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Gordon Richards was an English jockey who was the British flat racing Champion Jockey 26 times and he is often considered the world’s greatest jockey. He remains the first of only two only flat (not jumping) jockeys to have been knighted. His father was a coal miner who reared several pit ponies that Gordon rode bareback. He became an apprentice at a riding stable in Swindon. He rode his first race aged only 16, weighing only six stones nine pounds. To do it he had to score a winning penalty at a stable jockeys match. In 1921, aged 17, he won for the first time on Gay Lord at Leicester. In 1925 he became a fully-fledged professional and won the jockey’s championship, but the following year contracted tuberculosis. He won his first Classics in 1930. In 1932 he rode 259 winners, including 11 successive wins at Chepstow. In 1943 he became the jockey with the highest-ever total of wins. In 1947 he rode 269 winners and in 1953 won his only victory in the Derby, riding Pinza and being congratulated by the Queen. A broken pelvis in 1954 forced his retirement, having ridded 4,870 winners (still a British record) from 21,843 rides. He became a trainer and then a Racing Manager.
