Lester: The Official Biography
Dick Francis
LESTER: THE OFFICIAL BIOGRAPHY
(1987)*
Dick Francis
Contents
Author's Note
List of Illustrations
Introduction
1 Origins
2 Childhood
3 Apprenticeship
4 Jumping
5 The Shape of the Racing Year
6 Never Say Die
7 Suspensions: Part I
8 Crepello, Carrozza and Petite Etoile
9 Susan, Maureen and Tracy
10 St. Paddy
11 Injuries: Part 1
12 Suspensions: Part 2
13 Sir Ivor
14 Nijinsky
15 The Row Over Roberto
16 The Roberto, Rheingold and Hard to Beat Circus
17 Empery
18 The Minstrel and Alleged
19 Injuries: Part 2
20 Trainers
21 Teenoso
22 Choosing the Horses, Riding the Courses
23 Travels
24 Commanche Run and After
25 The Man Inside The Myth
26 Lester Piggott-British Wins
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Author's Note
THE Appendices to this book (too extensive to include in this e-book version) are the work of Dorothy Laird, who for her own pleasure kept records of Lester's wins (and those of other jockeys) for very many years.
I am most grateful to her for offering me the use of them as they have proved invaluable throughout. She also willingly searched for obscure details whenever I asked, and checked all my facts and _ read the proofs.
Dorothy Laird is the distinguished author of authorised biographies of the Queen (How the Queen Reigns) and of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. Her next authorised biography will be of Princess Anne. She has written also a deeply researched history of Ascot racecourse.
There is no bibliography for this book as it has been written from prime sources.
I read only a 36-page booklet by Charles Fawcus, "The Classic 28", finding it very helpful with chronology.
List of Illustrations
1. Lester as a small boy
2. Lester with his mother
3. Zucchero wins the 1953 Coronation Cup (Sport & General)
4. The last hurdle at Sandown, 1953
5. Lester after winning the 1954 Derby (Photo Source/Keystone)
6. The Queen leads in Carrozza (Sport & General)
7. Petite Etoile after her Oaks win, 1959 (Sport & General)
8. Park Top after winning the 1969 Coronation Cup (Sport & General)
9. Sir Ivor exercising at Epsom (Press Association)
10. Nijinsky wins the St Leger (Gerry Cranham)
11. Lester in a driving win at Goodwood (Gerry Cranham)
12. Lester with Maureen and Tracy, 1969 (Daily Express)
13. Maureen grown up (The Sun)
14. Lester on Roberto (Sport & General)
15. Lester after Empery's Derby win, 1976 (Sporting Pictures (UK))
16. Lester wins by a head (All-Sport/Trevor Jones)
17. The Queen with Lester at Ascot (Bernard Parkin)
18. Lester parades Alleged before the 1977 Arc de Triomphe (Gerry Cranham)
19. Lester after the 1979 Derby (Bernard Parkin )
20. Popsi's joy wins the 1980 Cesarewitch (Bernard Parkin )
21. The Queen Mother with Lester (Doug McKenzie)
22. Lester on Moorestyle (Sporting Pictures (UK))
23. The author and Lester, Penang 1980 (Mary Francis)
24. Lester and Susan, Penang (Mary Francis)
25. The winning British team, 1981 (Sport & General)
26. Lester wins on Cajun, 1982 (Gerry Cranham)
27. On Miramar Reef (Bernard Parkin)
28. The family man (Daily Mirror)
29. Lester's 29th and final Classic win, 1985 (Gerry Cranham)
30. Bairn at Royal Ascot, 1985 (Bernard Parkin)
31. Commanche Run wins the 1985 Benson & Hedges Gold Cup (Gerry Cranham)
32. Lester arrives at Nottingham for his final day's racing (Sport & General)
33. The autograph queue (Sporting Pictures (UK))
34. Lester's final win (Sport & General)
35. As a fourteen-year-old at Newbury
36. The man he became (Gerry Cranham)
37. On Newmarket Heath, December 1985 (Laurie Morton)
The author and publishers wish to thank all those who have supplied photographs for this book. In some cases, it has not been possible to ascertain the copyright and it is hoped that such omissions will be excused.
Introduction
THE trouble with being a genius is that to yourself you are not. You are you, a familiar identity, understood. Genius is perceived by others, but not from the inside out.
To Lester, being Lester is normal. A prosaic fact of existence. Nothing to get steamed up about. To everyone else, the idea of being Lester is incredible.
Genius is something beyond ability, beyond talent, beyond learning. Genius is the plus factor which turns admiration to a lump in the throat and leaves you wondering why your own feet are forever stuck in treacle.
To watch Lester switch a horse to the outside, set it running and take it to the post with a length in hand, to see the inward smile with which he acknowledged his mastery privately to himself, this was to see in action the same sort of total professional understanding that has moved every other creative or interpretive genius since history began.
There is a tendency to revere most those manifestations of genius which leave visible objects to posterity, like buildings, paintings, inventions, books. In all bygone ages, other achievements have had to rely for immortality on a combination of factual records and convincing eye-witness reports, and genius which expressed itself physically -voice, personality, muscular skill-had largely to be taken on trust. The Electronic Age of the twentieth century has changed all that, and performers have come into their own at last.
Electronics arrived too late to give substance to the legend of Fred Archer, and came barely adequately in time to do justice to Gordon Richards, but they have done Lester Piggott proud. The films of his races are there for ever and, although we now may take this for granted, just think how fascinating it would have been had we been able to see a screening of Diomed winning the 1780 Derby.
With so much of Lester's life on permanent record, with video tapes by the thousand and newspaper clippings by the ton, one might expect the world to know him well.
Except by sight, it does not.
Few of the electronic-age heroes have remained so private while living in so public a context. Few have retreated so successfully from self-exposure, parrying every exploring thrust with a wrinkled forehead, a half grin, and long, long, non-speaking pauses. In the public side of his fife, Lester seldom explains, seldom defends himself, never blames others, never bursts out in temperamental rages.
Lester's public life, to an extraordinary extent, goes on privately inside his own head.
Everyone journeys through character as well as time. The person one becomes depends on the person one has been, and no one is static from birth to death. Like everyone else, Lester grew and changed and adjusted, living the common voyage across experience to maturity. No one should look upon a man at fifty as being the same as he was at seventeen, although all too often they do. Lester's life is not just a tally of dazzling achievements but also the story of the development of an exceptional man.
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1 Origins
BONFIRES blazed coast to coast the night Lester was born. Bright coloured stars filled the sky and every schoolchild in Britain knew the date. The fifth of November, 1935. Fireworks in honour of
Guy Fawkes, who failed to blow up the Houses of Parliament on the same day in 1605.
Not that his parents cared much about gunpowder, treason and plot, or the fun and bangs going on all around. Iris and Keith Piggott were in Wantage Hospital in Berkshire, one exhausted but both relieved at the safe arrival of their first-and only-child. They already supposed that as he was a boy he would become a jockey. The seeds of his destiny were so thickly sown, the road ahead so clearly marked, that on the day of his birth the only real question was how far and how well he would travel.
The passing of a family skill from one generation to the next is common in many trades, and it seems to occur more routinely the more the job invades normal family life. Racing, for those earning a living by it, is a total commitment, the almost exact opposite of the general norm. The job is there from dawn to bedtime, public holidays definitely included: and it is fair to say that no one does it who doesn't like it.
In both Iris's and Keith's families, the involvement with racing was absolute and of long duration. Iris was a Rickaby, a name stretching back into the mists of Turf history. Her great-grandfather, Fred, trained the winner of the Derby in 1855, a colt named Wild Dayrell. Her father, another Fred, won the Oaks as a jockey in 1896 on the filly Canterbury Pilgrim, the One Thousand Guineas in 1891 and a host of other races besides. Her brother, Fred, won the One Thousand Guineas four times and died during the First World War in his mid-twenties. Her brother's son Bill Rickaby was in the leading ranks of jockeys from after the Second World War until his retirement in 1968.
Iris herself was a jockey of no mean achievement and would undoubtedly have won a great many more races had they been regularly open to women. In her day, there was only one race, the ancient and venerable Newmarket Town Plate, still held once a year over four and a half miles of Newmarket Heath. Men ride against women, all being amateurs, and the prize is traditionally a pound of sausages and a bottle of champagne. Iris won the race twice, and once finished second. (The girl who beat her, and who was her greatest contemporary rival, was Eileen Joel who, as Mrs John Rogerson, became one of the best-loved owners in British racing.) In Keith Piggott's family, the racing tradition had been repeatedly passed down through the female line. In the thoroughbred Stud Book, the dam's influence is acknowledged to be as persistent as the sire's, and what's good for horses seems to hold true enough also for humans.
There was also through several generations a steady tie with one place, the training stables at Danebury, near Stockbridge in Hampshire. As far as can be reliably traced, the Piggott family's racing ancestry started in earnest with a certain "Old John" Day, who farmed and trained at Danebury in the late eighteenth century. He had many sons, nearly all of whom were engaged in racing. One, Sam, won the Derby three times-on Gustavus, 1821; Priam, 1830; and Pyrrhus the First in 1846. The time-span alone proves the durability of his talent.
Another, William, distinguished himself by being warned-off for nobbling a horse trained by his father, and it must be admitted that the Days of Danebury were, for several decades, a red hot source of scandalous results and huge betting coups which were considered excessive even in their own immoderate times.
But skill spurted through them all. A third brother, John-known as John Day II-amassed Classics like picking raspberries. He won sixteen altogether, but no Derbys.
The Oaks and the One "Thousand Guineas fell to him five times each which suggests that he was extra good with fillies, and he also won the Two Thousand Guineas four times and the St. Leger twice.
John Day II took out a training licence while still a regular jockey, and prepared Pyrrhus the First for the Derby, won by his brother Sam. For years he trained at Danebury, but in later life moved to Findon, near Worthing in Sussex, a village with a racing tradition as strong as Lambourn's. (A hundred years after him, the same Downs saw the emergence of chart-topper Ryan Price.)
A third brother, also confusingly called John, and known as John Day III, turned his attention exclusively to training. He took over Danebury when John Day II moved out, although his own successes there seem to have been moderate. He did, however, produce one jewel in the shape of a daughter, Kate. She, not surprisingly, did as many trainers' daughters do, and married the stable jockey. She also had the good sense to pick a remarkably good jockey, Tom Cannon, who might have been champion for the best part of his long career had it not been for his staggering contemporary rival, Fred Archer. Tom Cannon, Fred Archer and a third great jockey, George Fordham, struck sparks off each other all over Britain from about 1870 to Archer's death in 1886, in displays of jockeyship which have probably never been surpassed.
All three were endowed with endless physical energy, travelling hundreds of miles by train and horse in pursuit of winners. Fred Archer several times rode more than 200 winners in a season, a feat seldom achieved even now with cars and aeroplanes.
Archer was champion for thirteen years and Fordham for fourteen. Tom Cannon himself rode 1,544 winners, including the Two Thousand Guineas four times, the Oaks four times, the One Thousand Guineas three times, the St. Leger once, and the Derby once, on Shotover in 1882.
It is easy enough always, as each generation becomes "modern" and as history recedes, to denigrate the achievements of earlier men, to think of their successes as somehow second rate because they were not scored within living memory. But Archer, Fordham and Cannon were, according to all who saw and evaluated them through piercingly knowledgeable eyes, the equal of anything racing will ever produce.
Cannon, of the three, had the smallest frame and the gentlest nature, and relied for success more on judgment of pace and delicacy of touch than on sheer brute force.
He too took out a trainer's licence while still actively engaged as a jockey, and became the master of Danebury. In 1888 he sent Playfair from there to Aintree to win the Grand National.
Tom Cannon and Kate Day produced three sons and a daughter, and all three boys became jockeys. The eldest, Mornington (horny), was six times champion and the second, Kempton, won the Derby in 1904 on St. Amant. The third, Tom, made less impression in the saddle and set up as a trainer at Compton in Berkshire. Their sister, Margaret, did as her mother before her, and married one of her father's stable jockeys.
Margaret Cannon's husband came from an ancestry of farmers who rode to hounds and as amateur jockeys, but who were not in the mainstream of Flat racing tradition.
By the time of the marriage, financial disaster had overtaken her prospective father-in-law who had lost his farm and livelihood through an outbreak of foot-andmouth disease and had taken instead to pubkeeping as the landlord of the Crown Hotel at Nantwich in Cheshire. Margaret Cannon married the elder of his sons, an ex-apprentice to her father at Danebury. His name was Ernie Piggott.
Ernie Piggott grew into a tall stylish man with a strong, good-looking, intelligent face and prowess to match. In his earlier years, he rode as much in France and Belgium as in England, but increasing weight meant he had to turn to steeplechasing instead of the Flat. Only after he won the 1912 Grand National on Jerry M did he settle finally in England.
His illustrious career included two more Grand National wins, both on Poethlyn-one, the wartime substitute at Gatwick in 1918, the second back at Aintree the following year-and he was champion jump jockey three times.
Ernie Piggott and Margaret Cannon had two sons, Victor and Keith. Both rode as jump jockeys between the two world wars, with Keith probably having the greater success. Small and immensely sturdy, he took more than five hundred winners past the post, including the Champion Hurdle winner African Sister in 1939.
Keith, born in 1904, was apprenticed on the Flat to a trainer called Bert Lines in Newmarket, and afterwards transferred to Frank Barling. His new boss sent Grand Parade to win the 1919 Derby, and also took ten of the twenty-four races at one Royal Ascot meeting, a record so far unbroken. Keith, then growing heavier, returned to his father Ernie and rode jumpers both for him and trainers like Tom Coulthwaite who trained the Grand National wi
nners, Eremon, Jenkinstown and Grakle; Keith would have been on Grakle but for breaking his thigh and being laid up for a year. In later life came compensation in the shape of Ayala whom he trained to win the National in 1963.
All this lay ahead, however, when in a union universally considered appropriate, Keith Piggott married Iris Rickaby on 16 September, 1929.
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2 Childhood
WITH such a heredity, the boy resulting from the confluence of these families would have to have been blind, retarded or limbless not to have been a jockey; and he was none of these things. He did have one quite severe physical defect, invisible and unsuspected, but it would have taken more than that to stop him.
They called him Lester Keith. Keith, of course, after his father, and Lester after Iris's brother Frederick Lester Rickaby who was killed at the end of the First World War.
He in turn had been named after the American jockey Lester Reiff, who rode in Britain at the turn of the century.
Iris Rickaby Piggott took her child back to the square, modern, red-bricked house where she and Keith lived in the village of Letcombe Regis in Berkshire. Keith was at the height of his career. His father, Ernie, was quietly training a few horses just down the road, and his uncle Charlie (Ernie's brother) was saddling a stream of them for Keith to ride from his stable by Cheltenham racecourse. There were enough successes to make life sweet, and no tragedies bad enough to sour it.
