Ernest Piggott (1878–1967)
was a leading British
jump racing jockey, whose family has become one of the leading dynasties in British horseracing. He was three times
Champion Jockey and three times
Grand National
The Grand National is a National Hunt horse race held annually at Aintree Racecourse in Liverpool, England. First run in 1839, it is a handicap st ...
winner. His son, (Ernest) Keith Piggott (1904–1993), was also a leading jump jockey and National-winning
trainer, while his grandson was the 11-times
British flat racing Champion Jockey
The Champion Jockey of flat racing in Great Britain is the jockey who has ridden the most winning horses during a season. The list below shows the Champion Jockey and the number of winners for each year since 1840. The seasonal record of jockeys' ...
,
Lester Piggott
Lester Keith Piggott (5 November 1935 – 29 May 2022) was an English professional jockey and trainer. With 4,493 career flat racing wins in Britain, including a record nine Epsom Derby victories, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest ...
.
Jockey Championships
Piggott began his English riding career in the late 1890s but from 1905 was based for several years in
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
and
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
. He was champion jockey in France before returning to England where he won the 1910 British jump jockey championship with 67 winners. At the time this was the joint-record number of winners, although it was superseded the following year. His two other championships came in 1913 and 1915.
Grand National
His first Grand National victory came in 1912 on 4/1 joint favourite, Jerry M, trained by Robert Gore and owned by Sir Charles Assheton-Smith.
Although this trainer-owner pair won the following year's National with Covertcoat, Piggott was not on board, and it wasn't until 1918, when the Grand National was held at
Gatwick
Gatwick Airport (), also known as London Gatwick , is a major international airport near Crawley, West Sussex, England, south of Central London. In 2021, Gatwick was the third-busiest airport by total passenger traffic in the UK, after H ...
(as
Aintree
Aintree is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, Merseyside, England. Historically in Lancashire, it lies between Walton and Maghull on the A59 road, north-east of Liverpool city centre, in North West England.
I ...
had been commandeered by the
War Office
The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...
) that Piggott got a follow-up success with Poethlyn. The same horse gave him his third and final National victory back at Aintree in 1919 when it went off 11/4 favourite, the shortest priced winner in the history of the race.
[ In so doing, he became the first jockey to win three Grand Nationals since Arthur Nightingall in 1901. Piggott also notably rode the 14-year-old Manifesto into third place in the 1902 National under a weight of . This made it the oldest horse ever to have been placed in the National up to that point, and it remains the only horse ever to have been placed carrying such a weight. He retired from the saddle in 1920 and trained for twenty years at ]Letcombe Regis
Letcombe Regis is a village and civil parish in the Vale of White Horse. It was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred the Vale of White Horse to Oxfordshire. The village is on Letcombe Brook at the foot of the Berkshire ...
from the following year, dying in hospital at Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
on 13 March 1967 aged 88.[A Biographical Dictionary of Racehorse Trainers in Berkshire 1850-1939 p45.]
Personal life
Ernest married Margaret Cannon, daughter of jockey, Tom Cannon, Sr.
See also
* List of significant families in British horse racing
References
External links
Jerry M, Piggott's first National winner
1919 Grand National, British Pathe footage
1878 births
1967 deaths
People from Nantwich
British jockeys
British Champion jumps jockeys
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