Cartier Awards: Jeff Smith lands Daily Telegraph Award of Merit

Jeff Smith, the longstanding owner-breeder and a byword within racing for loyalty, scooped the Daily Telegraph Award of Merit at the 33rd Cartier Awards on Thursday night.

Smith, who snuck into the now defunct Alexandra Park as a boy, came into racing with no background apart from reading about it in newspapers.

But it became a passion and his success in business - he was chief executive and now chairman of aircraft interior manufacturer AIM - allowed him to indulge in it.

His first horse, Rush Bond, won a maiden in 1976. In 1981 it went up a notch when Saher, trained by Ron Sheather, won the Lincoln. He bought Sheather - who would go on to become his racing manager - Park Lodge Stables in Newmarket and when Chief Singer was syndicated as a stallion he offered Sheather the yard as a gift.

Chief Singer won Royal Ascot’s Coventry Stakes by four lengths on debut and was second in the 1984 Guineas before winning the St James’s Palace, July Cup and Sussex Stakes.

He bought Littleton Stud in Hampshire in the early 1980s. From there, Dashing Blade became his first homebred Group One winner while Pickitts Well bred him two Nunthorpe winners; Lochsong and Lochangel.

Longsong, trained by Ian Balding, was virtually untrainable at three but won some big sprint handicaps at four before winning two Prix de L’Abbayes and a Nunthorpe. She was Cartier Horse of the Year in 1993. Lochangel was also very quick but is best known for being one of Frankie Dettori’s Magnificent Seven at Ascot in 1996.

When Smith’s Grey Shot won the Goodwood Cup, no-one realised the significance of his other runner - the giant three-year-old Persian Punch. He would return to win the race in 2001 aged eight and in 2003 aged 10 but in between became one of the most popular stayers of all time, winning 13 times at Group level. Beaten by a head in the Gold Cup and third in two Melbourne Cups, he was twice voted Cartier Stayer.

More recent success has come through Arabian Queen, who inflicted a rare defeat on Golden Horn in the 2015 Juddmonte International and Alcohol Free, who won the Sussex Stakes 37 years after Chief Singer.

Not only has Smith, 77, remained loyal to his trainers - David Elsworth’s last runner carried his silks - but in the case of Ian Balding and James Eustace, who took over from Sheather at Park Lodge, he has stuck with their sons, Andrew and Harry respectively.

Beyond owning and breeding he was treasurer of the Injured Jockeys Fund for 15 years and Chairman of Salisbury where he remains a director.

Interviewed by Channel 4 Racing once, he said: “You can look out there (Littleton Stud) and nobody on the planet knows whether it’s the Derby winner, the Oaks winner, or the Guineas winner, or whatever winner, or just a field of losers. That’s the attraction.

“Some are better looking than others, but what’s inside? Has one of them got Persian Punch’s heart? Has another got Lochsong’s character? Or is one of them just pure and simple a champion like Chief. Singer? You only find out on the racetrack, which is the way it was always intended.”