Jorgen Skjoedt

Article by Chris Pitt

National Hunt jockey Jorgen Skjoedt was born in Denmark on December 16, 1945. He rode 23 winners on the Flat and over jumps as an amateur in his home country before coming to Britain in October 1967 and turning professional.

He started out with Michael Scudamore but failed to ride a winner for him and subsequently joined the Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire, stable of Charles Vernon-Miller. Although slow to get off the mark he eventually turned things round in the 1969/70 season, riding nine winners.

At that time the Vernon-Miller string included a raw five-year-old named Bighorn. Jorgen had been placed on him over hurdles and fences the previous season but it was only now that he began to develop into a proper chaser. Bighorn became Jorgen’s first winner in Britain when getting up close home to snatch a short-head victory in a Ludlow novices’ chase on October 8, 1969, following up at Wolverhampton the following month.

Another Vernon-Miller chaser, Gambia, while not in the same league as Bighorn, landed a pair of sellers at Windsor and Leicester in November, and there was plenty of promise about one named Moonlight Escapade, judged by his two-length success under Jorgen in a Haydock maiden hurdle in December.

Bighorn confirmed his earlier promise when providing Jorgen with a higher profile victory in Wolverhampton’s Boxing Day feature, the Harry Brown Challenge Cup Chase; then Vernon-Miller’s novice chaser Perry Orchids got their new decade off to a bright start when winning at Haydock on January 2, 1970, and Gambia ended that month with another win, this time at Worcester.

The rapidly-improving Bighorn, now in handicap company, gave weight all round when winning over two miles at Warwick in February and was targeted at the Mildmay of Flete Chase at Cheltenham’s National Hunt Meeting, where he came agonisingly close to giving Jorgen Skjoedt and Charles Vernon-Miller success on jumping’s biggest stage. Having been prominent throughout the race, Bighorn was badly hampered by a three-horse pile-up at the fifteenth fence, a crucial time in the two-and-a-half-mile contest, yet ended up losing by just a neck, beaten by Gerry Scott on the Neville Crump-trained 25-1 shot Verona Forest. Had he succeeded, Jorgen would almost certainly have been the first Danish-born jockey to ride a Cheltenham Festival winner.

The next two seasons were lean ones for Jorgen by comparison with what had gone before. Bighorn won four more chases in 1970/71 but Eddie Harty was on board for three of those, Jorgen’s only opportunity coming when scoring a repeat victory in the Harry Brown Challenge Cup on Boxing Day. Gambia was his only other winner that season, at Worcester in February.

Having lost the ride on Bighorn – who would go on to win a Hennessy Gold Cup, partnered by David Cartwright – Jorgen linked up as head lad cum stable jockey for another Shipston-on-Stour trainer, permit holder Major Richard Dill. Formerly of the 8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars, Major Dill had ridden as an amateur between 1945 and 1964, riding numerous winners in Germany from 1946-54 and achieving his greatest success in the saddle on Easter Breeze in the 1957 Grand Military Gold Cup at Sandown. He’d taken out his first British trainer’s permit in 1964 and his colours of ‘Eton blue, olive green braid, sleeves and cap’ soon became a familiar sight on British racecourses. His string included novice chaser Mustard Pot, who gave Jorgen his sole success of the 1971/72 campaign when winning at Hereford on Easter Monday.

However, his luck returned in 1972/73, during which he partnered eight winners. Firm ground specialist Mustard Pot contributed three-quarters of them with three early season wins followed by three more in the spring. The last occasion, at Huntingdon on Whit Monday 1973, formed the second leg of a double for Jorgen, having earlier scored on Ken Bridgwater’s selling chaser Whineray.

The following season, 1973/74 saw him riding for David Morley, who trained near Bury St Edmunds, in Suffolk and supplied all of Jorgen’s five winners that term. The first of these was the prolific winning chaser High Havens, who won the Spencer Draper Cup at Market Rasen. The others – all novice hurdlers – were Banlieu, who won at Nottingham and Market Rasen in December, Sasha, a winner at Ascot on January 11, and Twilight Boy, who won at Wye three days later. However, they turned out to be the final winners of Jorgen Skjoedt’s British sojourn, as he did not renew his licence the following season.

Jorgen Skjoedt rode a total of 25 winners in Britain. These were in chronological order:

1. Bighorn, Ludlow, October 8, 1969

2. Bighorn, Wolverhampton, November 10, 1969

3. Gambia, Windsor, November 15, 1969

4. Gambia, Leicester, November 25, 1969

5. Moonlight Escapade, Haydock, December 4, 1969

6. Bighorn, Wolverhampton, December 26, 1969

7. Perry Orchids, Haydock, January 2, 1970

8. Gambia, Worcester, January 26, 1970

9. Bighorn, Warwick, February 26, 1970

10. Bighorn, Wolverhampton, December 26, 1970

11. Gambia, Leicester, February 9, 1971

12. Mustard Pot, Hereford, April 3, 1972

13. Mustard Pot, Southwell, August 28, 1972

14. Mustard Pot, Ludlow, October 5, 1972

15. Mustard Pot, Cheltenham, October 11, 1972

16. Cartwheel, Wincanton, February 1, 1973

17. Mustard Pot, Huntingdon, April 23, 1973

18. Mustard Pot, Southwell, May 21, 1973

19. Whineray, Huntingdon, May 28, 1973

20. Mustard Pot, Huntingdon, May 28, 1973

21. High Havens, September 29, 1973

22. Banlieu, Nottingham, December 10, 1973

23. Banlieu, Market Rasen, December 26, 1973

24. Sasha, Ascot, January 11, 1974

25. Twilight Boy, Wye, January 14, 1974

He then went to ride in Ireland where he won a few races including a pair of Kilbeggan novice chases on Lady Ashton on May 26 and Larksville on August 8, 1975.