Legendary jockey Lester Piggott’s role in the success of Wakefield-owned sprinter and York big race winner Haveroid

A nine-time Derby winner, the “housewives’ choice”, who cost the bookies a small fortune down the years simply because “Lester’s riding it”.

As others have said, if you wrote a book of his life, parts of it would seem too far-fetched to be true.

My own memories of Piggott, who died in Switzerland yesterday aged 86, are largely down to television footage I have seen over the years.

When I first became interested in horse racing in the late 1980s, Piggott had just been jailed for tax evasion.

But after spending a year inside, he came out of retirement, returned to the saddle and in 1990 produced one of the greatest rides of his storied career, as he got Royal Academy up to win the Breeders’ Cup Mile in Kentucky – at the age of 54.

As my own riding hero Kieren Fallon said yesterday, “everyone has a Lester Piggott story” and this one is mine by association.

Haveroid, was a sprinter owned by the late Tommy Newton, a successful builder and businessman.

Mr Newton was also the founder of Painthorpe House Country Club and his horse was named after the lane which runs down the side of the former entertainment venue in the village just outside Wakefield.

As a student, I worked at Painthorpe some years after Haveroid’s career, but it was still a story of great pride to the family and staff who could remember events of the time.

Apparently Piggott, as was his wont, rang Mr Newton to “tell” him he would be riding the speedy two-year-old in the City of York Stakes at the Ebor Meeting in the long hot summer of 1976.

The horse, trained by Neil Adam at Melton Mowbray, was sent off a 7-1 chance in the seven-runner field.

The race was run on the same day as the Gimcrack Stakes and having piloted Haveroid to a one-length success over The Andrestan (4-1), Piggott – who now has a statue at York – dismounted and told the family: “You’d have won the Gimcrack if you had run it in that.”

Twelve months later, the two parties’ paths would cross again on the Knavesmire, this time in the then William Hill Sprint Trophy, which is now the Group 1 Coolmore Nunthorpe Stakes.

This time Piggott was riding Godswalk, for legendary Irish trainer Vincent O’Brien and owner Robert Sangster, while Haveroid was the mount of Eddie Hide, who had won the race in 1974 on Michael Stoute’s Blue Cashmere and then again in 1976 on Lochnager for Sheriff Hutton trainer Mick Easterby.

Godswalk was sent off the odds-on favourite and was always up with the leaders and looked the likely winner as they passed the two furlong pole.

But the O’Brien horse began to struggle in the closing stages and he was eventually caught in the shadow of the post by Hide and Haveroid to the delight of the Newton family and friends who had travelled to York in numbers to watch the race.

The William Hill trophy was presented to Mr Newton’s wife Elsie by the Yorkshire and England cricketer Geoffrey Boycott, with the owner himself deciding to stay back at home in Wakefield as the damp weather wasn’t to his liking on that famous day.

The picture of Haveroid’s finest hour was given to my friend’s father, a keen horse racing fan, following the death of Mr Newton’s son Malcolm.

It now hangs in his house, along with one of the legendary Piggott on Haveroid as a two-year-old, as permanent reminders of one Wakefield family’s association with the man known throughout the sport as The Long Fellow.