Scottish-born Danny Tudhope is one of the most established riders in the weighing room and has made a habit of winning in partnership with the David O'Meara team.
Tudhope has won major races in Britain, Europe and beyond and will be hoping for more success at Royal Ascot this summer.
Watch every race across the five days from Tuesday 20th June to Saturday 24th June via the bet365 Sports Live Streaming platform.
What | Royal Ascot 2023 |
Where | Royal Ascot, Ascot Racecourse |
When | Tuesday 20th June - Saturday 24th June |
How to watch | bet365 Sports Live Streaming, ITV, Sky Sports Racing |
Tudhope grew up in Irvine in Ayrshire and did so in a family with no racing connections.
Indeed, his love of the horse was a slow burner and it wasn't until a careers advisor pointed him in the right direction that he considered life as a jockey at all.
After a Northern Racing college introduction, he regularly rode around ten horses every morning at Declan Carroll's Malton stable.
Having spent plenty time working with young horses, he put his new-found skills into practice on the racecourse, riding out his claim in two-and-a-half years.
With his claim gone, there was an inevitable dip in getting rides and he says a chance conversation brought him to what has proved the dream job as fellow rider Silvestre De Sousa urged him to come and ride out at O'Meara's yard.
That, said Tudhope years later, was 'the start of it all for me'.
Though he'd ridden his first winner in 2004, Tudhope's career really started to go places once he was in situ at O'Meara's base in Upper Helmsley near York.
In 2011, he won his first group race, the Group 2 Henry II Stakes on Blue Bajan, who also carried him to finish second in a Yorkshire Cup and third in the Goodwood Cup.
Big race successes continued to flow, with Custom Cut one of his loyal partners, before a top-level breakthrough.
In the autumn of 2014, he won his first and second victories at Group 1 level, via the Haydock Sprint Cup on G Force and the Prix de l'Abbaye on Move In Time, both for his boss O'Meara.
By that stage he'd topped a century of winners in a calendar year (2013) and careered through the £1million in prize-money in a single year (2014).
In the summer of 2019, Tudhope enjoyed a four-race winning tally at Royal Ascot, including Lord Glitters in the Queen Anne.
Now rapidly closing in on a decade since his association with O'Meara began, Tudhope say the partnership is as strong as ever and built on trust.
"Being an ex-jockey, he realises that when you're out on the track it's down to you," Tudhope told The Mirror. "If I get it wrong, he tells me. He's not one for lots of instructions and lets you use your initiative."
They'll be eager to get in on the act once more at the Berkshire venue this June.
Get Shirty is already a Royal Ascot winner, bagging the Copper Horse Stakes last June over a mile and six furlongs.
He was well held in last month's Yorkshire Cup on his comeback and could now take aim at the Group 2 Hardwick Stakes on 24th June, with a drop back in trip deemed likely.
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