Lester Piggott

A racing family

Lester Keith Piggott was born in Wantage on 5 November 1935 into a family steeped in racing. His father, Keith Piggott, was a jump jockey turned trainer, and his mother, Iris, came from the Rickaby racing family. Lester grew up at his father’s stables in Lambourn, on the downs south-west of Wantage, and went to school at King Alfred’s in Wantage. He rode his first winner, The Chase, at Haydock Park in 1948, aged twelve.

‘The Long Fellow’

Unusually tall for a flat jockey, he kept his weight down through decades of strict dieting and rode with a distinctive high, short-stirruped style. He won his first Derby on Never Say Die in 1954, aged eighteen, and eight more followed: Crepello (1957), St Paddy (1960), Sir Ivor (1968), Nijinsky (1970), Roberto (1972), Empery (1976), The Minstrel (1977) and Teenoso (1983). Nine Derby wins is still the record. In all he won 30 British Classics and was champion jockey eleven times.

He retired from riding in 1985 and began training at Newmarket. In 1987 he was convicted of tax fraud, served 366 days in prison and was stripped of the OBE he had received in 1975. In 1990, aged 54, he returned to the saddle, and within a fortnight won the Breeders’ Cup Mile in the United States on Royal Academy. He rode his last race in Britain in 1994 and retired for good in 1995, with 4,493 winners in Britain and around 5,300 worldwide.

He died in Geneva on 29 May 2022, aged 86.

What to see locally

• Vale and Downland Museum, Church Street, Wantage: a bronze statue of Piggott is part of the museum’s display on local racing.
• Lambourn, where he grew up, is still one of Britain’s main training centres, and strings of racehorses can be seen on the downs above the Wantage villages most mornings.