“In the parade ring beforehand Lester Piggott was asking me how I was feeling after dieting to ride at 51.5kg. I replied: ‘Very hungry!’ He wished me the best of luck and that boosted my confidence.

“I went down to the start with a pony but Oh Susanna felt good. In the build-up to the Met she was phenomenal and I knew that basically I had just to ride her with confidence. I tried not to put any pressure on myself – and it’s very hard for a jockey not to do that – but winning the previous race on Snowdance made it a lot easier.

“After the start I ended up in a very nice position about three lengths off them. It was a little bit dirty early on, a bit of a rough race, but after things settled down I still thought I was in a good place although I would love to have been a little bit closer.

“Coming into the straight she was going well and I asked her to quicken. She took a little bit of time to do so. Legal Eagle was in sight and in full flight while my filly was still unwinding but once my horse started gaining ground – at about the 200-150m mark – I knew that I was going to get there and that I was going to win. I know I celebrated close home – but this was the Met and I’d won it.”

What the other jockeys said:

Piere Strydom, Last Winter (2^nd): “I managed to get over from that terrible draw, squeezing out a couple of guys in the process. But in the straight I was going nowhere until he suddenly put his mind to it and then I was really flying.”

Aldo Domeyer, Marinaresco (3^rd): “Everything went right and he gave me everything he had but we were beaten by two unexposed horses.”

Anton Marcus, Legal Eagle (4^th): “He never really overcame the draw and I thought he would do that quite easily but it was a good run and a furlong out I thought he was going to win.”

Corne Orffer, Captain America (5^th): “We decided we had to give him a chance and unfortunately they went a bit slow. He is game and gutsy, and he plugged on nicely.”

Bernard Fayd’Herbe, African Night Sky (6^th): “I had the run of the race but I just didn’t have the horse underneath me.”

Richard Fourie, Gold Standard (9^th):”It was a slow run race but when the time came to quicken he didn’t find anything and at the end I was going backwards.”

Greg Cheyne, Sail South (11^th): “I had no luck in running. I was cramped throughout the first half of the race and I then had too much ground to make up.”

By Michael Clower