Mellor ‘one of the great innovators’
PETER SCUDAMORE yesterday described Stan Mellor as ‘one of the great innovators’, after the first jump jockey to ride 1,000 winners died at the age of 83.
Mellor, awarded an MBE for his services to racing and achieving Champion Jockey status three times from 1960 to 1962, was a stylist in the saddle and a jockey who advocated only using the whip as a last resort.
Eight-time Champion Jockey Scudamore said: ‘Stan was a friend of my father Michael, who always saw him as one of the great innovators. He really thought about his riding. He was small for a jump jockey and rarely picked up his whip.
‘He adapted tactics used by the American jockeys, things others didn’t do, and I always thought it was a pity his expertise wasn’t tapped into more. He used to say you should use a whip properly and not on a tired horse.
‘His achievement of being the first jump jockey to ride 1,000 winners was a major sporting achievement at a time.’
Mellor’s 1,000th winner came on Ouzo at Nottingham in December 1971. His biggest wins came in the King George VI Chase, which he won on Frenchman’s Cove (1964) and Titus Oates (1969), the Queen Mother Champion Chase, which he won on Sandy Abbot (1963), and the Whitbread Gold Cup, again with Frenchman’s Cove (1962).
Mellor famously beat the great
Arkle in the 1966 Hennessy Gold Cup on Stalbridge Colonist. He retired having ridden 1,035 winners and proceeded to land more than 750 races as a trainer, with his best horses including King’s Curate, winner of the 1991 Stayers’ Hurdle, and Pollardstown, in the race now known as the Aintree Hurdle in 1980.
Mellor’s big wins on the Flat included Al Trui in the 1985 Stewards’ Cup at Glorious
Goodwood, a race won yesterday by David O’Meara-trained Summerghand.
The Danny Tudhope-ridden 22-1 shot got up in the final strides to beat Kimifive a head. It was big-race compensation for Summerghand, who was beaten by a nose when second in the Wokingham Stakes at Royal Ascot.
Tudhope, who completed a double on John Quinn-trained Titan Rock, said: ‘He was very unlucky at Royal Ascot but it shows how good he is to come here to another big handicap.’
The Group Two Lillie Langtry Stakes was won for the second year running by John Gosden-trained Enbihaar.
The filly was the highlight of a great Glorious Goodwood for owner Sheik Hamdan Al Maktoum, whose five winners also included the King George Stakes with Battaash and Sussex Stakes with Mohaather.