I feel a bit sad having heard the news this morning. He was in a different class really to many sportspeople who get to the top of their game. There was an inherent ability with Lester to fit with his horses and get the best out of them.
At so many courses I saw him in that unmistakeable riding position. He was tall for a jockey and you would see this arched spine, hips high in the air, knees together, coiling to get the lowest he could with his frame. I am sure some of the trainers he worked with, Vincent O'Brien et al, learned a lot from him.
There were some great jockeys around in the 1970's when the freedom of youth meant I had as much time and I wanted out of work to go racing and riding. The heroes of that time, Willie Carson, Greville Starkey, Walter Swinburn and Steve Cauthen. Then the trainers, Henry Cecil, Barry Hills, Michael Stoute and the rest.
The horse I remember most with Lester is The Minstrel. It was 1977 and he won the Derby and a couple of other classics. Perhaps the best was the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes at Ascot. Tucked in towards the back he knew just when to switch to the outside and let the horse have its moment. Another occasion - the race escapes me - he was trailing at the very back and when they turned the final corner and the remainder were all on the inside, he drifted right out to the left to take the outside position. The horse then finding the softer ground there that he liked, on his own, accelerated and took the race. Being interviewed afterwards Lester said, in his humble and aloof manner, something along the lines of knowing the horse preferred a bit of space and he liked the softer ground at home, so he just gave it a try and see if it worked for him. It was incredible to watch.
RIP Lester Piggott.
*
Up the ash tree climbs the ivy,
Up the ivy climbs the sun,
With a twenty-thousand pattering,
Has a valley breeze begun,
Feathery ash, neglected elder,
Shift the shade and make it run -
Shift the shade toward the nettles,
And the nettles set it free,
To streak the stained Carrara headstone,
Where, in nineteen-twenty-three,
He who trained a hundred winners,
Paid the Final Entrance Fee.
Leathery limbs of Upper Lambourne,
Leathery skin from sun and wind,
Leathery breeches, spreading stables,
Shining saddles left behind -
To the down the string of horses
Moving out of sight and mind.
Feathery ash in leathery Lambourne
Waves above the sarsen stone,
And Edwardian plantations
So coniferously moan
As to make the swelling downland,
Far surrounding, seem their own.
Upper Lambourne
by John Betjeman