Lester Piggott, the greatest jockey there's ever been, died on Sunday morning at the age of 86. Steve Dennis pays tribute to an iconic figure who bestrode the sport like a Colossus
Where do you start with Lester Piggott? The 5,000 winners, the 30 British Classics, the nine Derbys, the 11 titles? The stories, the ice-cream, the five-pound ear, Wilson Pickett? The impact, the mythology, the hero worship, the legend? Lester Piggott defied easy categorisation, will forever defy the laws of perspective, for the further he recedes into history the greater his mystique will appear.
Dates and times. Piggott was born in November 1935, grandson of a Grand National-winning jockey, the heir of a decorated racing dynasty. He won his first race in August 1948, aboard The Chase at Haydock, grew up as a boy wonder – even riding with success over hurdles – and as the boy became a man the wonder never went away. He won his first championship in 1960 and his last in 1982.
His nine Derbys are a record, the first coming in 1954 on the outsider Never Say Die, the last in 1983 on Teenoso. His 30 British Classics are also a record, from Never Say Die through to Rodrigo De Triano in the 2,000 Guineas in 1992. Piggott’s career is easy to define in records, and if his winners worldwide are taken into account his tally exceeds that of Sir Gordon Richards.
The names of the great horses he rode are legion, would take up all the space available. Triple Crown winner Nijinsky, Derby winners Crepello, Sir Ivor, Roberto and The Minstrel, Arc winners Rheingold and Alleged, outstanding stayers Sagaro, Le Moss and Ardross, brilliant fillies Petite Etoile, Park Top and Dahlia, crack sprinters Right Boy and Moorestyle, to keep it necessarily brief.
Tall enough for a jockey at 5ft 8in, he spent practically his entire career subjecting himself to a fearsome regime of dieting and wasting, competing with his natural physical needs as effectively as he competed with his rivals on the racetrack, reputedly subsisting on cigars and ice-cream, although he wasn’t quite that ascetic.
He grew up with a minor speech impediment and deafness in one ear, which goes a long way towards explaining his famously uncommunicative manner, his monosyllabic approach to conversation. He was not simply being bloody-minded, although he made a point of it when it suited.
These physical issues forged his character and the flaws within it, the austerity of his lifestyle reinforced them, and his genius allowed him to exploit them.
Sir Peter O’Sullevan said that Piggott’s attitude resembled “the gunfighter’s delusion of being above the law”, but it is also fair to say that Piggott’s darker side – his ruthlessness, his miserliness, his indifference – served not to alienate him but to command respect, to foster the awe, devotion and fascination in which he was held by the racing public, who delightedly viewed these defects as tough-guy glamour, a contributory aspect of his overall allure.
He was controversial, a bad boy, the antithesis of his saintly predecessor Richards – and in his great and prolonged heyday he was as big as the sport itself.
He was the first racing hero of the television age and arrived in it fully formed as an icon, making an indelible impression on this new armchair audience. Through brute strength and delicate finesse he won races other jockeys would have lost, won people money other jockeys would have lost. Put your last fiver on Lester, and he would get the job done for you. The faith he inspired in the everyday punter was extraordinary.
It was said that a jockey couldn’t be confident of riding a big-race favourite until he walked into the parade ring wearing the colours, because of Piggott’s persistence and skill in persuading owners and trainers to employ him instead. His big-race temperament was as ice-cold as any gunslinger, his associations with great trainers Noel Murless, Vincent O’Brien and Henry Cecil gave him access to the best horses. A mythology grew effortlessly around him, and he revelled in it.
Everyone has a Lester story, most of them growing from the same seed of a preoccupation with money and a dry, laconic wit; some of the stories even true. One day a down-on-his-luck valet approached Piggott and muttered in his ear “Lester, can you lend me five pounds?”. Lester shrugged. “I can’t hear you, that’s my deaf ear.” The valet moved to the other ear. “Lester, can you lend me ten pounds?” Lester shook his head. “Try the five-pound ear again.”
The Wilson Pickett story was given the mark of authenticity by the man himself in an interview several years ago. England, the 1960s, Piggott at the stratospheric height of his renown. Or not quite, perhaps.
Interviewer: There are so many stories about you, and not all of them are true. Is the Wilson Pickett one true?
Lester Piggott: [Almost a giggle] Yes, that one’s true.
Int: You were driving up the Finchley Road [in London], a hot day, you fancied an ice-cream, spotted a kiosk, went in. The girl behind the counter said: ‘Aren’t you Wilson Pickett?’
LP: That’s right.
Int: And you said?
LP: Yes, I am [laughing].
Int: But Wilson Pickett was a black American soul singer. And you’re a little white English jockey.
LP: It seemed easier to say yes. I didn’t want to get into a long discussion about it, y’know.
Long discussions were anathema to the taciturn genius, who used words as though they cost him money, who doled them out with the resigned reluctance of a bookmaker paying out fivers and tenners. After victory in the 1969 Washington DC International on Karabas, reporters who had criticised his winning ride on Sir Ivor the year before now asked him when he thought he had the race won. “About three weeks ago,” he replied, dismissively.
He retired in 1985, trained with success for two seasons, and was then sensationally convicted of tax evasion, which resulted in imprisonment for 12 months, something he described in true Piggott style as “a waste of time”. His downfall was ultimately self-inflicted; he paid his dues to the Inland Revenue with a cheque drawn on an account he had left undeclared. He was stripped of his OBE but not of his status in the eyes of his followers, his reputation trapped in an amber that gleamed unendingly in the sunshine of his former glories.
In 1990, at the age of 54, he returned to the saddle. Less than a fortnight later, in a comeback almost out-Lazarusing Lazarus, one so dramatic and improbable no Hollywood scriptwriter would have given it a second glance, he won the Breeders’ Cup Mile on Royal Academy, a son of Nijinsky trained by his old ally O’Brien, past and present knitted adroitly together. “You never forget,” he said, in that ever-imitable voice, a broad smile on his face, the world at his feet again.
Forgetting was something he was surprisingly concerned about, in his later years. In several of his final interviews he mentioned often that no-one liked to be forgotten, referring implicitly, poignantly, to himself, as though he was just another old geezer worried about overstaying his welcome, getting in the way of the future. It was funny and sad at the same time; as if Lester Piggott could be, will ever be forgotten.
In 1995 he retired again, this time for keeps. The annual British awards for jockeys were named the Lesters, in his honour, and he was occasionally called for interview, to give the old answers to the old questions, reliving his past and ours once more. Now, sadly, never again. But is this the end?
No, it doesn’t end. His past is still our past, and as long as we are here then so will Lester be, his stone-faced gaze defying interpretation, the old aura of majesty encircling him, his significance and his legacy unaltered by the ruination of time. The myths and the legend of Lester Piggott will last forever.
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