Flat Jockey of the Year
Not too many 50-year-old riders have emulated the inaugural winner in 1967, Doug Smith, but this category has a most star-studded roll of honour across all the annual racing awards.
In the 1970s names of the winners include Pat Eddery, Joe Mercer and Willie Carson and the following decade begun with a three-year winning streak for the great Lester Piggott. The brilliance of Steve Cauthen in the 1980s helped him pick up a hat-trick and while Carson and Piggott shared four titles apiece it took a great Italian to come dominate the winners’ list.
A teenage Frankie Dettori begun his supremacy at the start of the following decade and by 1996, the year of his iconic ‘Magnificent Seven’, he had already equalled Carson and Piggott’s tally. Kevin Darley and Kieren Fallon enjoyed a double in that period and each made it three in the new millennium.
The flat and jumps categories were merged between 2012 and 2016 but it was no surprise to see Dettori’s name back on the list when it was restored to its original format. In 2020 history-making Hollie Doyle became the first female rider to win the prize but it was William Buick who has been crowned the winner for the last three years.
2024 Voting
Details on nominations and voting will be added later this year.