TUNING in to see Karasiyra’s successful attempt to gain ‘Listed’ winner status in the Lenebane Stakes at Roscommon answered another question. Why was stable jockey Fran Berry riding for another trainer in the same race?
At The Races soon supplied the answer. Fran Berry doesn’t do 8st 7lb, thereby giving Niall McCullagh a welcome feature race win. It may be a sign of age that a leading flat jockey’s inability to draw 8st 7lb should occasion surprise bordering on downright disbelief. Even the peerless Lester Piggott got down to that weight when really necessary.
Exceptionally tall for a flat jockey of his era, Lester starved himself for decades to build on his two apprentice championships achieved in 1950 and 1951.
Lester’s self-sacrifice was to bring him his first jockeys’ crown in 1960 and the last of his ten subsequent championships in 1982. Lester’s achievements become even more remarkable in the light of his predecessors as flat champions. Not since teenaged Australian prodigy Frank Wootton won his third and final crown in 1911 had any jockey who could not do as light 7st 7lb comfortably ever claimed top honours. They included Steve Donoghue (10), Gordon Richards (25) and Doug Smith (5).
When defending his first title Lester rode seven winners over the (then) four-day Royal Ascot meeting, all in conditions races and none set to carry less than 8st 10lb. By contrast such as David ‘Flapper’ Yates rode at 6st 5lb, Norman McIntosh at 6st 13lb and David East at 6st 10lb. These featherweights came into their own in back-end nurseries and other handicaps.
On the Irish scene trainers relied more on young apprentices before rising weight overtook them. Alternatively, they would import English lightweights for the major autumn handicaps. However, among the full jockeys such as Nicky Brennan, Gerry Cooney, ‘Jock’ Hunter, Johnny Murtagh, ‘Spur’ Nolan, Johnny Roe and Johnny Wright could do very light when necessary, well capable of holding their own against any overseas ‘imports’.
A glance through the indispensable Sweeney Guide to the Irish Turf and its roll of honour in major Irish flat handicaps throws up an array of English lightweights imported for the big days. Denis Buckle, Paul Tulk, Josh Gifford, Cliff Parkes, Ian Johnson, Eddie Hide, Norman McIntosh, a young Sandy Barclay and Stephen Perks all put their names on our major handicaps, some of them several times over.
However, light as those jockeys could ride, they become giants when compared to Francis Buckle. Known as ‘The Pocket Hercules’, Buckle held the record for English classics won (27) for nearly 200 years until Lester Piggott beat it in 1984. Frank Buckle weighed out for his first ride in 1783, drawing 3st 13lb. By the time he hung up his boots in 1831, aged 65, he had allowed his weight to increase to 7st 11lb without having to waste.
His classic tally comprised 11 Guineas, five Derbies, nine Oaks and two St Legers amassed between 1792 and 1827.
‘Although a great jockey and a successful farmer, Frank Buckle was better known for his integrity and his industry than for his intellect. It was said that if you turned him round once after a race he would forget what had happened and if you turned him round twice he would not remember what horse he had ridden.’ If that pen portrait sounds somewhat catty, firsthand experience indicates that it could be said of many more ‘knights of the pigskin’.
The lightest jockey to weigh out since records began was almost certainly J. Kitchener. He was employed by Lord George Bentinck, whose annual outlay on his racing stable required consistently successful gambling to offset expenses. It seems that there was virtually no weight that Kitchener could not do in those far-off Victorian times.
When the featherweight won the 1844 Chester Cup on Red Deer, Queen Victoria, determined to learn Kitchener’s minimum weight, sent for him. Having congratulated the diminutive jockey on his success, Her Majesty posed the question.
Taken aback, but mindful of his employer’s strict embargo on this matter, the jockey could only reply that his master had forbidden him ever to disclose that information. To her credit, Queen Victoria did not press the point. Consequently, all those years later, J. Kitchener’s actual body weight remains a secret known only to himself and his wily employer.
The modern physique demanded that weights be adjusted upwards to reflect this. Rightly so.