Hawick jockey Jason Hart notches up 1,000th British race win
Hawick jockey Jason Hart has racked up his 1,000th British win, three weeks on making it into four figures all together.
That milestone first-placed finish arrived on Sunday at York Racecourse on Rhapsody at 9-2 in the 5pm Sky Bet Build a Bet Fillies’ Handicap for Suffolk trainer William Haggas.
The three-year-old chestnut filly completed that one-mile-plus race three-quarters of a length ahead of 5-2 favourite Revelance, ridden by Hector Crouch for Ralph Beckett’s Hampshire yard, to notch up her second victory to date and a top prize of £15,462, as well as taking the Borderer past the 1,000 mark.
“I am delighted to get to 1,000 British winners,” said Hart, based in Malton in North Yorkshire these days.
“It just shows that hard work beats talent if talent doesn’t work hard.
“A massive thanks to each and every owner and trainer I’ve worked with but more so my agent, Alan Harrison, who has booked me on every ride I have ever had.”
That latest landmark result follows the 30-year-old racking up his 1,000th win all told on Rock of England, trained by York’s Paul Midgley, at 7-1 over five furlongs at Beverley in East Yorkshire on Thursday, August 14.
It comes 14 years on from Hart’s first win on Spice Bar at Ripon in North Yorkshire in August 2011 for Declan Carroll’s nearby Malton stables.
His racing career started after joining Mark Johnston’s Middleham yard in North Yorkshire at the age of 15 and he notched up six further wins in his debut season following that breakthrough at Beverley, 18 the year after and 51 in 2013, earning him that last year’s champion apprentice jockey title.
More recently, he’s ridden more than 100 winners in four of the last five years, including a career-best 111 in 2023, though he’s now on course to top that after hitting a century sooner into the season than ever before, with 641 rides under his belt as of Monday.
Hart rates the late Highfield Princess as his all-time favourite among the hundreds of horses he’s been matched up with, having ridden her to 13 wins for John and Sean Quinn’s Malton yard from 2020 to 2023, including four group-one victories – one at York, one in Ireland’s County Kildare and two in France – saying: “Highfield Princess is the best I’ve ridden.”
Hart was back in action at Newcastle on Monday but had to settle for placing seventh and tenth, on Mind Over Matter for the Quinns and We Still Believe for Dumfries and Galloway trainer Daragh Bourke respectively.
That latter race, the one-mile 6.40pm Sky Sports Racing Virgin 519 Handicap, was won by fellow Hawick jockey Rhys Elliott on Sassy Glory at 6-1 for North Yorkshire trainer Mark Walford, earning prize money of £3,245.