But never, alas, the Derby, which she might finally win tomorrow, with Carlton House. He hopes so. "She loves the racing, and she's good for racing too. It would be marvellous." And does his head agree with his heart? Happily, yes. "You can't see what's going to beat him, can you?" For further details regarding the Investec Derby, visit More about: Lester Piggott - Biography - IMDb Lester Piggott Jump to: Overview (3) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (1) | Trivia (3) Overview (3) 5' 8" (1.73 m) Mini Bio (1) Lester Piggott was born in Wantage to a family that could trace its roots as jockeys and trainers back to the 18th century.

The Piggotts were a Cheshire farming family who in the 1870s ran the Crown Inn in Nantwich for at least 40 years. Lester's grandfather Ernest (Ernie) Piggott (1878-1967) owned a racehorse stable at The Old Manor in Letcombe Regis and his father (Ernest) Keith Piggott (1904-1993) another at South Bank in Lambourn, where Lester lived until 1954. Ernie Piggott rode three Grand National winners, in 1912, 1918 and 1919 and was married to a sister of the jockeys Mornington Cannon and Kempton Cannon, who both rode winners of the Derby, in 1899 and 1904 respectively. He was also three-times British jump racing Champion Jockey (in 1910, 1913 and 1915).

Keith Piggott was a successful National Hunt jockey and trainer, winning the Champion Hurdle as a jockey in 1939 and the Grand National as a trainer in 1963 with Ayala, becoming the British jump racing Champion Trainer of the 1962-63 season. Lester Piggott is the cousin, through his mother Lilian Iris Rickaby, of two other jockeys, Bill and Fred Rickaby. Fred Rickaby was British flat racing Champion Apprentice in 1931 and 1932. Piggott is married to Susan Armstrong. They married at St. Mark's church, North Audley Street, London in 1960. Her father, Sam Armstrong, and her brother, Robert Armstrong, were both racehorse trainers. They have two daughters, Maureen, an ex-eventer (married to Derby-winning trainer William Haggas) and Tracy (a sports presenter on Irish television station RTÉ). He also has a son, Jamie, from a relationship with Anna Ludlow. His house is named after a famous racehorse from history-Florizel.

Piggott began racing horses from his father's stable when he was 10 years old and won his first race in 1948, aged 12 years, on a horse called "The Chase" at Haydock Park. A teenage sensation, he rode his first winner of the Epsom Derby on Never Say Die in 1954 aged 18 years and went on to win eight more, on Crepello (1957), St. Paddy (1960), Sir Ivor (1968), Nijinsky (1970), Roberto (1972), Empery (1976), The Minstrel (1977) and Teenoso (1983). He was stable jockey to Noel Murless and later to Vincent O'Brien and had a glittering career of unparalleled success. Known as the "housewives' favorite", Piggott had legions of followers and did much to expand the popularity of horse racing beyond its narrow, class-based origins.

Famously tall for a jockey (5 ft 8 in/1.73 m), hence his nickname of "The Long Fellow", Lester Piggott struggled to keep his weight down and for most of his career rode at little more than 8 stone (112 lb/51 kg). He pioneered a new style of race-riding that was subsequently widely adopted by colleagues at home and abroad and enabled him to become Champion Jockey eleven times. In 1980 his relationship with the Sangster-O'Brien combination came to an end and he was appointed as stable jockey to Noel Murless' son-in-law Henry Cecil, the British flat racing Champion Trainer, at Murless's old stables, Warren Place. He was again champion jockey in 1981 and 1982. However, as the result of a dispute in late 1983 as to whether he had reneged on an agreement to ride Daniel Wildenstein's All Along, Piggott's ride in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe went instead to Walter Swinburn, with Wildenstein refusing to allow him to ride any more of his horses.

It was costly for Piggott, as All Along won the Arc and a string of other international races in an autumn campaign that ended with her being named US Horse of the Year. Further, as Wildenstein was one of Cecil's principal owners, this placed a strain on the relationship, and in 1984 Cecil and Piggott split, with Steve Cauthen taking over at Warren Place. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous Spouse (1) Will Buckley: Lester Piggott for Golden Sports Personality | Sport | The Guardian Lester Piggott . Except that it can't be because, mystifyingly, while David Broome (1960) and Princess Anne (1971) have won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award in its 50-year history, the greatest horseman this country has produced has never made the top three. He can't win this year's special Golden Sports Personality award because he has never won the annual version. Yet it would be appropriate if an award intended to encapsulate half a century of achievement should honour someone whose career spanned 46 years. Piggott rode his first winner, The Chase, at Haydock Park in 1948.

He rode his last winner, Palacegate Jack, at the same course on 5 October 1994. In between he rode 4,491 other winners. Many of those horses would not have won had Piggott not been riding them. In particular, Piggott was instrumental in the Derby victories of Roberto and The Minstrel. The former in 1972 was the Derby he had to win. On the eve of the race, owner John Galbreath replaced the popular Australian 'Weary' Bill Williamson with Piggott. For once, Lester was not to be blamed for the jocking-off, but the public booed him before and after. Undaunted, he brought Roberto home a nose in front of Rheingold. 'Old Bill is a great jockey, but he could never have done that job,' said bookie John Banks. 'There's no one in the world who could - except Lester.' A year later, Piggott - always a fine judge of other people's horses - won his first Arc on Rheingold.

The Minstrel's victory in 1977 was perhaps even more down to Piggott, not least because Vincent O'Brien and Robert Sangster might not have run him unless their jockey had said to them after a defeat at the Curragh: 'If you run him, I'll ride him. On decent ground, he'll win.' A length behind at the furlong pole, The Minstrel won by a neck over Hot Grove. 'When a man like Lester Piggott speaks you had better listen,' said O'Brien. 'His judgment is just marvellous.' His judgment and his longevity. In 1954, before anyone had been voted Sports Personality of the Year, Piggott had won his first Derby, as an 18-year-old aboard Never Say Die. Before anyone had won the Sports Personality of the Year Award, the 18-year-old had rung Noel Murless and offered his services as stable jockey to replace Sir Gordon Richards. In short, Piggott was a winner before anyone started winning and the BBC award is often given for one-off achievement (Greg Rusedski), or marked improvement (David Steele) rather than sustained brilliance.

Piggott was so good for so long that people took him for granted. He formed relationships with three of the great trainers - Murless, O'Brien and Henry Cecil - which made many millions for their principal owners, Victor Sassoon, Sangster and Charles St George. Yet he left all three jobs. Many felt he had made a mistake to leave Murless and go freelance in 1967. 'He's a great jockey, of course, but he's taken on the whole racing world,' said bookie Fred Binns as he lengthened the odds on Piggott retaining his jockeys title. 'He's given himself a hell of a job.' He retained the title. And it gave him added satisfaction. 'It's a very fickle game, racing. If you don't win all the time they are quick to say you are on the way out. It's the same to some extent in other sports, but in racing there is so much money - and this makes it worse.' Despite four Derby victories, he also split from O'Brien, in the 1970s.

The Coolmore team were less than thrilled when he described his mount, their great hope for 1980, Monteverdi, as 'useless'. When his replacement, Pat Eddery, riding El Gran Senor, was beaten on the line by Christy Roche on Secreto in the 1983 Derby, Piggott walked past his former employers and muttered: 'Miss me?' Miss him they did. But when they were reunited in 1990, absence only made the celebrations more heartfelt when, 12 days after coming back from retirement, Piggott drove Royal Academy home in the Breeders' Cup. 'The living legend out of retirement! 54-year-old Lester Piggott pulls off the upset here!' shouted the course commentator. 'The highlight of the comeback was... to come back,' said Piggott. Even the Americans were impressed. They had referred to him as a 'limey bum' with no sense of pace and a 'soft' reputation before he rode Sir Ivor in the horse's last race in 1968.

He won with a perfectly judged finish described by the respected Clive Graham (The Scout of The Daily Express ) as the best he had ridden. The Americans said he had made a good horse look bad. A year later he went back to Washington DC and won again on Karasas. 'When did you think you had the race won, Lester?' asked a journalist. 'Two weeks ago,' replied Lester before walking out. Throughout his career, there were those that took a dim view of him. In 1954, after a kerfuffle during a race at Royal Ascot, the Jockey Club, in their pomposity, banned him from the racecourse for six months. After that, Piggott had even less respect for authority. 'One of the grandest sights in racing is to see Lester hauled before the stewards,' said jockey Bryn Crossley. 'He goes in there like Clint Eastwood and comes out like Clint Eastwood. Lester doesn't give a monkey's.' One of his better stunts was to steal a whip from French jockey Alain Lequeux while contesting a finish at Deauville.

Afterwards rival Geoff Lewis said: 'I went up to Lester and said, "Good God, what were you thinking?" and he said, "Well, he didn't seem to mind at the time and he'd got no chance." Then a moment later, and with just a hint of a smile on his face, "I must admit it looked bad on the telly".' Piggott was banned for 20 days. And it was undoubtedly blasé of Piggott to have attempted to have paid off his debts to the Inland Revenue with a cheque drawn on an account that he had somehow forgotten to declare to them. A piece of cheek that meant a year of his life was 'wasted' in prison and he was stripped of his OBE. It has been said that he was dour. But the lie in that was revealed in an interview conducted when he was a boy.

Interviewer: 'Which is your favourite racecourse?' Piggott: (long pause) 'Newbury.' Interviewer (pressing): 'Is this because of the setting, the ground, the gentle roll of the course?' Piggott: 'No, it's nearest home.' He may have been a man of few words but most of them were well judged. As he said in an interview with Kenneth Harris in this paper in 1970: 'That's one thing about not wanting to talk very much - I get time to read about racing, and to listen, and to think.' There are very few British sportsmen over the past 50 years who could claim to have been arguably the best in the world in their fields for a decade (Daley Thompson, yes; Nick Faldo, perhaps; Ian Botham, maybe). Piggott is the only one who could argue that he was probably the best in the world for three decades.

When giving Piggott a special award for services to racing during the 1994 awards programme, racing commentator Peter O'Sullevan said: 'Lester, I have to admit, that annually for 41 years I have expected your unique talent to be recognised by BBC TV Sport. I'm rather sad that it's so belated, but I'm very proud and very honoured to present you with this unique trophy, which is in recognition of your utterly unique talent.' It would be uplifting if O'Sullevan were asked to give Piggott another award this evening. But it'll never happen. Lester Piggott | Legends of the Turf Legends of the Turf Lester Piggott Lester Piggott – Born 5 November 1935 In the same way that Fred Archer ranks as Britain’s greatest jockey of the 19th century Piggott holds a similar place in the 20th pantheon. The similarities between the two great riders do not though end there. Like Archer, Piggott was ultra-competitive and single-minded. Furthermore, he too was very tall for a Flat jockey, only able to stay light enough to ride on the Flat thanks to iron self-discipline.

And he too came from a National Hunt background: his grandfather Ernie rode three Grand National winners while his father Keith trained Ayala to win the great steeplechase in 1963. Indeed, Lester Piggott himself looked destined for the jumps at one stage of his youth: he rode 20 winners over hurdles, including partnering Prince Charlemagne to victory in the Triumph Hurdle at Hurst Park in 1954. Apprenticed to his father in Lambourn, Lester Piggott was an instant success as a race-rider, landing his first victory on The Chase at Haydock Park in 1948, aged just 12. He had his first ride in the Derby aged 16 in 1952 on Gay Time (who finished runner-up to Tulyar, ridden by the veteran Charlie Smirke) and then recorded the first of his unequalled nine victories in the race by winning on the Joe Lawson-trained Never Say Die two years later.

Champion jockey of Britain 11 times between 1960 and 1982, Lester Piggott rode 30 British Classic winners and partnered many of the greatest horses of modern racing history, headed by the 1970 Triple Crown winner Nijinsky and also including the likes of Crepello, Petite Etoile, St Paddy, Gladness, Sir Ivor, Roberto, Rheingold, The Minstrel, Alleged, Ardross and Royal Academy. From the mid 1950s to the early ‘80s, Lester Piggott was the most successful jockey in Europe and rode for all of the leading trainers in Britain, Ireland and France at various times. However, his associations with three stables stand out, his partnerships with Noel Murless, Vincent O’Brien and Henry Cecil ranking as a succession of golden eras. His association with Murless saw him moving to Newmarket early in his career.

In a short-lasting ‘retirement’ in the ‘80s, Piggott trained from Eve Lodge Stables in Newmarket’s Hamilton Road, most notably sending out Cutting Blade to win the Coventry Stakes at Royal Ascot in 1986. Lester Piggott’s brief stint as a trainer ended when he was convicted of tax evasion in 1987. When he had served the resultant prison sentence, he resumed work not as a trainer but as a jockey, returning to race-riding just short of his 55th birthday and recording a breath-taking victory on the Vincent O’Brien-trained Royal Academy in the 1990 Breeders’ Cup Mile in New York. Lester Piggott finally retired from the saddle in 1994 with a career total of 4,493 winners, having combined with his old ally Vincent O’Brien to post a final and emotional Royal Ascot curtain call with College Chapel in the Cork And Orrery Stakes at the previous year’s Royal Meeting.

Racing diary: Lester landmark - Telegraph Racing diary: Lester landmark By Marcus Armytage 12:01AM BST 19 Sep 2006 Haydock Park, where Lester Piggott rode his first winner, The Chase, as a 12-year-old boy in 1948, and his last, Palacegate Jack, in 1994 as a grandfather, is to unveil a one-third life-size bronze of both winners on Saturday. Lester will be doing the honours himself and presenting a maquette of the sculpture to the winning owner of the Lester Piggott Start-to-Finish Handicap Stakes, a race to commemorate the two landmarks. The artist is Willie Newton, best known for sculpting the Derby winner's bronze each year. Originally, he was commissioned, by Lester's wife Susan to do The Chase and Palacegate Jack with the hugely differing styles of the young and old Lester respectively for the great man's 70th birthday. At the ensuing party, Peter O'Sullevan was so impressed with the work he suggested to Bill Whittle, chairman of Haydock, that he commission a larger version for the racecourse.

When told that the race to go with it would be perpetual, Newton asked Whittle for how long it was really intended it would be run. "A hundred years," said Whittle. "In 100 years, people won't know who Lester Piggott was," said Newton before adding without thinking: "I mean, you already have the Tommy Whittle Chase, and who was Tommy Whittle?" "My father" replied Whittle. Thinking he might have been offensive, the polite sculptor rang back to apologise and said he'd meant to say the Tommy Wallis Hurdle at Wincanton. "Oh," said Whittle, "you mean my godfather." So there we have it, a sculptor good at digging holes, too. Le Tissier magic Lambourn, an area that stretches from Stratford-on-Avon to Sussex for the purposes of cricket, whipped Newmarket in a charity match at Challow on Sunday. Put in to bat, Lambourn knocked up 230, largely due to 88 scored by Sussex trainer William Knight and an impressive 60 by former footballer Matt Le Tissier.

But it had not looked good when all-rounder Nick Gifford fell for a golden duck to a Peter Chapple-Hyam spinning donkey-drop that was struggling to reach the popping crease. However, the Findon paceman almost single-handedly destroyed Newmarket with a golden spell of bowling after lunch, taking six of their wickets to pick up the man of the match award. Le Tissier proved he wasted a first-class cricket career kicking a ball about for Southampton by having Newmarket's Oliver Fowlston, normally a match-winning batsman, caught third ball on the boundary for a duck. The hapless Fowlston was sacked on the spot from future Newmarket games by his competitive skipper, William Haggas – in a dark mood having gifted his own wicket cheaply –when he got back to the dressing room. From that point, the away team were always staring defeat in the face. Truffle trots up Harry Dunlop, who moves into Lambourn next month, has won his first championship event - and hasn't even started training yet. Truffle, his wife Christina's Berkshire pig, won the breed championship at Newbury (spiritual home of the Berkshire, obviously) Show on Saturday.

In the pig tent, she had three pens – one for each pig and a third for her six-month old son, Tom. Harry will have unexpected competition this autumn in the shape of his brother, Ed, who announced yesterday that, 10 years after taking out a licence, he is to become a public trainer. Ed, trainer of the great Ouija Board, until now was employed by Gainsborough on a private basis. Following the death of Sheikh Maktoum Al Maktoum, Gainsborough has become part of Sheikh Mohammed's Darley operation. Ed will now rent the yard and will be able to train for a wider range of owners. Lester Piggott - Immortals of British Sport Immortals of British Sport View gallery 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 The 1970s were magical years for racing on the Flat. One rider continued to dominate public attention and affection, as for two previous decades and years to follow, like no other. Four of his nine Derby victories came in this decade. Lester Piggott is probably the greatest Flat jockey of all time.

He rode, in the words of Peter O’Sullevan, with “an obsessive, single-minded thirst for winners” achieving more than 4,000 winners domestically and, worldwide, more than 5,300 winners in over 30 countries. These included 30 Classic victories in England alone and he was champion jockey 11 times. Son of a successful National Hunt jockey and trainer, Lester Piggott was born to racing. His first Derby winner came at the age of 18. He had, and often chose, the best rides – but he was given them because he was the best. For the public, he was ‘the’ name, a jockey whose very presence gave excitement to any race. For racing connossieurs, he combined the best of racing skills. Near the entrance to Haydock Park racecourse, a sculpture pays tribute to this icon of the sport. It originated from the wish of Piggott’s wife, Susan, to mark his 70th birthday.

She commissioned a small bronze from William Newton, a former jockey, to illustrate the span of Lester Piggott’s extraordinary career – showing him riding both his first winner, The Chase, as a 12-year old boy in 1948 and his last winner, Palace Gate Jack, in 1994 when aged 58. Both winners were at Haydock Park. The resulting work was shown to those in charge at the racecourse and a larger, one-third life-size, sculpture was promptly commissioned. It is appropriately entitled ‘From Start to Finish’. Lester Keith Piggott Jockey | HorseRacing.com Strategy Lester Piggott : Horse Racing Jockey Regarded by many to be one of England’s finest flat jockeys ever, Lester Keith Piggott was born on 5 November 1935. Today he is probably also England’s most famous jockey, and his name is easily recognised by even the most uninformed horse racing spectators. Piggott was already racing before he was a teenager. He won his first race on ‘The Chase’ at the tender age of 12 years.

The year was 1948 and the race took place as part of the proceedings at Haydock Park. By the time he was eighteen, he had become a famed teenage sensation. He won the Epsom Derby for the first time on ‘Never Say Die’ in 1954 and before long he had eight more winners under his belt. Part of the reason Lester Piggott was able to ride so many spectacular horses was that he was stable jockey to first Noel Murless and then later to Vincent O’ Brien. However, his skill as a jockey should never be underestimated and Piggott had a way of getting the best out of every horse he rode. Piggott did much to expand the popularity of the sport which had up until then been mainly a class-based affair. Suddenly legions of followers started to watch his every move and thousands of less well-off spectators started to flood the stands at horse racing tracks . Perhaps the most outstanding feature of Piggott was his height. At 5’8’’, he was much taller than the average jockey. As a result he often struggled to keep his weight down and he weighed only 51 kg (8 stone) for the majority of his racing career.

His style of riding was unique and it enabled him to become a champion jockey on eleven different occasions. One of the most prestigious moments of Piggott’s career was when he was awarded the OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 1975 by the Queen for his contribution to the sport. However shortly after his retirement from flat racing near the end of the 1985 season, he was found guilty of tax irregularities and sentenced to three years prison. He served only 366 days of that sentence but was stripped of his OBE. He resumed his career in 1990 and went on to win the Breeder’s Cup Mile within ten days of his return to the sport. In 1995 he officially retired for good at the ripe old age of 59 years of age. Many called Lester Piggott ‘Old Stoneface’ as he was not prone to showing emotion though few knew that this was mainly because he had a speech impediment. Nevertheless, what Piggott accomplished in his many years of racing was undisputedly magnificent and he continues to be known as England’s greatest Jockey.

Mandrake: Lester Piggott's only son gets in the saddle - Telegraph Mandrake Lester Piggott's only son gets in the saddle In a move that will send a chill down the spine of bookmakers, Lester Piggott's child, Jamie, is poised to follow in the footsteps of his celebrated father and become a professional jockey. Mandrake, by Richard Eden 6:59PM BST 09 Aug 2008 Mandrake can disclose that Jamie, the 14-year-old son of Piggott's long-term mistress, Anna Ludlow, has been learning the riding trade during his school holidays at the Irish racehorse stables of Tommy Stack, in Co Tipperary. Away from the glare of the British racing world, Piggott's only son has even made his "racetrack" debut, riding in a pony meeting in Broadford, Co Limerick. "We will see how it goes, but it's in the genes all right," says the charming schoolboy, who shares his father's dry wit.

When asked recently if his father had given him any advice on race riding, he replied: "It's all a bit out of date, what he knows." Piggott, now 72, remains the most famous jockey in British racing history. Known affectionately as "the Long Fellow", he won the Derby nine times, including his first victory in the famous Epsom race in 1954, aged only 18. He also rode more than 5,300 winners worldwide during 47 years in the saddle. Jamie is the result of an extra-marital affair that his father pursued for many years in his home town of Newmarket, Suffolk, with Miss Ludlow, his former assistant. According to racing insiders, Piggott is both fiercely protective of his son, but also quietly supportive of his desire to become a jockey. Jamie will not, however, be able to ride on a British racetrack until he is at least 16 – the minimum age needed to receive his jockey's licence. Incredibly, his father was just 12 when he rode his first winner – a horse called The Chase at Haydock Park.

Jamie may end up too big – at over nine stone – to become a Flat jockey like his father. Instead, he may pursue a career, like his grandfather Keith, as a jump jockey. Keith won the Champion Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival as a jockey in 1939 and the Grand National at Aintree as a trainer in 1963. There have been at least four generations of Piggotts who have ridden as jockeys. Jamie has spent three weeks with Tommy Stack, the former top jump jockey who rode Red Rum to win one of its three Grand National victories. Stack and his family are old friends of the Piggott family. Jamie has been riding out each day at Stack's Thomastown Castle Stud, in Co Tipperary. Piggott has two daughters by his wife, Susan: Maureen, who is married to William Haggas, the leading Flat trainer, and Tracey, who is a respected racing commentator in Ireland. "Jamie is only 14 and he is really enjoying himself riding out for Tommy Stack," says Tracey. "At his age, he hasn't made any long-term plans. We are trying to keep the pressure off him.

Daddy is the same: he encourages him, but won't force him into anything." Piggott, who retired in 1995, tarnished his good name, and sacrificed his OBE, when he was jailed in 1987 for tax fraud. The jockey, whose fortune was estimated at £20 million, spent a year inside.

Question: How old was Lester Piggott when he rode his first winner - "The Chase" at Haydock Park in 1948?
Answer: TWELVE