Richard Johnson was born on 21 July 1977. He rode his first winner at Hereford – which is his local track – in April 1994 aboard Rusty Bridge, who was trained by his mother Sue.
Aged 18 – a year after his first winner – he was crowned champion conditional jockey in 1995/96.
He then began his career as an amateur jockey riding for trainer David Nicholson. It was for Nicholson that he rode his first Cheltenham Festival winner Anzum in the 1999 Stayers Hurdle, which is now known as the World Hurdle.
He has ridden 18 Cheltenham Festival winners in total, including the Gold Cup on the Noel Chance-trained Looks Like Trouble in 2000, the Queen Mother Champion Chase in 2002 on Flagship Uberalles and the 2003 Champion Hurdle on Rooster Booster.
Richard Johnson will always be known as the “one who came second to AP McCoy.” He has been runner up in 14 jockey championships – second to AP McCoy on all 14 occasions.
However he is one of only three active jump jockeys to have ridden winners in the four championship races at the Cheltenham Festival, the other two being Barry Geraghty and Ruby Walsh.
He reached the 2000th winner milestone in December 2009 aboard Fighting Chance in a handicap chase at Newbury.
Richard is the retained stable jockey for the National Hunt trainer Philip Hobbs, but also rides regularly for National Hunt trainer Henry Daly.
Richard is yet to win the Grand National.
He is married to Fiona, daughter of Gold Cup-winning trainer Noel Chance. The couple have two children called Willow and Casper.
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