Johnson Has Done It The Hard Way

Jonathan Powell pays tribute to the determination and stamina of champion jump jockey Richard Johnson

- Jonathan Powell

Jump Jockeys are riding longer these days despite the ever present hazards of their perilous trade. Richard Johnson, the tireless dual champion, is 40, the estimable Noel Fehily even older and, as for old Father Time Andrew Thornton, he is nearer 50 and shows no sign of slowing down.

It’s all in marked condition contrast to the days when the late, great Josh Gifford retired at the age of 27. To be fair he did start a lot younger, too, as he was apprenticed on the Flat at eleven to Cliff Beechener before moving on to Newmarket to join Sam Armstrong’s army of apprentices.

When the schools inspector arrived unannounced at Beechener’s one morning to check on Gifford’s school attendance the trainer’s quick-thinking assistant Hugo Bevan volunteered the novel explananation that he was actually Gifford’s private tutor.

Lack of hours in the classroom evidently did Josh no harm for he was the nicest man you could possibly meet and later became champion jump jockey four times before his early retirement to take over the reins from Ryan Price at Findon.

I thought of Josh on Sunday when Richard Johnson reached his latest century of winners in the final race at Cheltenham as dusk began to fall.

It is a measure of Johnson’s relentless achievements that no-one was in the least surprised that he reached three figures more than a month before Christmas. That

is the norm these days for a man who has dominated the sport since the record-breaking Sir Anthony McCoy hung up his saddle in 2015.

McCoy rode over 4,000 winners while Johnson reached 3,000 in January last year and is marching on relentlessly with no sign of letting up on his stamina sapping schedule.

Gifford and other top riders of his era would look at their statistics in disbelief.