Leighton Aspell Interview: ‘It hasn’t changed me but it’s changed my life’

Irish jockey Leighton Aspell bids for racing immortality this afternoon as he chases a third consecutive Grand National victory. But long before his Aintree successes catapulted him into the media spotlight Aspell’s talents had won him a devoted band of followers...

There where two horses that took John Fairbrother’s fancy at Bangor races last week. Well, actually, that’s not quite true. There were two horses being ridden by a jockey that has always taken John’s fancy. You see, says John, in Leighton Aspell you can trust.

“Weststreet at 7-2 and Mezendore 9-1 and he’s won on them both,” says John triumphantly. Ah, forty-five quid for a one pound double. It was ever thus. From the moment in the 1990s when he’d notice how there was this young, unsung jump jockey from Kildare who seemed to be kicking home more than a few long-priced winners on courses in the south of England, John always swore by Aspell.