How to ride from the front

Can't be arsed to look through YouTube but for me the jockey par excellence for being able to time a race in his head to perfection from the front was Steve Cauthen. No contest.
 
Cauthen was good but Lester was a genius from the front - as he showed when riding the pants off Cauthen in the 1985 Benson and Hedges Gold Cup when Commanche Run saw off Oh So Sharp

And let's remember Alleged in the 1977 Arc too
 
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Ardross said:
What ??? This shows that the jockeys behind gave the horse way too much rope nothing much else unless you backed the winner
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I know, just enjoyable front running performance. Hardly times his sectionals, horse just sprints a mile.
 
Ardross said:
Cauthen was good but Lester was a genius from the front - as he showed when riding the pants off Cauthen in the 1985 Benson and Hedges Gold Cup when Commanche Run saw off Oh So Sharp

And let's remember Alleged in the 1977 Arc too
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Cauthen did it much more often, though. Any decent jockey can do it now and again...
 
steve cauthen was superb at front running as many american jockeys are they do seem to have clocks in there head.
 
I don't mean to diminish Cauthen's ability - only Frankie of today's jockeys has a similar clock in his head . Cauthen did it a lot more often after Lester retired ! I was interested to hear Geoff Wragg opining that had Lester still been riding he felt Most Welcome would have won the Derby.

Vincent O Brien pointed out that in fact it was Lester who changed British racing by making the running when nobody else went on .

This gets forgotten because he was so good at bringing horses late . In a way that Spencer and Hughes try to imitate but with far less consistent results .

Consider Sir Ivor, El Gran Senor and Dancing Brave . Only one jockey got that type of ride right in the Derby . Eddery too close to the pace and Starkey far too far off it.
 
Two that spring to mind as good judges up front where P Robinson and the south african guy who's name......doesn't spring to mind at the moment :whistle:
 
another great rider from the front if anyone remembers was p robinsons father but i was just at school at the time thats my story anyway.
 
Look no further than the efforts of Michael Hills and Jimmy Fortune in the Sandown Classic Trial today for evidence of two fine front-running rides.
 
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