Ryan Lee Moore (born 18 September 1983) is an English flat racingjockey, who was Champion Jockey in 2006, 2008 and 2009. He is currently the first choice jockey for Aidan O'Brien's Ballydoyle operation, a role in which he mainly rides horses owned by Coolmore Stud.[1] He also sometimes rides horses for Juddmonte and The Royal Family. As of 2023, Moore has ridden over 170 Group or Grade 1 winners internationally. He has the most British Group & Listed wins of any active jockey.
Moore is the son of successful trainer and former jump jockey Gary L. Moore, and brother to jump jockeys Jamie Moore and Joshua Moore, and top amateur jockey Hayley Moore. He has four children.
He is the grandson of trainer Charlie Moore, a well-known character who lived around the corner from Brighton Racecourse.[2] Charlie was also a second-hand car salesman, and many stories have circulated about his dual career, including how he swapped three truck tyres in exchange for a filly,[2] and how he started training when he accidentally bought a horse by raising his hand at auction.[3] He is also close to Gary's sister, his aunt Candy, who is also a jockey.[2]
Moore considers himself the laziest of the family.[4]
Career
Moore starting riding at four, having lessons at his grandad's and with the pony club. However, he didn't enjoy cross country and showjumping, finding it a "bit tame" when he wanted to be doing competitive racing instead.[3]National Hunt jockey AP McCoy rode for Moore's father when in his teens and Moore, aged 12, led him over hurdles as they schooled horses.[4] Moore was influenced by his drive and dedication.[3] "He wanted to ride everything in the yard. His work ethic was huge," he told an interviewer.[4]
Unlike his siblings, who knew from an early age that they wanted to race, this wasn't always clear to Moore. Football was another passion, and he had trials with Brighton and Hove Albion.[4]
Moore's first wins came as a 16-year-old, which is when he decided to take up racing as a career, although his mother Jayne tried to persuade him to stay at school and complete his A-levels believing he wouldn't make it in racing.[3] At one point, he too did not consider himself good enough.[4] During his A-levels, he was taking days off to ride, but this only lasted one term before he gave up.
Moore rode winners for his grandad before the latter died in 2000.[2] "I was close to him and won a couple of races before he died in 2000. I like to think it made him happy, that it brought him something at the end of his life. I'm glad he saw it."[3] At 16, he weighed 8st 10lb, but by the time he became champion apprentice he had to get down to 7st 13lb.
Richard Hannon
Moore's first mentor was Richard Hannon,[5] a trainer for whom he would still be winning big races when Hannon retired in 2013. He was sent to Hannon by his father. At the end of his first full season, he won the Cesarewitch Handicap and had Group race experience.[4]
His first major victory came for a different trainer, though, when he won the 2002 Cesarewitch Handicap for Martin Pipe on Miss Fara on 19 October 2002. He got his first black type victory later that same year when winning the Listed Jebel Ali Stakes in the United Arab Emirates shortly after Christmas 2002. He didn't score any major victories in 2003, and had a strike rate of under 10%,[6] but it was enough for him to become Champion Apprentice.
2004 saw him top 100 winners and £1 million in prize money for the first time and on 29 August, he won his first group race, the Group 3 Prestige Stakes at Goodwood. For Hannon, he then won his first Group 2 race, taking the Mill Reef Stakes on Galleota in September.[6]
Sir Michael Stoute
Increasingly, Moore rode for Sir Michael Stoute, sharing those duties with Kerrin McEvoy, Mick Kinane and others after Kieren Fallon quit as stable jockey to ride for Aidan O'Brien.[5] It was for Stoute he had his first Group 1 win, on Notnowcato in the Juddmonte International at York in August 2006. That year he won his first jockeys' title which came as a surprise to him. He had said that the odds of 8/1 on him becoming champion at the start of the season were too generous, but he had expected to finish third.[2] Commentators were suggesting that his "resilience and iron will should turn Moore into one of racing's iconic figures."[2] In 2006, he was riding at 8st 5lb most days.
In 2007, he rode Notnowcato to victory in the Tattersalls Gold Cup in Ireland, and in the Eclipse. For the latter race, Moore took the horse down the stands side, while the remainder of the field including odds-on favourite and Derby winner Authorized and George Washington raced on the other side of the track.[2]
In that year, Stoute horses gave him 47 of his 126 wins,[dubious–discuss] overtaking Hannon (33 winners) as his primary stable.[5] Moore spent three months injured during the season, preventing him from retaining his title, but a late season crop of victories meant he still finished third in the jockeys table.[5]
These efforts were rewarded when he was offered the job as stable jockey at the end of the 2007 season, while he was in Tokyo, riding Papal Bull in the Japan Cup. Hannon meanwhile would make more use of his son-in-law Richard Hughes (jockey), after his retainer with Khaled Abdullah came to an end.[5] Moore would later say of Stoute, "he's just a very clever man – an unbelievable brain."[3]
On the Thursday of Glorious Goodwood in 2007, Moore won four races, including the Goodwood Cup on Allegretto. [7] It is thought he would have won the 2007 jockeys' championship if he hadn't broken his arm in a fall.[3] He would win it again in 2008.
Over the course of 2009 and 2010, he swept the big races of the world. He won at the Breeders' Cup in the autumn after sealing a third jockeys' title. Then he won the 2010 Derby on Workforce in a course record time,[3] and the Oaks on consecutive days. He crowned the year with another win on Workforce in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. A broken wrist cost him another chance at the jockeys' title, but he was already being spoken of as an all-time great by some commentators.[4] Former jockey Willie Carson suggested he could be as good as Lester Piggott and predicted he would recapture the jockeys' title in 2011. [10]
However, his attention was beginning to shift from pursuing the title, to concentrating on fewer, bigger races instead. He clarified that with a family, he was no longer keen to travel the country in pursuit of another title. He said, "The big races are becoming a massive draw for me. That's the way it has happened with a lot of top jockeys... I understand why Frankie [Dettori] competes in fewer races. It's understandable, with our schedule."[3] His chances of winning the title took a blow in any case, when he missed two months after injuring himself at Goodwood in July.[citation needed]
O'Brien was rumoured to be lining up Moore as stable jockey from November 2011. Moore was keen on the job, but reluctant to move his family from Newmarket to County Tipperary. They negotiated a compromise that allowed Moore to live in England, while riding for O'Brien in Ireland at the major meetings.[citation needed]
Instead, O'Brien's son Joseph became the main rider for Ballydoyle. Moore rode for O'Brien when the trainer had multiple runners. In that way he won the 2012 1,000 Guineas on Homecoming Queen and the 2013 Derby on Ruler Of The World. [11]
He finished fourth in the jockeys' championship of 2012, and runner-up in 2013, behind Richard Hughes.[12] He again finished runner-up in the jockeys' championship of 2014.[12]
By 2015, Joseph O'Brien, at nearly 6ft tall, was struggling to make the weight to ride in the major races and his father Aidan needed a replacement. In April, it was confirmed that Moore would ride Ballydoyle's runners in the Classics and other significant races. O'Brien explained the arrangement thus: "Ryan will be riding our main horses this year and Joseph will be riding other horses when the weights allow him to. Seamie Heffernan and Colm O’Donoghue will also be involved as in the past."[11]
By the end of the 2017 season, Moore had won over 2,000 races in Britain, the third most of all active jockeys, behind only Frankie Dettori and Joe Fanning, both of whom had been riding for a decade longer.[13]
Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf – (6) – Wrote (2011), George Vancouver (2012), Hit It A Bomb (2015), Mendelssohn (2017), Victoria Road (2022), Unquestionable (2023)
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