Lester Piggott: They called him Jesus

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Lester Piggott at a race in 1980

Photo: imago sportfotodienst / imago images/Colorsport

The gaunt face, the sunken cheeks, the helmet above it, which always seemed a bit too big for this little man - that's what he looked like in 1954, and that's what he looked like in 1992.

Lester Piggott seemed ageless when mounted on horseback, in his typically high carriage, short reins, a majesty on the racecourse.

Lester Piggott, who died on Sunday at the age of 86, was a jockey, wrong, he was

jockey.

He sat on horseback in races for almost 50 years, and the statisticians counted an unbelievable 25,000 rides at the end of his career.

Piggott won everything, he rode basically all the famous horses, he was the jockey on the Thoroughbred Nijinsky II, the stallion whose middle name was the Wunderpferd.

Piggott and Nijinsky, that was the dream couple in turf.

At their best, they seemed fused together.

Won everything in England

The most famous jockey and the most famous horse, together they have won every major race in Britain, the St Leger, the Epsom Derby, the Irish Derby, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot.

Both seemed to float over the racetrack, only at the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in Longchamp did the couple lose in 1970, at the height of their joint work, to rival Sassafras with Yves Saint-Martin, which was a sensation.

Piggott was undone with three wins with other horses in Paris.

Riding was something he was born with, his grandfather Ernest had won the notorious Grand National three times, his father was a rider and his mother came from a jockey family.

What was left for him to do but continue this series?

Nine Piggott statues

He did and became the greatest.

There are now nine racecourses in Britain alone that have statues of Piggott on them.

He won his first race when he was twelve years old.

The first win of 4493 in the end, in England alone.

4493!

As a 14-year-old he already had 52 victories to his name.

He was an eccentric, everyone who knew him said so.

Difficult to deal with, headstrong, selfish.

In Deauville he once snatched the riding crop from his competitor Alain Dequex in the middle of a race because he had lost his own earlier.

He collected disqualifications like other people collect stamps, he didn't care, he was Lester Piggott.

At some point he could choose the races he wanted to enter, a luxury in the industry.

His avarice was also legendary

His stinginess was almost as legendary as his exploits on the racetrack, and there are countless stories describing Piggott's obsessive relationship with money.

Despite making millions, he was stingy when it came to spending money on food.

He withheld taxes from the state and had to go to prison for a year.

This cost him the title of "Member of the British Empire", which the Queen had previously awarded him and which was revoked.

When he was on horseback he felt most comfortable.

At the age of 50, he had already ended his career in the mid-1980s in order to switch to coaching.

But because he wasn't as used to success there as he was in the saddle, he returned - and at the age of 54 he won the renowned Breeder's Cup Mile in the USA.

Even when he fell off his horse in 1992, breaking his collarbone and ribs, he returned to the saddle.

His wife Susan had known this beforehand: »I don't think he's finally going to stop.

He'll assume he got off reasonably well.' That was the case.

In the year 2000 he could still be admired occasionally at races, he was again at the ex-champion race in Cologne when he was 65.

Three wins in the German Derby

In Germany he was a regular guest anyway, in 1957 he won the German Derby on Orsini, in 1963 with Fanfar and in 1967 with Luciano.

He won the Diana Grand Prix in Düsseldorf and the European Grand Prix in Weidenpesch, victory after victory.

It was always Piggott's great gift to empathize with different horses.

The US jockey Steve Couthen once said: "Lester was known to us as JC" - Jesus Christ.

"He could walk on water."

Physically, he was anything but made for being a jockey.

From childhood he was almost deaf.

At 1.73 meters he was also small, but for the conditions in horse racing he was of above-average height, not ideal in the saddle, where the jockeys have to be as light as possible.

Piggott was said to have smoked anorectic cigarettes and had his intestines reduced in order to maintain his weight of 53 kilograms despite his 1.73 meters.

In 1998 he had most of his trophies auctioned off at Sotheby's.

Piggott justified this by saying that he no longer had room for her.

There were just too many.