how can greatness be defined beyond argument?

​As with everyone ‘not in know’, I was caught by surprise at Richard Johnson’s decision to retire. Announcing the end of his career at Newton Abbot rather than at Cheltenham or Aintree I can understand. He is a man of great modesty; fanfares are not his style. But prior to Cheltenham, when commenting on Thyme Hill’s late withdrawal from the Stayers’ Hurdle through a minor injury, he said he still had to him look forward to in novice chases. I was expecting him to carry on for at least another season. In fact, it would not have surprised me if he had rode until he was fifty; if only to beat McCoy’s record number of winners.
Whether he will figure fifty-years down the line as one of the greatest National Hunt jockeys of all-time is not for any of us to comment upon. We cannot predict the future; there may be a whole host of budding genius riders who at the moment are riding in pony races and wishing their schooldays away. But if John Randall or others were to compile their top twenty jump jockeys of the last hundred-years, Richard Johnson must be a contender for the top ten. His record in the major races will compare favourably with the great jockeys of the thirties, forties, fifties and sixties, even if it pales in comparison to the achievements of Ruby Walsh, Barry Geraghty and A.P. McCoy. And he rode more winners than every jockey to have held a licence except the force of nature that was McCoy.
John Randall famously wrote than high numbers are a description of quantity not quality, or words to that effect, but if McCoy had not been around at the same time as Johnson it is conceivable that instead of being best of the rest sixteen-times, seventeen if you include finishing second to Brian Hughes last season, Johnson might have won the jockeys’ title twenty-times, the same number as his adversary and friend McCoy. And we do not disparage McCoy’s reputation based on high number of wins and not so many major successes as Walsh and Geraghty, do we?
I make the last point as someone on the dear old internet, that mystical forum for rank ignorance and prejudice, replied to my comment that Johnson was a great jockey and a better human being, with ‘he’ll never be as great a jockey as Walsh, Geraghty or McCoy’, except he couldn’t be bothered to reach for the caps lock so his wisdom was conveyed in lower case, which is where I registered his opinion – in the lower case, out of sight.
Of course, he has a right to his opinion but he could have framed it in a kinder, more cogent manner, praising his achievements and longevity, the faultless way in which he conducted himself, the esteem in which he will always be held by the racing public. Not that Richard Johnson will lose any sleep over the prejudiced comments of a miserly fellow.
So how can true greatness be gauged? If high numbers do not cut-it, can greatness only be attributed by winning the major races? Johnson did win all the major races except the Grand National, a race that eluded a good number of the ‘greats’, though he was second twice, agonisingly on What’s Up Boys, for me as well as connections as I had backed him to win a nice amount of money. Ruby Walsh also won all the big races, including the Grand National twice, winning the Cheltenham championship races multiple times. But he had the advantage of riding a far higher class of horse year-on, year-in, than any jockey before and, with the exception of his successor Paul Townend, for doubtless long into the future. I once said, when McCoy was largely riding only Martin Pipe’s horses, that Ruby Walsh never rode a bad horse and McCoy never rode a good one. That changed when McCoy became J.P.’s retained rider but who can say that if Richard Johnson was first jockey to Willie Mullins for twenty-years that he would not have equalled Ruby’s achievements?
And would Ruby have won the Stayers’ Hurdle on Anzum? Or the Gold Cup on Native River? Richard Johnson was never-say-die; he won races others would not have because he saw hard work as a privilege. He never flagged, never waved the white flag, a hundred-per-cent was the minimal amount of effort he was prepared to bring to the job. To my mind, he was the exemplar of what a jockey should be. If that is not the definition of greatness then a don’t have the answer. More importantly, though, and judging him solely as a man and not a sportsman, he was an exemplar of the human being. I hope his retirement is kind to him.