by Dick Francis
By the spring of 1950, fourteen-year-old Lester was ready to do "anything" to win races. At the Lincoln Spring Meeting, he was "severely cautioned" about his riding, and at Hurst Park at Whitsun he was not merely cautioned but suspended for the rest of the meeting. (Such a suspension usually meant for a period of one day.) At Kempton Park in July, he was cautioned for crossing and suspended for the rest of the meeting (one day), and in August at Worcester the same thing happened, except that he was also fined 20 sovereigns for boring.
His actual sins were to push forward through too-small gaps, bumping the horses on each side, and to cross too closely in front of other horses, impeding their progress.
All of these first suspensions were the result of his dash and his wish to please: the anxiety not to disappoint all those whose hopes rode with him.
The consequence of his injudicious exits from tight corners was the growth of a syndrome which followed him all his career: if Piggott was in any way involved in a bumping incident, then it was automatically Piggott's fault. A factor apparently overlooked was that older jockeys, sensing Lester's fast approach between them, deliberately narrowed any gap to shut him off, and by leaving it too late effectively caused the bumping themselves. Lester became a handy universal scapegoat: the other jockeys grew to know they wouldn't be blamed.
"I did deserve some of the suspensions," Lester says, "but in some of them I was hard done by. In everything, if you do a few things wrong, you're the first to get the blame each time."
He thinks those suspensions he felt he had earned probably did him good: but if continual trouble finally taught him he had to be careful, it offered no advice on how to smother a surge of race-winning instinct in the heat of the moment. The British racing public, along with the trainers Lester rode for, perceived with crystal clarity that his youthful rough riding wasn't the result of ill nature or outbursts of temper or downright villainy. The British racing public continued to cheer him with hoarse throats and the trainers forgave him the lost races and signed him up for the instant of his return.
Lester himself took the suspensions, well earned or less earned, in equal silence, never letting his feelings get further than a frown. He was already, at fourteen, adept at damping down his miseries and keeping them in control: disasters didn't destroy him then or at any time after.
By October 1950, his dual reputation was in full swing. To the public he could do little wrong. To the Stewards he could do little right. When Lester rode too enthusiastically on Barnacle at Newbury, the thunderclouds were already gathered above him, waiting for an opportunity to burst. The Newbury Stewards reported Lester to the jockey Club for "boring and crossing". Lester himself can't remember anything particular happening, but the jockey Club Stewards upheld the local stewards' judgment (which they normally do) and suspended Lester for three weeks, which meant for the rest of the season.
The main recurring official reason for most of Lester's suspensions, all his career, was that he rode with "disregard for the safety of other jockeys". It is worth pointing out that while this might be a strong opinion, it was not born out in fact. In no Piggott "incident" was anyone ever hurt. No horses fell, no riders were ever unseated. "You could understand the fury," Lester said, "if I had killed someone. But no one was even bruised."
As happened over and over again later, after one big bang of authoritarian anger, a quiet period ensued. In 1951, Lester didn't come before any stewards for any reason.
By 1952, things livened up slightly with a one-meeting suspension for "crossing" at Goodwood. In 1953, the same thing happened at the Eclipse meeting at Sandown, and in October that year Lester was fined 25 sovereigns and suspended for the rest of the Warwick meeting for lining up in the wrong position! (No stalls in those days.) At the Epsom Spring Meeting in 1954, Lester rode Loll for Michael Pope. The horse finished second but was disqualified for crossing. Lester's explanation that the horse had swerved unexpectedly and not by his (Lester's) intention was discounted and Lester was suspended for the rest of the meeting.
At Royal Ascot that year, Loll ran again with a different jockey and swerved in exactly the same way. The jockey wasn't suspended: he wasn't even asked for an explanation.
By Derby day, 1954, Lester's tally of suspensions was:
1950-four one- or two-day suspensions, and one of three weeks 1951-no suspensions
1952-one single-meeting suspension 1953-two single-meeting suspensions (one for lining up wrongly)
1954-suspension on Loll at Epsom.
In considering Lester's longest and worst suspension, it is important first to reconstruct what actually happened to him and Never Say Die in the King Edward VII Stakes at Royal Ascot in June 1954.
The incident which caused all the trouble took place at the point where the horses come round the last bend into the straight, a distance of some two and a half furlongs, or a third of a mile, from the winning post.
All bends, but that bend at Ascot particularly, tend to throw horses slightly wide as they gallop round at a speed nearing forty miles an hour, the hooves having to find extra purchase on the turf in the same way as a car's tyres grip round a bend in the road.
One doesn't have to rely on spoken opinions or memories for what occurred because the sequence of events was captured on a British Paramount newsreel film. Frame by frame, it speaks for itself.
Sir Gordon Richards, riding Rashleigh, came round the bend with two other horses between him and the rails. The horses were Garter, ridden by Bill Rickaby, next to Sir Gordon, and Dragon Fly, ridden by Doug Smith, next to the rails. Rashleigh was thrown a little wide by being on the outside of three coming round the bend, as also in his turn was Garter. Gaps opened between the horses.
All jockeys know that gaps open up in this configuration. Experienced jockeys are ready for them, waiting to take advantage and go through, for this is often the opportunity one looks for in starting what one hopes may be a winning run.
Lester, racing behind the trio on Never Say Die, saw the fairly large gap which had opened between Garter and Dragon Fly, and advanced into it. There were now four horses more or less side by side with Sir Gordon on Rashleigh on the outside. If Rashleigh had run straight from that point nothing would have happened, but Gordon was already working to correct his outward swing and to stop Lester's advance, and was pulling Rashleigh in again towards the rails. Garter couldn't get back to his former position because Never Say Die was now in it, and he was severely squeezed between Never Say Die and Rashleigh. Rashleigh came right across onto him and a good deal of hard bumping occurred over the next few strides. Never Say Die, with his heavy head and bias to the left, was banging against Garter from the inside, with Gordon on the outside pulling to the right. Garter it was, therefore, who was on the receiving end from both.
The melee straightened itself out with Gordon pulling his horse out again a shade to get away from contact with Garter, and from that point all four horses ran straight for more than the final two furlongs. It is as well to note that the four horses involved were not in the lead when they came round the bend: Blue Prince II and Arabian Night were both in front.
In the last stages of the race, there was another upheaval. Arabian Night, comfortably leading, suddenly swerved, then crashed against the rails and bounced off, severely impeding Blue Prince II and a horse called Tarjoman which had come forward to challenge. Rashleigh, with Gordon working hard, went past the mix up to win, with Tarjoman second and Blue Prince II third. Arabian Night, at a standstill, finished nowhere. Never Say Die, with every chance if he had had enough speed, finished fourth.
The Ascot Stewards raised an objection against Gordon Richards for the earlier incident, and called in all the jockeys concerned. No investigation was held into the Arabian Night bumping, although many present, including some of the Press, thought that this was what the official enquiry was about.
The Stewards did not at that point have the newsreel film to consult, and there were, of course, in those days no camera-patrol
films, giving a head-on view. They had to rely on their own impressions, seen through binoculars from six hundred yards away, and on what the jockeys told them. Their own impression had been that Rashleigh had caused the bumping through pulling over towards the rails. The newsreel film shows all of Rashleigh's side from head to tail, clearly at an angle to the rails and the track. The Stewards' _first impression was correct.
When they heard that Lester had compounded the trouble by taking Never Say Die forward and by not being able to control his mount's heavy left-swinging head, they removed the blame from Gordon altogether and transferred it entirely to Lester.
Bill Rickaby, who rode Garter, is Lester's cousin. It's not known whether this fact made any difference one way or another. It is known, however, that Lord Rosebery, owner of Garter, was extremely annoyed by what had occurred, and it was possibly he who suggested the enquiry.
The Ascot Stewards suspended Lester for the rest of the meeting and reported him to the Stewards of the Jockey Club. And that, in the opinion of the bulk of the racing world and certainly the crowd that day at Ascot would have been more than enough.
They had seen Rashleigh cross towards the rails with their own eyes, and whatever else had happened, that cross must have contributed to the bumps.
At the enquiry held at Ascot before racing the following day, the three jockey Club Stewards (different from the four Ascot Stewards) upheld the Ascot Stewards' opinion that the bumping had been solely caused by Never Say Die, and that Lester should not have moved forward into the gap which had opened between Garter and Dragon Fly. Gordon's account, that Rashleigh had been turned sideways by Never Say Die's forcing Garter against his rump, was accepted.
The Jockey Club Stewards' enquiry lasted barely twenty minutes.
They took Lester's licence away completely and actually without setting a time limit on the sentence, though it was suggested that he could apply to return at the end of six months. The severity of the sentence was received with consternation by most of the racing people and with outrage by the general public who wrote to the newspapers in unprecedented numbers to complain.
The Stewards, perhaps taken aback by the furore and by several critical attacks upon themselves, made a highly unusual statement to defend themselves. Lester, they said, had relied on the good nature of other jockeys to open up and let him through. Even if this had been true, the sentence shouldn't have been six months' banishment, but in fact it wasn't true. Sufficient gap had opened up, before Gordon pulled Rashleigh across to retrieve his former position.
It is instructive to reflect what would have happened if the two jockeys had been on each other's mounts.
It is certain that if Lester had crossed on Rashleigh, the Ascot Stewards would have brought him in on an objection, because they did in fact in the first instance object to Gordon for that reason. Gordon, a brilliant jockey, would very likely on Never Say Die have moved forward legitimately into the opened gap: it is after all the way to win races. After the collisions, would Gordon, riding a horse notorious for its left-hand bias, have lost his licence for six months? Would he even have been censured for bumping against Garter? He might instead have been treated with understanding, even if not with sympathy.
Lester, for crossing, would have been suspended. For how long, is anyone's guess.
At the distance of thirty years, it seems incredible that a few seconds of bumping, so far from the winning post, affecting the outcome of the race not at all and doing no damage to any man or any horse, should have been considered serious enough for the sort of swingeing sentence usually reserved for dishonesty.
Given that the sentence was out of all proportion to what was at most a misjudgment, and on the part of two jockeys, not one, the short question arises: why?
The Stewards said they were taking into consideration Lester's eight previous suspensions (but one or two of those were in themselves suspect). The snowball effect, the blame-Piggott syndrome, had gathered the fury of an avalanche.
The forces at work were varied, and at least one of them was rooted deep in the origins of organised racing. The owners in distant times put their own servants onto their horses as jockeys, so for generations all jockeys were considered to be servants: and they were servants not in the friendly atmosphere of today, but in the much more severe "upstairs-downstairs" era.
Lester was not a servant. In his own home, he was the son of the master of the house, son of a man who owned his own stables and employed his own staff. Lester hadn't been taught and hadn't imagined that others might consider him in the category of a servant because he was a jockey. The social upheavals of the Second World War were still bubbling away in 1954, but a total change of attitude had not yet happened among many of the older generation. The more senior of those acting as Stewards at race meetings, it would be fair to say, were happier with the behaviour patterns of twenty or more years earlier.
Lester, young but serious in mind, felt no natural subservience to Stewards and tried to explain things to them, person to person, adult to adult. They brushed his explanations aside and seemed to be irritated by what they judged his lack of proper respect.
"It's different now," he says. "The next generation, they listen. You go in now and you explain what happened, and the Stewards will listen and understand, and most often they take no action because they can see what it was like."
Lester at eighteen was self employed, independent and well on track to the top. He had just won the Derby to universal acclaim, with the word "genius" shyly and self-consciously appearing in journalists' columns. The myth of Lester was growing, and on its own would not go away.
It is a curious fact that Lester's most savage suspensions often followed closely upon his most dazzling achievements: as if the one provoked the other. There's a streak in human nature which reacts to the spectacle of immense success with an urge to destroy it. Lester was of the forceful new world, busy usurping the old; Lester had just won a spectacular victory: Lester was ripe for being slapped down.
It's certain that if any such normal feelings coloured either the Ascot or the jockey Club Stewards' judgment during the Never Say Die enquiry, they were not aware of them. They did honestly believe that their findings were impartial. They were men of honour.
On the other hand, the second jockey involved was the very one for whom they had nothing but the warmest regard. Twenty-six years champion jockey, winner at last of the Derby on Pinza in 1953 after years of trying, and recently knighted, Sir Gordon Richards was probably the most-liked man in racing. Everyone, including the Stewards, admired and respected him and hastened to smooth his path. Everyone deferred to him in a way they have done to no man since, and they were right to do so, as he was and is one of the nicest men ever to set foot on the Turf.
When Sir Gordon Richards retired from his later career as a trainer, the jockey Club made him an honorary member, an honour not bestowed on a professional jockey before or since.
The Ascot Stewards would of course have censured Gordon for his riding of Rashleigh had they thought he deserved it but, subconsciously, they must have been relieved to decide that they wouldn't have to.
At the Jockey Club enquiry, the Stewards not only took away Lester's licence but they stipulated also that he must leave his father and go to work for a different trainer. They were of the opinion that Keith had encouraged Lester in his "disregard of the safety of other jockeys".
The truth was not that Keith had actively encouraged Lester but that back in 1950 he hadn't told him that what he was doing was wrong.
Lester's thoughts, thirty-five years on: "Probably it would have been better if once or twice he'd said I was wrong when I cut in or cut somebody off ... if he'd said well, it's not worth doing something like that. But it's difficult. You can't do two things-do your best to win all the time and be careful all the time. It doesn't work out."
Keith was another of the subterranean forces which set off the avalanche, and not because of urging Lester to ride roughly, whic
h he didn't, but because of his uncomplicated pride in his son's achievements. His beaming face, it would seem, was taken to be approval of Lester's strong riding; therefore Keith, too, should be punished.
There was among the older generation a real sense of loss for the past and a clinging to the pleasant concept of amateurism, to playing the game for its own sake, to losing gracefully.
Lester had no intention of losing, gracefully or otherwise. The game, for Lester, was winning. Such an attitude was considered unsportsmanlike. It was fine to win races, so the thinking went, but one must not be seen to be trying too hard. No matter that such an expectation was unrealistic -an over-polite jockey who lost a race from an excess of good manners would be roundly cursed and replaced-it was all the same strongly held. Harold Larwood and Douglas Jardine, who had won back the Ashes with bodyline bowling, were still in semi-disgrace.
In racing, Sir Gordon Richards was seen as the parfit gentil knight, winning presumably from grace and magic, not from all sorts of effort. Lester's modest demeanour in victory gained him no points at all. The powers-that-were correctly sensed that he had no respect for the myth of amateurism, and they resented his rejection of it.