WITH almost 2,000 winners to his name, few Scottish jockeys have enjoyed a fraction of the success Brian York has, yet only the most knowledgeable racing student is likely to have even heard of him.
If, however, he has slipped under the radar in his native land, it's a different story on the other side of the world where the sublime skills the 46 year-old once displayed in the saddle established him as one of the giants of the Australian turf.
Which isn't bad going for a "wee laddie frae Broomhoose".
York spent the first ten years of his life in the Broomhouse area in the west of Edinburgh before emigrating to New Zealand with his parents, and it was there his riding career was born.
"My dad was always keen on racing and the first meeting I was ever at was when he took me to Musselburgh.
"One of his golfing pals in New Zealand was a guy called Norm Holland who in his time was one of the top jockeys in the country and he recommended me to a trainer friend of his and that's how it all began.
"I left school the first day I was able to and started my apprenticeship on my 15th birthday," explained York who by his own admission, hardly proved to be an overnight success at his new trade
"It was hard graft because I wasn't an instant hit and it took me a while to get kicked-off although once I started riding winners, things just snowballed.
"I didn't have what you could call a spectacular apprenticeship but it was good enough to get me an invitation to ride for one of the leading trainers in Singapore."
There, the winners continued to flow, as they did when he rode in Malaysia and Hong Kong, York's obvious, and natural, talent eventually catching the eye of trainer Bruce McLachlan who persuaded him to move to Brisbane and become his stable jockey, a relationship that was to last seven years.
Next stop was Sydney, where he still lives, and even more winners, enough to earn him the champion jockey's title in 2001, a crown that sat nicely alongside the three similar honours he'd already won in Brisbane.
All told, his four figure tally of winners includes over 30 Group 1 events, among them the Caulfield Cup, one of the most coveted prizes the sport Down Under has to offer.
Even greater riches might possibly have followed had it not been for a horror, and career ending fall that shattered Brian York's body, and world, at Rosehill Gardens racecourse six years ago today.
"My mount Panorama broke a leg during the race and when he went down, so did I. We were up near the lead at the time so had a lot of horses behind me and while most of them passed me okay, one of them didn't. I was rolling backwards and it more or less hit me front on so I was pretty bashed up. My leg was broken so badly, it's never really been right since and to this day I have trouble straightening it out.
"For well over a year, I had a really good go at making a comeback, but I was in pain getting out of a chair so it wasn't going to be much better getting on a horse and 18 months after the fall, my knee still wasn't right so I decided it was time to move on. Had I continued, I would have been a danger to myself and everyone around me."
Since leaving the weighing room for the final time, he's kept involved in the sport as a newspaper columnist, television presenter, tipster and most recently, Racing Manager of the Emirates Park Stud, although lately, much of his time has been taken up by his other love, photography.
"I suppose I had a career that 80 per cent of jockeys wouldn't get an opportunity to achieve so things worked out well for me and if there are any regrets, not winning the Melbourne Cup would have to be one of them," he admitted.
"Third was the best I managed on Magnolia Hall in 1991 although I never really managed to get on a horse with a live chance. Even that third was a 50-1 shot.
"Just to be involved in the race though was an unforgettable experience and it really is the race that stops a nation. Flemington is a great track because it's a big roomy place and when you go to post in front of a 100,000 people it just blows you away."
The Melbourne Cup may not have been an absentee from the York CV had it not been for "see-saw" relationship he had with Jack Denham who trained the horse York describes as the best he's ever ridden, Might And Power.
Despite winning three Group 1's on Australia's two times Horse Of The Year, he grew accustomed to getting jocked off in favour of rival Jimmy Cassidy.
"Jack Denham was a bit of a character and he chopped and changed a bit so Jimmy and I sort of alternated. I'd lose the ride, Jimmy would get back on him, he'd lose it, I was back on and so on."
It just so happens that when Might And Power landed the Melbourne Cup in 1997, Cassidy was the one in favour.
After a 30-year break, York made the first of several visits back to Scotland, where most of his family still live, in Edinburgh and Bo'ness, in 2002 and while here, spent a week riding out for Sir Michael Stoute in Newmarket and even had a couple of rides at Southwell.
His wife wanted to see Paris however so his stint in British racing was a short one.
It must have been a tough choice between the French capital or an all-weather track in Nottinghamshire. How dare anyone say Aussies, even the naturalised ones, have no taste.
So how does a man with such a wealth of inside knowledge rate the chances of the European team building on their Breeders' Cup success by landing Tuesday's Melbourne Cup, a feat the bookies make them odds-on to do?
"It's difficult for them because they have to travel here, have to contend with a different climate and more importantly, the fact races are run differently.
"Here, they tend to slow up a little in the middle of a race and that probably doesn't suit the true staying type of horse the Europeans tend to send over but Dermot Weld has won it twice so it can be done."
