Kevin Darley

Article by Chris Pitt

Former champion jockey Kevin Darley brought down the curtain on his 30-year riding career at the end of the 2007 Flat campaign. Besides having been crowned champion jockey in 2000 with 155 wins – the first northern-based rider to clinch the title since Elijah Wheatley in 1905 – the 47-year-old had won 26 Group 1 races, ridden 16 Royal Ascot winners and won Classics in Britain, Ireland, France and Germany. He had topped 100 winners in a season 11 times and had ridden more than 2,500 winners worldwide.

Kevin Paul Darley was born at Tettenhall, Staffordshire, on August 5, 1960, the son of a Wolverhampton butcher. He was a product of the Reg Hollinshead apprentice academy, having served his time with the Upper Longdon trainer from 1976-78. He rode his first winner, Dust Up, on his 17th birthday, in the Matthew Peacock Handicap at Haydock on Friday, August 5, 1977. Seven days later the partnership followed up with victory at Newbury, beating Willie Carson’s mount Apple Peel by a head.

Two months later, he achieved his first big race success on Matt McCourt’s sprinter Van Laser in the five furlong Bovis Handicap at Ascot. He was champion apprentice the following season (1978) with 70 winners.

His career then nose-dived when, having lost his claim and moved to Newmarket, he suffered a bad fall at Nottingham that sidelined him for six weeks, resulting in a total of just 14 winners in 1979. He endured several years in the wilderness before a fruitful association with Peter Savill’s record-breaking sprint handicapper Chaplins Club led to him becoming Savill’s retained jockey. With a string of 50 horses spread between 18 trainers, Kevin suddenly found a lot of doors had opened for him.

His association with Savill was to last almost 20 years, highlighted by arguably the best colt with which Kevin was associated, Celtic Swing, winner of the 1994 Racing Post Trophy and the 1995 Prix du Jockey Club. Kevin described Celtic Swing as having “a Ferrari engine with the chassis of a Mini”.

In 1999 Kevin won the Deutches Derby on Belenus, his second European Classic success, but he’d yet to ride one on home soil. That changed when the Tim Easterby-trained Bollin Eric gave him his first British Classic victory when winning the 2002 St Leger.

His only other British Classic winner was Mark Johnston’s filly Attraction, who won the 2004 One Thousand Guineas and then followed up by winning the Irish One Thousand Guineas. He also won that year’s Coronation Stakes and Sun Chariot Stakes on her plus the 2005 Matron Stakes at Leopardstown.

In 1997 he put up an extraordinary riding performance in steering David Barron’s Coastal Bluff to a dramatic dead-heat for first place in the Nunthorpe Stakes after the horse’s bridle had snapped soon after leaving the stalls. That race was made equally famous through Alex Greaves becoming the first woman to ride a British Group 1 winner when Ya Malak dead-heated with Coastal Bluff.

Kevin was associated two other top-class sprinters in Tim Easterby’s Pipalong, on whom he won the 2000 Haydock Sprint Cup, and Eric Alston’s Reverence, whom he booted to victory in both the Nunthorpe Stakes and Haydock Sprint Cup in 2006.

In addition to Celtic Swing’s 1994 Racing Post Trophy success, Kevin won that race twice more, with successive renewals on the Coolmore-owned pair High Chaparral (2001) and Brian Boru (2002). He also won Ascot’s Queen Elizabeth II Stakes twice, on Observatory (2000) and Where Or When (2002).

His other British and Irish Group 1 winners comprised: Bianca Nera (1996 Moyglare Stud Stakes), Super Tassa (2001 Yorkshire Oaks), Malhub (2002 Golden Jubilee Stakes), Shamardal (2004 Dewhurst Stakes) and Peeress (2005 Sun Chariot Stakes).

His other European Group 1 victories included: River North (1994 Aral Pokal), Port Lucaya (1994 Premio Vittoria di Capua) Flagbird (1995 Premio Presidente della Repubblica) and Kinnaird (2005 Prix de l’Opera).

In addition to all his Group race success, he also won several major handicaps, including the Ebor on Vicious Circle (1999), the Lincoln on Roving Minstrel (1995), and back-to-back runnings of both the Northumberland Plate on Far Cry (1999) and Bay Of Islands (2000), and the Portland Handicap on Musical Season (1996) and Dashing Blue (1997).

Kevin rode five winners in a day on three separate occasions, on July 23, 1993, August 1, 1998, and July 23, 2001. His highest total of winners in a year was 166 in 2001 when finishing second in the jockey’s table, just three behind Kieren Fallon.

The last of Kevin’s 2,451 British winners came on Jeremy Noseda’s Messias Da Silva at Lingfield Park on Monday, October 29, 2007. His final ride was on Akarem, who finished unplaced in the November Handicap at Doncaster on November 10, 2007.

On his retirement he concluded: “It wasn’t an easy decision to retire, but this is like no other job and it was only me that could make that decision. I had one or two niggling injuries this year that took longer than usual to clear up, which reminded me that I’m no longer 17 or 27, but 47. I just feel now that it’s time to move on.

“I’m proud of what I’ve achieved. Whatever you do in life, it’s important to be the best you can at it, and I feel I’m proof that if you keep working at it, you can get there in the end.”

He was never going to be one to let the grass grow under his feet and quickly slotted into various roles, including a stint with the BBC’s television coverage. Among his other roles he is now the Northern representative for both the Qatar and Pearl Racing empires.

Classic winners

One Thousand Guineas: Attraction (2004)

St Leger: Bollin Eric (2002) 

Other big winners

1978: Carlisle Bell – Pam’s Gleam 

1978: Old Newton Cup – Move Off 

1986: Duke of York Stakes – Grey Desire 

1986: Gosforth Park Cup – Dublin Lad 

1993: Zetland Gold Cup – River North 

1993: Cumberland Plate – Northern Graduate 

1994: Cumberland Plate – Batabanoo 

1994: Gosforth Park Cup – Mistertopogigo 

1994: Racing Post Trophy – Celtic Swing 

1995: Lincoln Handicap – Roving Minstrel

1995: Zetland Gold Cup – Penny A Day 

1995: Cumberland Plate – Batabanoo 

1996: Wokingham Stakes – Emerging Market 

1996: Portland Handicap – Musical Season 

1997: Nunthorpe Stakes – Coastal Bluff (dead-heat)

1997: Portland Handicap – Dashing Blue 

1998: Carlisle Bell – Lucky Archer 

1999: Northumberland Plate – Far Cry 

1999: Ebor Handicap – Vicious Circle 

2000: Lingfield Derby Trial – Saddler’s Quest 

2000: Queen’s Vase – Shanty Star 

2000: Jersey Stakes – Observatory 

2000: Queen Mary Stakes – Romantic Myth  

2000: Northumberland Plate – Bay Of Islands 

2000: Old Newton Cup – Rada’s Daughter 

2000: Cecil Frail Stakes – Pipalong 

2000: Haydock Sprint Cup – Pipalong 

2000: Queen Elizabeth II Stakes – Observatory 

2001: Queen’s Vase – And Beyond 

2001: Racing Post Trophy – High Chaparral

2002: Cork and Orrery Stakes – Malhub 

2002: Lingfield Derby Trial – Bandari 

2002: King George V Handicap – Systematic 

2002: Hardwicke Stakes – Zindabad 

2002: Racing Post Trophy – Brian Boru

2003: Queen’s Vase – Shanty Star 

2003: Queen Mary Stakes – Attraction 

2003: Norfolk Stakes – Russian Valour 

2004: Coronation Stakes – Attraction 

2004: Dewhurst Stakes – Shamardal 

2005: Queen’s Vase – Melrose Avenue

2005: Windsor Castle Stakes – Titus Alone 

2006: Queen’s Vase – Soapy Danger 

2006: King George V Handicap – Linas Selection 

2006: Cecil Frail Stakes – Paradise Isle 

2006: Nunthorpe Stakes – Reverence 

2006: Haydock Sprint Cup – Reverence (dead-heat)

In Ireland

Irish One Thousand Guineas: Attraction (2004)

In France

Prix du Jockey Club (French Derby): Celtic Swing (1995)

In Germany

1994: Aral-Pokal – River North 

1999: Deutsches Derby – Belenus 

In Italy

1994: Premio Vittoria di Capua – Port Lucaya 

1995: Premio Presidente Della Republica – Flagbird