Joe Mercer obituary

The jockey Joe Mercer, who has died aged 86 of a heart attack, rode 2,810 winners in Britain between 1950 and 1985. Beyond that bare statistic is a list of stellar horses, notably the incomparable Brigadier Gerard, who ran in 18 races between 1970 and 1972 and was beaten only once.

Riding Bustino against Grundy at Ascot in July 1975, Mercer played a leading role in a contest that still brings tears to racing fans’ eyes, and the roll-call of memorable horses to have benefited from the skills of this exemplary horseman includes Highclere, Kris, Le Moss, Buckskin and Time Charter.

He was the great stylist of the weighing room. “Just watch carefully the next time Joe Mercer gets involved in a finish on television,” wrote the journalist John Oaksey. “In my carefully considered opinion it is very hard indeed to believe that a more effective, more stylish or more aesthetically satisfying method exists of persuading a thoroughbred horse to go faster.”

Of the five English Classics, only the Derby eluded him, though he finished runner-up in that race twice. His first Classic victory came while he was still an apprentice, and the eight-strong roll of honour reads: 1,000 Guineas on the Queen’s filly Highclere (1974 – she also won the Prix de Diane) and One in a Million (1979); 2,000 Guineas on Brigadier Gerard (1971); Oaks on Ambiguity (1953); and St Leger on Provoke (1965), Bustino (1974), Light Cavalry (1980) and Cut Above (1981 – who beat Shergar).

Of those eight winners, five were trained by Dick Hern, for whom Mercer rode as stable jockey from 1962 to 1976, and two by Henry Cecil, his association with whom helped him to win the jockeys’ championship, for the only time, in 1979 at the age of 45.

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One of eight children (four boys, four girls) of a coach painter, Emmanuel Mercer, and his wife, Jessie, Joseph was born in Bradford. His elder brother Manny shared his love of all things equine – including riding donkeys on the beach when the family had decamped for the summer – and was himself a brilliant jockey until killed in a freak accident at Ascot in 1959.

On Manny’s recommendation, Joe was apprenticed to the trainer Major Fred Sneyd, his first winner coming on Eldoret at Bath in September 1950. He was champion apprentice in 1953, by which time he had won his first Classic: Ambiguity in the 1953 Oaks.

Ambiguity was trained by Jack Colling at West Ilsley in Berkshire, where Mercer became stable jockey, and he remained in that position when Hern took over in 1962.

By the end of the 1960s Mercer was one of the leading jockeys of his generation, but suffered a major setback on a trip to ride in India, when he failed to declare possession of two diamonds. He spent several weeks in prison, his mood lightened by letters from West Ilsley, which sung the praises of a talented two-year-old. His name was Brigadier Gerard.

“When I returned to the yard,” he remembered, “I learned that he had already made something of a reputation for himself. Everybody who had ridden him had been thrown off – just the once – as if he was saying: ‘I’m the boss.’ The first time I rode him he did the same to me: he just whipped round, dropped his shoulder, dumped me on the ground and stood there looking at me: ‘That’s your place, down there!’”

Mercer went on to ride Brigadier Gerard in all his 18 races. This wonderful colt was unbeaten in four outings as a two-year-old, notably the prestigious Middle Park Stakes at Newmarket in 1970; six as a three-year-old, including the fabled demolition of Mill Reef and My Swallow in the 2,000 Guineas; and eight as a four-year-old, including after surviving a plane crash. Brigadier Gerard’s one defeat came when beaten by Derby winner Roberto in the inaugural Benson & Hedges Gold Cup (now the Juddmonte International) at York.

If Brigadier Gerard is indisputably the finest horse that Mercer rode, there is equally no argument about the greatest race in which he took part: the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes showdown at Ascot in July 1975 between Grundy, who had won the Derby a few weeks earlier, and the 1974 St Leger winner Bustino, who, like Brigadier Gerard, had been ridden in all his races by Mercer, most recently winning the Coronation Cup. It was the quintessential battle between Grundy’s acceleration and Bustino’s stamina, and it did not disappoint.

The Bustino camp hatched a strategy deploying not one but two pacemakers in order to take the sting out of Grundy’s speed – and the scheme nearly worked, with the two horses hammer and tongs up the Ascot straight, Bustino now getting the upper hand, now Grundy. “Grundy got to me but he couldn’t get past,” Mercer recalled later. It took a long time for Grundy to get to Bustino’s head, but gradually the younger horse started to go clear. “For a moment Bustino started to get back, but I knew in my heart of hearts that he wouldn’t make it, and his one final effort petered out as Grundy went clear to win by half a length.”

No wonder Mercer declared the contest “A great, great race, even though we’d lost” – and no wonder that Hugh McIlvanney’s Observer column described the 1975 King George as “a glittering, flawless example of horse racing at its most irresistible”.

In 1976 Mercer was controversially fired from West Ilsley in favour of Willie Carson, and he moved to Cecil’s yard in Newmarket. He remained with Cecil until 1980. His last ride – and last winner – came on Bold Rex in the 1985 November Handicap at Doncaster. He was appointed OBE for services to horse racing in 1980.

In 1959 Mercer married Anne Carr, daughter of the royal jockey Harry Carr. She survives him, along with their three children, Henry, Sarah and Joe Jr.