Crowley takes fast lane from being champion to riding like one

At the risk of sending every anorak's toggles into a blur nationwide, there can surely never have been another rider such as Jim Crowley, who was champion jockey before he had partnered a winner at the Ebor meeting.

Doubtless some troglodyte who rarely emerges from his garden shed constructed entirely out of old form books will point out gleefully that Rutland-born Reg Sprigginbotham did the same in 1794. You are confusing me with someone who gives a monkey's.

Before last week Crowley had ridden more than 40 horses at Pickled Pork's August knees-up without ever troubling the judge, but he ended up with four winners including a performance of exaggerated cool on Ulysses in the Juddmonte International, York's first £1 million race.