Richard Dunwoody's Biography
Who is Richard Dunwoody?
He was born Thomas Richard Dunwoody in Belfast on 18 January 1964.Richard Dunwoody was nicknamed The Prince.
He was a top jockey who won all the big three national hunt races – the Grand National (on West Tip and Minnehoma), the Champion Hurdle (on Kribensis) and the Cheltenham Gold Cup (on Charter Party).
He was Champion Jockey in 1993, 1994 and 1995 and gained 1,699 career wins, which was a record number until Tony McCoy beat it in 2002.
Richard Dunwoody retired in 1999, aged 35.
Since retiring from horseracing, Richard Dunwoody has become an adventurer. He finished second in a team race to the magnetic North Pole, and he and Doug Stoup became the first to reach the South Pole by a route originally attempted by Shackleton.
In July 2009 Richard Dunwoody finished walking 1,000 miles in 1,000 hours, walking one mile in Newmarket every hour for 42 days, replicating a feat accomplished by Captain Robert Barclay in 1809.
Dunwoody told The Independent what his eating regime was when he was riding:
"... for breakfast I had a couple of slices of granary toast, no butter, just marmalade, and a cup of coffee with milk, no sugar. Nothing then till lunchtime, when I had a cup of coffee. I put in one and a half sugars when I'm riding ... I had a couple of digestive biscuits. Then nothing till the evening, when I had sole stuffed with crab-meat, broccoli, brussels sprouts and carrots - and a couple of glasses of dry white wine. Afterwards I had a couple of mint chocolates and two cups of coffee. If I'm very light I might have a chocolate bar, a Yorkie or something ..."
Richard Dunwoody has written an autobiography entitled Obsessed.
In 1993 he was awarded the MBE.
In 2009 Richard Dunwoody partnered Lilia Kopylova in Strictly Come Dancing, however they left in the second week after losing a dance-off with Craig Kelly and Flavia Cacace.
Back to Top
