‘These opportunities don’t come round very often for a young lad’: meet the ‘disbelieving’ 20-year-old bidding for Grade One glory

Having long been regarded as a rising star of the weighing room, 20-year-old jump jockey Freddie Gordon hit the horseracing headlines last month when riding a hat-trick of winners for his trainer father Chris Gordon at Haydock Park, including a brace of Graded races.

During this remarkable “day to remember”, Freddie also rode out his claim having notched up his landmark 75th winner.

“I was in disbelief because in my career I haven’t won many big races and I’ve never won a Grade Two race,” says Freddie. “Having three big winners on a single day – on a Saturday – was amazing. Every jockey wants to be riding in these big races and these big meetings, but these opportunities don’t come round very often for a young lad, so I didn’t believe it would happen.

“It was a crazy day. I knew my old man was going to give me quite a few more rides this season, but I didn’t know we would enjoy quite such a good start. He’s had more winners already this season than we did for the whole of last season, so I’m just very lucky to be riding his horses.”

Freddie Gordon’s life before racing

Freddie was more interested in football than horses growing up, but learnt his trade in pony racing before progressing to the point-to-point circuit, winning his first race at the age of 16.

“I used to score lots of goals, but I think it was only because I played in a very bad Sunday league!” he says. “It was only when I joined a better football team that I realised actually I wasn’t that good!

“I wasn’t particularly great at school either, so I thought I might as well make good use of what my parents do and try to make something out of horses, so I was around 12 when I announced I wanted to start riding.

“I probably rushed into pony racing a bit quickly – I think mum and dad were so happy that I finally wanted to ride that they wanted to help me enjoy it as much as I could, so within six months of learning to ride I was in a pony race.

“It didn’t go to plan though. I got bolted with down to the start, I did a circuit on my own, then when we finally got to the start the pony refused to race. My mum thought that was it, the end of my riding career, but luckily I stuck with it and it’s gone quite well since!”

Freddie Gordon’s racing career

Early on in his riding career, Freddie joined training behemoth Paul Nicholls, switching from amateur to conditional rider at the time. He joined Nicky Henderson’s Seven Barrows yard three years ago and rides out for his dad one day a week.

“The two yards are obviously very different, so it’s a great experience – nowhere else would you get to ride the sort of horses I’m riding at Nicky’s every day, they’re unbelievably good,” he says. “My riding has improved massively.”

Among his other notable successes along the way, Freddie celebrated his 18th birthday by riding his first ever winner at Cheltenham and racked up a treble at Ascot, Kempton and Cheltenham with the Nicky Henderson-trained East India Express. He also picks out winning the Great Yorkshire Chase at Doncaster last year on his father’s Annual Invictus as another highlight, describing representing the family business in the big races as “one of the best feelings you can have in racing”.

One of his favourite horses from his father’s stable is the six-year-old Jorebel and the pair have scored in five of their past six races.

“Hopefully he’s got more to come, too,” says Freddie.

Winning a Grade One is next on this talented young horseman’s checklist and, after a particularly successful summer season, Freddie now holds a strong lead in this season’s conditional jockeys’ championship, with an outstanding winning strike rate of more than 30%.

“Diamond Hunter, one of my winners at Haydock the other day, is entered for the Grade One at Aintree on Boxing Day, he should run a blinder in that, fingers crossed,” he says.

The racing world, it seems, is Freddie’s oyster.

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