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30 Nov 11
12:01
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05 Jan 10
when That's Your Lot won at Sandown
Dec/2010
A pleasure to behold in the saddle, he proved the greatest of his time.
Byline: John Randall
WHEN John Francome won a claiming riders' hurdle at Worcester on Multigrey 40 years ago, few could have predicted that he would become the greatest jump jockey of his generation.
That 17-year-old boy was having his very first ride in public when he triumphed on the grey mare, though he was already a top-class horseman, a member of that year's winning British team at the European junior showjumping championships was already attached to Fred Winter's Lambourn yard and he stayed there for the whole 15 years of his career, becoming champion jockey seven times and winning 1,138 races over jumps in Britain - both of which were records at the time.
For Winter he won the Cheltenham Gold Cup on Midnight Court in 1978 and the Stayers' (now World) Hurdle on Derring Rose by 30 lengths in 1981, and also scored on Bula, Lanzarote and Pendil after they had ceased to be champions.
The best steeplechaser Francome ever rode was the Jenny Pitmantrained Burrough Hill Lad, on whom he won the Welsh National, Hennessy (under 12st) and King George VI Chase in a 12-month period from December 1983. His retainer with Winter prevented him riding the great champion to his Gold Cup victory in 1984 - he had to ride runner-up Brown Chamberlin, on whom he had won the Sun Alliance Chase and the Hennessy.
He also scored on Michael Dickinson's champions Wayward Lad (1982 King George), Silver Buck and Bregawn, and on US ace Flatterer (1983 Colonial Cup), but he never won the Grand National.
The best hurdler of his career was the Peter Easterby trained Sea Pigeon, whom he partnered to a famous victory in the 1981 Champion Hurdle. He won lesser races on Birds Nest and See You Then, and would have ridden the latter to victory in the 1985 Champion Hurdle had he not been injured in the previous race.
Before Francome, the winning most jump jockey of all time was Stan Mellor, who was the first to win 1,000 races and retired in 1972 with a score of 1,035.
Francome broke that record on Don't Touch at Fontwell in May 1984, and retired the following year with 1,138 wins over jumps in Britain. The record has since passed to Peter Scudamore (1,678), Richard Dunwoody (1,699) and Tony McCoy (3,282 so far).
His seven championships equalled the record for the most British titles set by Gerry Wilson between 1933 and 1941; the record was beaten by Scudamore with eight championships. In 1982 Francome stopped riding when he equalled the injured Scudamore's total of 120, sportingly allowing the latter to share the title. McCoy is now on course for his 16th title.
Francome's greatest ride is widely acknowledged to be his masterpiece of coolness and confidence on Sea Pigeon for the cheekiest of wins in the Champion Hurdle. It came tenth in the Racing Post's 2007 poll of 100 Greatest Races, which was won by Fred Winter's heroics on Mandarin in the 1962 Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris. His other entry (at No. 87) was his victory on the mulish Derring Rose in the Corinium Hurdle at Cheltenham later that year, 1981.
John Francome was the first leading rider to have long hair and an irreverent disregard for authority - he once referred to stewards as "Cabbage Patch Dolls" - and in some respects he pre-dated Frankie Dettori as British racing's first rock 'n' roll jockey.
He often courted controversy, notably for passing information about his mounts' chances to bookmaker John Banks (for which he was suspended for six weeks and fined pounds 750 in 1978) and for his quiet style of riding; he received several fines for not riding a horse out to obtain the best possible placing.
He trained for two years and Tuesday was the 25th anniversary of his first winner as a trainer, That's Your Lot at Sandown.
At the time of John Francome's retirement in 1985 he was regarded by many as the greatest jump jockey of all time, and though Tony McCoy has since taken firm possession of that title, he still ranks near the top of the riding pantheon.
Francome was an artist in the saddle, a pleasure to behold. His showjumping background made him unrivalled at measuring a stride and getting his mounts to jump fluently, and to this superb horsemanship he added the various aspects of jockeyship, so that he became a supreme practitioner of his profession.
IT IS hard to compare jump jockeys of different generations because their careers are so short that they do not overlap like those of Flat jockeys. Francome's three greatest near-contemporaries were Frank Berry, Jonjo O'Neill and Peter Scudamore. Berry was based in Ireland (champion ten times) and O'Neill in the north (British champion twice), so comparisons were difficult even at the time.
O'Neill, who scored a then-record 149 wins in 1977-78, had a very forceful style. He and Francome both won the Champion Hurdle on Sea Pigeon, but whereas Francome (substituting for his injured colleague) showed superb timing and finesse in 1981 on a horse who needed to be held up for as long as possible, O'Neill had thrown the race away on the same horse in 1979 by challenging too soon; he made amends the following year.
Scudamore rode regularly against Francome for several years, and whereas the latter was a natural on horseback, with 'Scu' you could always see the effort. He was champion jockey in Britain a record eight times and set record totals for a season (221 in 1988-89) and a career (1,678), but only with the help of Martin Pipe's winner factory.
Richard Dunwoody was just starting out when Francome retired, so comparisons with him and later jockeys are more difficult.
Comparisons are even harder with earlier champions. Fred Winter, Francome's mentor and employer, was the greatest of his era in both reputation and statistics - he retired in 1964 with a record 923 wins over jumps in Britain including a record 121 in one season - but there is very little footage of him in action.
The standard of riding over jumps is higher now than ever before. Carl Llewellyn summed it up in the Racing Post in November 2009 when he said: "The top ten or 15 are different class to when I was riding. Look back at the old videos, or when they show the archive stuff on TV - in their time those riders were brilliant, but now you just think, 'Cor, were you really champion jockey?'" In the book A Century of Champions, I ranked Francome second to Winter among the 50 greatest British and Irish jump jockeys since 1900; the top ten was completed by Dunwoody, **** Rees, Scudamore, Bryan Marshall, McCoy (this was 11 years ago), Gerry Wilson, Martin Molony and Tich Mason.
In the Post's series 100 Racing Greats in 2003, the top jump jockeys in a poll won by Vincent O'Brien were McCoy (No.4 overall), Winter (9, though he was also a trainer), Francome (19), Dunwoody (32), Molony (49), O'Neill (59) and Scudamore (62).
Among current riders McCoy may be rivalled by Ruby Walsh in effectiveness, but if statistics mean anything at all he is the greatest jump jockey of all time. The 15-time champion has scored nearly three times as many career victories as Francome, with a seasonal best of 289 in 2001-02. His figures are overwhelming, even allowing for the fact that jumping now takes place 12 months a year.
Even if Francome cannot compare with McCoy, he was clearly the greatest of his time both subjectively (i.e. in the opinion of most observers) and objectively (in his statistical supremacy). When John McCririck calls him "Greatest Jockey" he is not far wrong.
John Francome CV Born Swindon, Wiltshire, December 13, 1952 Main trainer Fred Winter, Lambourn, Berkshire 1970-85 (first jockey 1975-85) First mount and winner Multigrey (owner-trainer Godfrey Burr) over hurdles, Worcester, December 2, 1970 Lost claim Kingdom, Chepstow, December 12, 1972 First Cheltenham Festival winner King Flame (1975 National Hunt Handicap Chase) Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Midnight Court (1978) Champion Hurdle winner Sea Pigeon (1981) Placed mount in Grand National Rough And Tumble (2nd in 1980, 3rd in 1979) King George VI Chase winners Wayward Lad (1982), Burrough Hill Lad (1984) Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup winners Brown Chamberlin (1983), Burrough Hill Lad (1984) Tingle Creek Chase winner News King (1981, 1982) Kennedy Construction Gold Cup winner Observe (1982) SGB Handicap Chase winner Midnight Court (1977) Welsh National winners Narvik (1980), Burrough Hill Lad (1983) Great Yorkshire Chase winner Bregawn (1982) Gainsborough Chase winners Bula (1976), Master H (1978), Observe (1983), Burrough Hill Lad (1984, 1985) Sun Alliance Chase winners Pengrail (1975), Brown Chamberlin (1982) Whitbread Gold Label Cup winner (Aintree) Wayward Lad (1985) Welsh Champion Chase winners Border Incident (1979), Bachelor's Hall (1980) Stayers' Hurdle winner Derring Rose (1981) Long Walk Hurdle winners Lanzarote (1975), Derring Rose (1980) Christmas Hurdle winners Lanzarote (1975), Celtic Ryde (1980) Schweppes Gold Trophy winner Donegal Prince (1982) Imperial Cup winner Prayukta (1980) Biggest winners abroad Shelahnu (1978 Corsa di Siepi di Milano), Flatterer (1983 Colonial Cup Chase) 1,000th win over jumps in Britain Observe, Worcester, February 29, 1984 Record-breaking 1,036th win over jumps in Britain Don't Touch, Fontwell, May 28, 1984 Last winner over jumps Gambler's Cup, Huntingdon, April 8, 1985 Last mount over jumps The Reject (fell) Chepstow, April 9, 1985 Champion jump jockey in Britain 7 times (1975-76, 1978-79, 1980-81, 1981-82 joint, 1982-83, 1983-84, 1984-85) Most wins in a British season 131 in 1983-84 Total wins over jumps in Britain 1,138 in 15 seasons (1970-85) Stables as trainer Windy Hollow Stud, Lambourn, Berkshire 1985-87 First winner as trainer That's Your Lot (ridden by Steve Smith Eccles) Mecca Bookmakers' 3-Y-O Hurdle Championship, Sandown, November 30, 1985 Last winner as trainer Abu Kadra, Kempton, October 17, 1987 Last winner as rider Shaleel on Flat at Ascot, September 27, 1991 Most recent mount Archie Rice, 7th on Flat at Doncaster, September 8, 2010 What they say about the 'greatest jockey' Jim McGrath Channel 4 Racing colleague "John has worked for Channel 4 since 1985 and I knew him a bit before then, but in the last 25 years he has become a good friend. Sometimes he is like a big brother, but at other times he reverts back to his riding days and he becomes an annoying little nephew. He has got no aura about his achievements - he was a great showjumper as well as jockey. The thing that marks him as a great person is that if he is your friend there is nothing he won't do for you. He is good fun, but sensible and intelligent as well. I could not speak highly enough of him."
Peter Scudamore former riding colleague "Even by today's standards I find it hard to believe there was ever a better jockey than John Francome and what is totally unfair is that he is an exceptional man with all his talents."
Steve Smith-Eccles former riding colleague "I worked my way up as a lad to sit next to to Francome for the last ten years of his riding career. We holidayed together and John is my best mate. Throughout all those years the thing I remember most is the laughing, but obviously there is a serious side to him when it comes to racing. He is an incredible guy and I have never met anybody like him. When you get to know him you get to know how much he does behind the scenes with injured jockeys and charities, and it is unbelievable."
Lisa Hancock, chief executive IJF "He is a fantastic vice-president for us. He knows everybody, whether they are riding or retired and he has a huge amount of awareness when people are in difficulties. He is very sensitive to the situation and he is not out to prove anything for himself, going about his business in a very discreet manner.
Dec/2010
A pleasure to behold in the saddle, he proved the greatest of his time.
Byline: John Randall
WHEN John Francome won a claiming riders' hurdle at Worcester on Multigrey 40 years ago, few could have predicted that he would become the greatest jump jockey of his generation.
That 17-year-old boy was having his very first ride in public when he triumphed on the grey mare, though he was already a top-class horseman, a member of that year's winning British team at the European junior showjumping championships was already attached to Fred Winter's Lambourn yard and he stayed there for the whole 15 years of his career, becoming champion jockey seven times and winning 1,138 races over jumps in Britain - both of which were records at the time.
For Winter he won the Cheltenham Gold Cup on Midnight Court in 1978 and the Stayers' (now World) Hurdle on Derring Rose by 30 lengths in 1981, and also scored on Bula, Lanzarote and Pendil after they had ceased to be champions.
The best steeplechaser Francome ever rode was the Jenny Pitmantrained Burrough Hill Lad, on whom he won the Welsh National, Hennessy (under 12st) and King George VI Chase in a 12-month period from December 1983. His retainer with Winter prevented him riding the great champion to his Gold Cup victory in 1984 - he had to ride runner-up Brown Chamberlin, on whom he had won the Sun Alliance Chase and the Hennessy.
He also scored on Michael Dickinson's champions Wayward Lad (1982 King George), Silver Buck and Bregawn, and on US ace Flatterer (1983 Colonial Cup), but he never won the Grand National.
The best hurdler of his career was the Peter Easterby trained Sea Pigeon, whom he partnered to a famous victory in the 1981 Champion Hurdle. He won lesser races on Birds Nest and See You Then, and would have ridden the latter to victory in the 1985 Champion Hurdle had he not been injured in the previous race.
Before Francome, the winning most jump jockey of all time was Stan Mellor, who was the first to win 1,000 races and retired in 1972 with a score of 1,035.
Francome broke that record on Don't Touch at Fontwell in May 1984, and retired the following year with 1,138 wins over jumps in Britain. The record has since passed to Peter Scudamore (1,678), Richard Dunwoody (1,699) and Tony McCoy (3,282 so far).
His seven championships equalled the record for the most British titles set by Gerry Wilson between 1933 and 1941; the record was beaten by Scudamore with eight championships. In 1982 Francome stopped riding when he equalled the injured Scudamore's total of 120, sportingly allowing the latter to share the title. McCoy is now on course for his 16th title.
Francome's greatest ride is widely acknowledged to be his masterpiece of coolness and confidence on Sea Pigeon for the cheekiest of wins in the Champion Hurdle. It came tenth in the Racing Post's 2007 poll of 100 Greatest Races, which was won by Fred Winter's heroics on Mandarin in the 1962 Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris. His other entry (at No. 87) was his victory on the mulish Derring Rose in the Corinium Hurdle at Cheltenham later that year, 1981.
John Francome was the first leading rider to have long hair and an irreverent disregard for authority - he once referred to stewards as "Cabbage Patch Dolls" - and in some respects he pre-dated Frankie Dettori as British racing's first rock 'n' roll jockey.
He often courted controversy, notably for passing information about his mounts' chances to bookmaker John Banks (for which he was suspended for six weeks and fined pounds 750 in 1978) and for his quiet style of riding; he received several fines for not riding a horse out to obtain the best possible placing.
He trained for two years and Tuesday was the 25th anniversary of his first winner as a trainer, That's Your Lot at Sandown.
At the time of John Francome's retirement in 1985 he was regarded by many as the greatest jump jockey of all time, and though Tony McCoy has since taken firm possession of that title, he still ranks near the top of the riding pantheon.
Francome was an artist in the saddle, a pleasure to behold. His showjumping background made him unrivalled at measuring a stride and getting his mounts to jump fluently, and to this superb horsemanship he added the various aspects of jockeyship, so that he became a supreme practitioner of his profession.
IT IS hard to compare jump jockeys of different generations because their careers are so short that they do not overlap like those of Flat jockeys. Francome's three greatest near-contemporaries were Frank Berry, Jonjo O'Neill and Peter Scudamore. Berry was based in Ireland (champion ten times) and O'Neill in the north (British champion twice), so comparisons were difficult even at the time.
O'Neill, who scored a then-record 149 wins in 1977-78, had a very forceful style. He and Francome both won the Champion Hurdle on Sea Pigeon, but whereas Francome (substituting for his injured colleague) showed superb timing and finesse in 1981 on a horse who needed to be held up for as long as possible, O'Neill had thrown the race away on the same horse in 1979 by challenging too soon; he made amends the following year.
Scudamore rode regularly against Francome for several years, and whereas the latter was a natural on horseback, with 'Scu' you could always see the effort. He was champion jockey in Britain a record eight times and set record totals for a season (221 in 1988-89) and a career (1,678), but only with the help of Martin Pipe's winner factory.
Richard Dunwoody was just starting out when Francome retired, so comparisons with him and later jockeys are more difficult.
Comparisons are even harder with earlier champions. Fred Winter, Francome's mentor and employer, was the greatest of his era in both reputation and statistics - he retired in 1964 with a record 923 wins over jumps in Britain including a record 121 in one season - but there is very little footage of him in action.
The standard of riding over jumps is higher now than ever before. Carl Llewellyn summed it up in the Racing Post in November 2009 when he said: "The top ten or 15 are different class to when I was riding. Look back at the old videos, or when they show the archive stuff on TV - in their time those riders were brilliant, but now you just think, 'Cor, were you really champion jockey?'" In the book A Century of Champions, I ranked Francome second to Winter among the 50 greatest British and Irish jump jockeys since 1900; the top ten was completed by Dunwoody, **** Rees, Scudamore, Bryan Marshall, McCoy (this was 11 years ago), Gerry Wilson, Martin Molony and Tich Mason.
In the Post's series 100 Racing Greats in 2003, the top jump jockeys in a poll won by Vincent O'Brien were McCoy (No.4 overall), Winter (9, though he was also a trainer), Francome (19), Dunwoody (32), Molony (49), O'Neill (59) and Scudamore (62).
Among current riders McCoy may be rivalled by Ruby Walsh in effectiveness, but if statistics mean anything at all he is the greatest jump jockey of all time. The 15-time champion has scored nearly three times as many career victories as Francome, with a seasonal best of 289 in 2001-02. His figures are overwhelming, even allowing for the fact that jumping now takes place 12 months a year.
Even if Francome cannot compare with McCoy, he was clearly the greatest of his time both subjectively (i.e. in the opinion of most observers) and objectively (in his statistical supremacy). When John McCririck calls him "Greatest Jockey" he is not far wrong.
John Francome CV Born Swindon, Wiltshire, December 13, 1952 Main trainer Fred Winter, Lambourn, Berkshire 1970-85 (first jockey 1975-85) First mount and winner Multigrey (owner-trainer Godfrey Burr) over hurdles, Worcester, December 2, 1970 Lost claim Kingdom, Chepstow, December 12, 1972 First Cheltenham Festival winner King Flame (1975 National Hunt Handicap Chase) Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Midnight Court (1978) Champion Hurdle winner Sea Pigeon (1981) Placed mount in Grand National Rough And Tumble (2nd in 1980, 3rd in 1979) King George VI Chase winners Wayward Lad (1982), Burrough Hill Lad (1984) Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup winners Brown Chamberlin (1983), Burrough Hill Lad (1984) Tingle Creek Chase winner News King (1981, 1982) Kennedy Construction Gold Cup winner Observe (1982) SGB Handicap Chase winner Midnight Court (1977) Welsh National winners Narvik (1980), Burrough Hill Lad (1983) Great Yorkshire Chase winner Bregawn (1982) Gainsborough Chase winners Bula (1976), Master H (1978), Observe (1983), Burrough Hill Lad (1984, 1985) Sun Alliance Chase winners Pengrail (1975), Brown Chamberlin (1982) Whitbread Gold Label Cup winner (Aintree) Wayward Lad (1985) Welsh Champion Chase winners Border Incident (1979), Bachelor's Hall (1980) Stayers' Hurdle winner Derring Rose (1981) Long Walk Hurdle winners Lanzarote (1975), Derring Rose (1980) Christmas Hurdle winners Lanzarote (1975), Celtic Ryde (1980) Schweppes Gold Trophy winner Donegal Prince (1982) Imperial Cup winner Prayukta (1980) Biggest winners abroad Shelahnu (1978 Corsa di Siepi di Milano), Flatterer (1983 Colonial Cup Chase) 1,000th win over jumps in Britain Observe, Worcester, February 29, 1984 Record-breaking 1,036th win over jumps in Britain Don't Touch, Fontwell, May 28, 1984 Last winner over jumps Gambler's Cup, Huntingdon, April 8, 1985 Last mount over jumps The Reject (fell) Chepstow, April 9, 1985 Champion jump jockey in Britain 7 times (1975-76, 1978-79, 1980-81, 1981-82 joint, 1982-83, 1983-84, 1984-85) Most wins in a British season 131 in 1983-84 Total wins over jumps in Britain 1,138 in 15 seasons (1970-85) Stables as trainer Windy Hollow Stud, Lambourn, Berkshire 1985-87 First winner as trainer That's Your Lot (ridden by Steve Smith Eccles) Mecca Bookmakers' 3-Y-O Hurdle Championship, Sandown, November 30, 1985 Last winner as trainer Abu Kadra, Kempton, October 17, 1987 Last winner as rider Shaleel on Flat at Ascot, September 27, 1991 Most recent mount Archie Rice, 7th on Flat at Doncaster, September 8, 2010 What they say about the 'greatest jockey' Jim McGrath Channel 4 Racing colleague "John has worked for Channel 4 since 1985 and I knew him a bit before then, but in the last 25 years he has become a good friend. Sometimes he is like a big brother, but at other times he reverts back to his riding days and he becomes an annoying little nephew. He has got no aura about his achievements - he was a great showjumper as well as jockey. The thing that marks him as a great person is that if he is your friend there is nothing he won't do for you. He is good fun, but sensible and intelligent as well. I could not speak highly enough of him."
Peter Scudamore former riding colleague "Even by today's standards I find it hard to believe there was ever a better jockey than John Francome and what is totally unfair is that he is an exceptional man with all his talents."
Steve Smith-Eccles former riding colleague "I worked my way up as a lad to sit next to to Francome for the last ten years of his riding career. We holidayed together and John is my best mate. Throughout all those years the thing I remember most is the laughing, but obviously there is a serious side to him when it comes to racing. He is an incredible guy and I have never met anybody like him. When you get to know him you get to know how much he does behind the scenes with injured jockeys and charities, and it is unbelievable."
Lisa Hancock, chief executive IJF "He is a fantastic vice-president for us. He knows everybody, whether they are riding or retired and he has a huge amount of awareness when people are in difficulties. He is very sensitive to the situation and he is not out to prove anything for himself, going about his business in a very discreet manner.
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