Luke Morris - England`s busiest jockey has arrived on the Olympus
You read his name a lot, he has also been successful in Germany many times, but still he has not been considered one of the absolute stars among the international saddle artists. His riding style is also very effective, but also unusual. But Luke Morris has arrived in the elite league since the Arc triumph with Alpinista 2022.
Morris is regarded as one of the busiest riders in England, having covered countless miles for thousands of rides. For Morris, whose cousin Ryan Tate, uncle Jason Tate and grandfather Joe Tate were also jockeys, putting petrol in his car was never a problem.
He moved to Newmarket as a child and graduated from the British Racing School before apprenticing with Michael Bell and taking his first win with Caerphilly Gal at Southwell in November 2005.
A first much-heralded win came for the Bell-trained Juniper Girl in the Northumberland Plate in 2007, while Clive Cox provided the rider`s first success at the highest level when Gilt Edge Girl won the Prix de l`Abbaye at the Arc weekend 12 years ago.
That was the first season Morris competed in more than 1,000 British races, something he has done for the last 11 seasons, leading to the old joke that you shouldn`t buy a used car from him. It was around this time that his relationship with Alpinista`s coach Sir Mark Prescott - a fascinating character and as obsessed with the sport as the Oxford native - began to grow stronger. It was cemented in 2016 when Marsha was another Abbaye hero for Morris, who also won the Nunthorpe race the following year with the star sprinter.
Those triumphs enabled the 33-year-old jockey to climb to the top while he would have been used to less glamorous places. He has ridden at Chelmsford, Southwell, Lingfield, Kempton and Wolverhampton more than anywhere else.
Although all-weather racing will forever remain a stepchild of turf racing in Britain, Morris`s diligence and successes have ensured that his name keeps appearing in the headlines and he has earned a reputation as a man who does his job well.
He`s not flamboyant or swashbuckling, but Morris has long been a thoroughly decent, admired member of the jockey parlour who could ride on the moon, but would still check with his long-time agent Neil Allan to see if there was a seat available on the way home at Chelmsford. After a fabulous afternoon on his first arc ride, however, he will have to come back down to earth. But he will manage that without a hitch.
