Tales Of Lester

It's Lester Piggott week in the Racing Post.  Lester was a great hero of mine, but you wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of him...I still remember saddling a horse that Lester was due to ride for us at Goodwood years ago.  The girths that he gave me were too big and there were no holes to take up the saddle - you were supposed to leave a couple of holes so that they could take them up a bit at the start.  So, I put one of our smaller girths on - as you can imagine Lester was not happy and he made me resaddle the horse with his girths on.  I told him that if the saddle slipped, then it was down to him, but Lester being Lester, just looked at me and showed me both sides of his hands - he didn't say a word but I knew what he meant!

Lester also tried to convince Martin to move to Newmarket and take up training on the flat instead.  In fact, MCP even went to Newmarket to have a look at a few yards - not many people know that.

The great man himself once phoned up for the ride on one of our horses.  It was early on a Sunday morning and half asleep, Carol answered the phone.  It wasn't until she had put the phone down that she realised it was Lester...it certainly woke her up!

There are so many great stories about Lester, I could go on and on, but one of my favourites was about former trainer Jeremy Tree, who was due to visit his old school.  When Jeremy asked Lester what he should say to the them, Lester said "Tell them you're ill!"...what a character.

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Talking of legendary jockeys, I see that A P McCoy ended the 2010/11 season with only 218 winners!  I wonder what Richard Johnson really thinks of him?  Richard had another great season and finished runner-up in the championship for the umpteenth time with 151 winners.  Just imagine if A P was not riding now, we would be eulogising about him in the same way that we do about McCoy - a truly great jockey, perhaps Richard deserves a little more credit for his achievements?

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The whole Ryan Giggs saga has finally been blown open - it must be one of the worst kept secrets of all time.  My lad Lester is a bit of a wizzard on a computer, and he told me about six weeks ago that it was Giggsy trying to stop the papers telling everyone about how he had scored again!  Having seen the pictures of Imogen Thomas, it is hardly surprising that he has been playing so well!

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Finally, why not take a look at our end of season review that has been updated to incorporate the 2010/11 season?  There were numerous highlights and you can read all about it by clicking here...