YOUNG GUN WHO ROCKED THE WORLD

Graham Buddry looks back at the career of American Steve Cauthen, who will go down in folklore both sides of the water

At the beginning and end of each season it is the horses who raise the expectations, fulfil the dreams, win the big races and, in very rare cases achieve the immortality our sport craves, and rightly so.

However, it is the jockey on top who can ultimately make the difference between winning and losing and although down the ages there has usually been a standout rider for each generation, some time ago our sport was endowed in incredible riches.

Jockeys such as Eddie Hide, Geoff Lewis, Greville Starkey, Walter Swinburn, Joe Mercer and many other supremely talented riders of the same era were actually eclipsed by the likes of Lester Piggott, Willie Carson and Pat Eddery. A supreme richness of talent all competing at the same time in a true golden age then had the cherry added on top when a young American came to try his hand in this country. His name was Steve Cauthen.

The Kentucky Kid had already taken the American racing scene by storm. In 1977, only his second year in the saddle, the teenager rode 100 winners (valued at $1million) in just 39 days and at the end of the season he became the first jockey to be voted Sports Illustrated Magazine’s Sportsman of the Year as well as the Associated Press Athlete of the Year.

The 17-year old-also became the first jockey to break the $6million mark. The following year, Cauthen partnered Affirmed to victory in the American Triple Crown and then, with nothing much left to prove in the States he made the monumental decision to ride in England.