Ricou hangs up his saddle after 1,300 winners
After living the dream for 21 years, top French jump rider, 38, bows out on a high at Auteuil
It took some doing, but we finally found a Frenchman who was not setting fire to the Champs-elysees last weekend; Jacques Ricou, the five-times champion jump jockey in France, retired after 21 years in the saddle and was already back at home in Bordeaux as City Racing’s potential first racecourse went up in smoke.
Ricou’s final ride, on Friday, went to script when Black Luna won the Listed hurdle at Auteuil by eight lengths.
In all, Ricou, 38, who only broke an ankle, a foot and a collar bone early on in his career – “breaking bones was not a hobby for me” – rode 1,300 winners, including the Grand Steeple-chase de Paris in 2015 on Milord Thomas. Only three jump jockeys have bettered that score in France.
But for a cruel twist of fate, he might have won a Cheltenham Gold Cup on Guillaume Macaire’s Jair Du Cochet in 2004. Earlier that season, the gelding had become the first to beat Best Mate in two seasons when trouncing him by eight lengths in the Peterborough Chase at Huntingdon.
Favourite for the King George, he made an early mistake but Ricou recalled: “He was never moving, he had no action and was not on a good day.”
He came back to England for the Cotswold Chase, hacked up again and was second favourite behind Best Mate for the Gold Cup when, in his final gallop before the race, he broke a leg. “The dream was finished,” recalled Ricou.
With no background in racing, Ricou caught the bug when his father took him to his local course. “One day, I ride a pony,” he recalled, “and I was very happy. I thought if I can do a part of my life on a horse then I will try to do it. I lived my dream for 21 years.”
He spent 10 years with Macaire, had several visits to Britain and spent several months one winter with Willie Mullins in Ireland. There, he is fondly remembered for his lack of airs and graces and his ability to get even the strongest-pulling horses to settle.
On Boxing Day, he had arranged to meet Ruby Walsh in Kilcullen, about 40 miles from the Mullins yard, and they were both due to fly over for the King George. The Mullins lads’ Christmas party had been on the 23rd and, while waiting to meet Walsh, Ricou spotted one of Mullins’s members of staff wandering, lost, down the high street.
The lad had no recollection of how he came to be there, or the intervening two days. Ricou had to lend him €50 for a taxi home, and still to this day nobody knows how he got there.
One of Ricou’s most memorable trips to Britain was to Chepstow on Welsh National day to ride a fancied horse in the novice hurdle. He had been given a lift by a French photographer and they were not au fait with the traffic problems that traditionally plague the day. Getting stuck is a rite of passage for most young jump jockeys and the pair were already late when they ground to a halt on the Severn Bridge.
So, in his suit and “Sunday shoes”, Ricou ran along the bridge, eventually jogging into the track as they finished the race before his. Valets fixed him up with spare kit, his boots were too big and his saddle was not to his liking but, after all that effort, the horse was beaten by heavy ground. His driver arrived as they pulled up.
One way or another, it was a good weekend for the Andrews girls. Remember that kiss at Cheltenham which Harry Skelton plonked on girlfriend Bridget Andrews’s lips after she won the County Hurdle on Mohaayed? Well, he did the decent thing on Sunday and the couple are now engaged.
“I knew something was up when he made me breakfast,” said the future Mrs Skelton, proving romance may be on a life-support machine but it is not dead. They hope to get married next summer.
On the same day, her sister Gina rode her 200th point-to-point winner at Cottenham, also scene of her first, on the Alan Hill-trained Sharp Suit.