This will be my final ride on a racecourse says Leger Legend Richard Johnson

IT was so typical of Richard Johnson that he announced his retirement in early April when racing was least expecting it – and when there were also no crowds present to give the former champion jump jockey the send-off that he so richly deserved.

Yet it was also illustrative of his commitment to the sport that made him, and his weighing room calls, that he also agreed, within hours of hanging up his riding boots, to appear in the Mondialiste Leger Legends Classified Stakes, the now traditional day one highlight of Doncaster’s flagship St Leger meeting.

And while Johnson wants the focus to be on the Injured Jockeys Fund’s Jack Berry House and the National Horseracing College, the two beneficiaries of today’s one mile Flat race between 13 former riders, it is also racing’s chance, now the lockdown has been lifted, to salute one of sport’s all-time greats.

“It will be a one-time only ride,” Johnson stressed after reflecting on a career that yielded nearly 4,000 winners and which has only been bettered by his great friend and rival Sir AP McCoy. “It will be the last time you will see me in the saddle on a racecourse.”

Widely lauded as the most respected rider in racing, there was little inkling that Johnson intended to retire when he partnered the Sue and Harvey Smith-trained Small Present to victory at Doncaster on March 6 this year.

Yet he said yesterday that he had, by then, already decided to retire on the spot if he had a big race victory at the Cheltenham Festival 10 days later – ideally after regaining the blue riband Gold Cup on Native River.

And when that dream did not come true, Johnson then decided to bow out at a crowd-less Newton Abbot on April 3 – ideally after riding a winner for his long-term trainer and supporter Philip Hobbs.

Again racing’s fates proved fickle and denied Johnson a much-deserved farewell success before his decision to retire there and then became public. Yet, as the 44-year-old struggled to hold back the tears, he was already being cajoled to race at Doncaster today.

The call, he said, came from former Gold Cup-winning rider Andrew Thornton just 90 minutes after Johnson thought he had retired. “He left a message to say will I ride in the charity race at Doncaster?” said Johnson. “Knowing him, he probably tried to get through even sooner but the phone was quite busy at the time.”

He also had no qualms in accepting the invite. For, while Johnson says he was fortunate to avoid serious injury in a professional career that spanned a quarter of a century in one of the toughest sports of all, he knows how much Jack Berry House in Malton, and IJF sister sites in Lambourn and Newmarket, help injured riders. “The sport is very fortunate to have them,” he said.

And while it is clear that his competitive instincts remain – he’s been riding out this week on Olly Murphy’s gallops ahead of the Leger Legends ride on Greek Kodiak – Johnson is clearly content to have retired from the sport on his terms and at a time of his choosing.

He’s been spending time with his three children, working on the family farm and developing his breeding operation. He’s also doing ambassadorial work for Arena Racing Company whose portfolio of courses includes Doncaster.

The toughest moment, he says, was when the Hobbs-trained Thyme Hill, a horse that he had ridden to a number of big race successes, landed the Grade One Ryanair Stayers Hurdle at Aintree on the day of the Randox Grand National.

Yet any regrets were shortlived because he was proud that the horse had rewarded the faith of the Hobbs team and provided Tom O’Brien, his long-time understudy, with a big race success. “I was delighted for Tom to get going,” added Johnson.

“That was the hardest part so far and I am sure there will be similar frustrations in winter when the season gets going. But the main thing is that I can look back, and be thankful for what I achieved.”

It is also a sentiment that will be shared by the whole of racing today.