Paddock laments exit of pretty-boy Popham
‘Best-looking jockey retires to become an agent after suffering a catalogue of injuries
On the same weekend that Katie Walsh and Nina Carberry announced their retirements, Ian Popham, who has not ridden since being injured in January, announced he too will hang up his boots to become a jockeys’ agent. Popham, 28, was generally regarded as the bestlooking jockey in Britain and, as if to prove it, a text to him from fellow jockey Dave Crosse bemoaned the fact that “there would no longer be anyone to look at” in the weighing room.
As he is back to full racing fitness for the foreseeable future, he will hold the title “fittest jockeys’ agent” in the business and, though his feet are barely under the office desk, his stable already includes Harry Skelton, Conor Shoemark, Matt Griffiths, Charlie Poste, David England and Danny Hiskett. In 12 years as a professional he rode 150 winners including the Grade One Kauto Star Chase and Paddy Power Gold Cup on Annacotty.
He twice shattered his pelvis on horses not in a race; one reared over backwards at home, another when having his girths checked at the start. The first, which required four operations to repair six fractures, put him out for nine months; the other, six months.
His other big injury was when, in a fall, he was kicked in the face by a horse following him, breaking his jaw, cheek, chin and a few teeth.
The broken and dislocated shoulder he suffered on his last ride broke the camel’s back.
His brush with this column was as a passenger on a 10-man barge, captained by amateur Will Biddick, full of jockeys sailing the northern canal system of our industrial past.
Unfortunately, Biddick, having risen at 5.30am, decided their narrow boat could be halfway to their destination, Chester, by lunchtime if he cast her off.
The boat was a minimum two-man job through each lock but Biddick decided he could do it alone while his mates slept.
However, the boat’s rudder snagged on a lock gate which, when emptied of water, left the boat dangling vertically with water flooding into the bedrooms.
Biddick instructed his fellow riders not to panic but rather to start baling her out. The consequences were manifold; the barge was written off, the lock was shut for the day and the crew were given a black mark by British Waterways which means, if Topham ever wants a holiday on the Norfolk Broads, he will have to hire the boat in someone else’s name.