Stuart Cargeeg

Stuart Cargeeg was born in 1959 at his father’s Penzance farm in Cornwall and was always surrounded by horses, learning to ride on his ponies Prince and Pogul.  The farm was later used as a film setting for the BBC series 'Poldark'.  

From the age of six he was hooked on becoming a jockey. After leaving school, his father arranged for him to become apprenticed to David Barons. He spent eight years with Barons, riding his first winner on Nescio in the Southam Opportunity Handicap Hurdle at Cheltenham on November 7, 1980. When the horse was retired, Stuart kept him until he died. 

While Paul Leech was Barons’ first jockey, Stuart nevertheless got to ride some good horses such as King And Country, Bootlaces and Solid Rock. However, he then suffered a serious injury, smashing his pelvis. When fully recovered, he decided to take his career in another direction. Through a Barons connection, he left for New Zealand to work for trainer and former top amateur rider Kenny Brown.

That arrangement didn’t work out and he briefly considered a job riding in Germany before deciding on a move to Chantilly, where he joined the yard of British trainer Martin Blackshaw. The two hit it off immediately and became great friends. Blackshaw, who had ridden Churchtown Boy to finish second to Red Rum in the 1977 Grand National, became the major influence on Stuart’s career.

He was with Blackshaw for eight years before moving south to Marseille, where he was champion jockey two years in succession. During all his years of riding he sustained 27 fractures of various types, but his career was ended in unusual circumstances, smashing a knee when a horse ran out at Vichy and wrapped him round one of the floodlights of the parallel trotting track. 

At the time, he was in the process of moving back to join Blackshaw as assistant trainer. However, Blackshaw was killed in a car crash on January 21, 1989. His owners, many of them British, unanimously agreed Stuart should take over the yard.

For five years, Stuart kept the stable at Chantilly going thanks largely to the support of Horse Racing Abroad’s Ian Fry, Irish brothers Michael and Tony Smurfit, and bookmaker John Pegley. The Fry-owned Point Of No Return was a top-class hurdler and Stuart also landed the Grand Prix at Cagnes-sur-Mer with the Smurfits’ horse Our Account. 

He then opted to move back to his old stomping ground near Marseilles, where he had made many friends during his time there. 

Based at a training centre between Marseilles and Aix-En-Provence, he saddled his biggest winner in June 2007 when All Is Vanity won the Group 2 Prix de Sandringham at Chantilly. The filly was subsequently sold to race in America where she won a Grade 3 fillies’ and mares’ contest in June 2009.