Malton trainer, Richard Fahey and North Yorkshire-based jockey, Graham Lee won their respective races for the Sky Bet Trophies presented to the leading trainer and jockey who record the most number of winners on the Yorkshire racecourses during the 2014 Flat season, which concluded at Doncaster on Saturday, November 8. 

Fahey wins the trainers’ award for the fifth time, retaining his title with a record number of winners – 79 on the county’s racecourses – breaking his own record of 70 winners set in 2009. David O’Meara (based near Helmsley) was his nearest challenger with 47 winners. 

It was much closer in the battle to be the leading rider on the county’s tracks, with Lee and Paul Mulrennan both finishing on 49 winners; Lee takes the award for the first time by virtue of having more second places. Lee’s winner on Lady Tiana on the final day at Doncaster was enough to see him over the line. The former Grand National-winning rider is a previous winner of the award for being the top rider during a Jumps season in Yorkshire. In fact, he has won the county’s Jumps award on three occasions (2004/05, 2005/06 and 2007/08). His transformation to a leading exponent of riding on the Flat has been emphasised this year, with a tally of 129 winners as a whole during the British campaign, resulting in him being crowned the ‘Cock O’ The North’ as the leading northern-based rider of 2014.

The trophies will be presented at the ‘Go Racing in Yorkshire’ Annual Awards Lunch on December 18 at York Racecourse, an event also sponsored by Sky Bet.