Australia's greatest Jockey......RIP

[mighty_tiger_79]

RAY THOMAS - adelaidenow.com.au
January 08, 2008 09:50pm

GEORGE Moore, the greatest jockey in Australian racing history, passed away in a Sydney nursing home tonight. He was 84.

The racing legend has in poor health in recent months his family said last month his condition was continuing to deteriorate.
His son, Gary, a former champion jockey himself and now a leading trainer in Macau, said recently that his father had been enduring failing health for some time and was suffering from advanced Alzheimer's Disease.

Moore, an original Australian racing Hall of Fame inductee in 2001, has had two bypasses, a mild stroke and underwent a leg amputation in recent years.

Moore, 84, won a record 119 Group One races in Australia in his hugely successful riding career. He teamed with legendary trainer Tommy Smith, to form the most successful trainer-jockey combination in Australian racing history.

Born in Mackay in 1923, he began his riding career in Brisbane in 1939 and won the jockeys premiership there four years later.

He moved to Sydney the following year and became the most dominant rider Sydney racing has scene, winning an record 10 jockeys premierships between 1957 and 1969.

Moore was a stylist in the saddle with the "softest" hands, which earned him the nickname "Cotton Fingers".

Ron Quinton, who won eight Sydney premierships to be second only to Moore, said he was saddened to hear of the great jockey's passing.

"George Moore was the great champion when I was starting off my career," said Quinton, who has also been afforded Hall of Fame status.

"He was the one I looked up to and learned a lot from. All the young jockeys in my time looked up to George.

"He was a very tough competitor but I got on very well with him. I admired him greatly.

"During my career, I was lucky to ride all over the world and I rode against and have seen all the great jockeys of my time from Lester Piggott to Darren Beadman but I can honestly say there has been none better than George Moore. He was the best jockey I have ever seen."

Quinton's thoughts echoed those of Bob Rowles, the venerable on-course supervisor of Sydney jockeys for the last 62 years, who rated rated Moore as the best jockey he had seen in an interview with

The Daily Telegraph last weekk.

"The best of them all was definitely George Moore," Rowles said. "He would have been a success no matter what he took up. He was the most intelligent jockey I've seen.".

Moore won two Cox Plates, two Golden Slippers, three Sydney Cups, five AJC Australian Derbies, two Victoria Derbies, three Doncasters, two Epsoms, three Stradbrokes, five Doomben 10,000s and three Doomben Cups

To his great regret, he never won either a Melbourne Cup or a Caulfield Cup.

Moore proved himself on the international stage, winning the 1967 Epsom Derby on Royal Palace and the 1959 Prix de L'Arc de Triomphe on Saint Crespin.

He also won the French Derby, English 1000 and 2000 Guineas and the Ascot Gold Cup. Moore later became a leading trainer in Hong Kong.

Moore rode some of the greatest champions of his era, both in Australian and overseas, but always maintained the Smith-trained Tulloch was the greatest racehorse he ever rode.

It was fitting that Moore, Smith and Tulloch were original Hall of Fame inductees.

When Moore retired from the saddle in 1971, he had won 2278 races including a record 119 Group One events in Australia alone.

He then took out a trainer's licence in Hong Kong and won the premiership there 11 times in 13 years before he retired sr ras 0 oremiersrp a cord dinhw

His achievements in racing were acknowledged with the introduction of the George Moore Medal, presented annually to Sydney's outstanding jockey

[bayman]

he'll never be forgotten because someone somewhere around australia at a racemeeting will be heard to say "he has george moores whistle"

rip george