Eddery heads U.K. jockeys list

Press, 19 November 1977, Page 20

Eddery heads U.K. jockeys list

NZPA London The brilliant jockey, Lester Piggott, held on to the spotlight while his Irish rival, Pat Eddery, joined the all-time greats of British racing last week. When the 1977 flat racing season ended in the murk of an autumn afternoon at Doncaster, Eddery, aged 25. emulated Piggott, Steve Donoghue and Sir Gordon Richards — perhaps the three greatest names in the country’s racing history — by becoming champion jockey for the fourth successive time. But while Eddery grabbed all the statistical glory, Piggott retained his dominant place in British racing by winning the races that really mattered. Eddery travelled furiously around the country to hold off a challenge from Willie Carson and rode 176 winners, the most anyone has managed since Piggott had 191 successes in 1966. Piggot has long stopped trying for that sort of figure. He relaxed, calmly aiming at quality rather than quantity, and won the two most important races in Europe — the Epsom Derby on The Minstrel and the Prix de I’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp on Alleged. The normally poker-faced star reputedly celebrated his Longchamp triumph by dancing on the table of a plush Paris hotel draped in the Union Jack. It was, even by his standards, an extraordinary season. The deck was stacked In Piggott’s favour by the strength of the stable of the Irish trainer, Vincent O’Brien. The Minstrel swept to triumph in the Epsom and Irish Derbies before beating Orange Bay in the valuable King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot in July. Would the Minstrel have gone on to win the Arc? No-one knows because the only race this Northern Dancer colt took part in after that was the trans-Atlantic

dash organised by his owner Robert Sangster to get him to stud in the United States before the Americans imposed their ban on bloodstock imports from Europe. Sangster then shrewdly bought a major share in Alleged, whose only defeat in six races came when failing by a length and a half to hold off Queen Elizabeth’s filly, Dunfermline, when 7 to 4 on in the Doncaster St Leger. During the year O’Brien had 18 winners in England for total prize money of $439,124 (about $NZ785,217), easily a record. Dunfermline cut into the monopoly by becoming the first horse since the flying filly, Meld, in 1955 to win both the Oaks and St Leger, successes which delighted the sentimental British in the Queen’s silver jubilee year. But O’Brien had so many champions in his string, no-one could match him: the rugged Ai-taius, winner of Sandown’s Eclipse Stakes, Royal Ascot winner, Meneval, Sangster’s cracking sprinter, Godswalk, and his two-year-old. Try My Best, among others.

Try My Best, a stylish colt which took the Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket last month, is — like The Minstrel —a son of the prolific Northern Dancer and has already been quoted as low as 4 to 1 for next year’s Epsom Derby. So Piggott could be in line for his ninth triumph in the race.

In all, it was a return to something like a normal British flat season. In 1976 there was a drought and French horses swept the board, but this year, they made little impact, and most of the time it seemed to be raining. The six-year-old Sagaro broke the French gloom by winning Britain's top prize for stayers, the Ascot Gold Cup, for an unprecedented third successive year.

But when The Minstrel was beaten, in the Two Thousand Guineas — the opening classic of the season — his conqueror was another Irish-trained entry, the 20 to 1 shot, Nebbiolo. And, the next day, when O’Brien’s disappointing filly, Cloonlara, trailed in the fourth when hot favourite for the One Thousand Guineas, the surprise winner was an unfashionablvbred English horse with the homely name of Mrs McCardy. The brightest human newcomer on the racecourse was Jimmy Bleasdale, who showed immense promise in becoming champion apprentice. Bleasdale may be a challenger to Eddery’s crown soon but increasing weight could be his downfall.

General pessimism about the sport’s financial state in Britain continued all year more or less as usual and the Betting Levy Board is likely to act by closing some of the small, picturesque but loss-making racecourses that gave British racing its variety. The most damaging development of the year wifi probably prove to be the contagious metritis — equine venereal disease — which has hit British' studs and forced the United States to impose its ban on imported bloodstock. Jt will be 1979 before the epidemic has its certain effect on the course — a shortage of class two-year-olds.