Former Irish champion apprentice Patrick ‘Pat’ Cosgrave moved to England in 2004 and, at the last count, had ridden 974 winners, including three Group 1 winners, on British soil. However, his career tally should be, and would be, 975 winners, but for an incident at Chelmsford on April 20, 2023, which Newmarket trainer George Boughey described as ‘one of those grave mistakes you never believe is going to happen to you’.
In the Bosh Handicap, a lowly Class 6 affair restricted to three-year-olds, Cosgrave was aboard Concorde, trained by Boughey, who had won on his handicap, and seasonal, debut at Redcar three days earlier and was fully expected to follow up, under a 6lb penalty. Indeed, facing just four rivals, none of whom had previously won a race, Concorde was sent off at prohibitive odds of 1/6 to do so.
Concorde travelled strongly throughout and looked to have the £4,004 first prize money in safe keeping when cruising into the lead approaching the furlong marker in the one-mile contest, with Cosgrave barely moving a muscle in the saddle. Oozing confidence, the Northern Irishman repeatedly looked over his right shoulder in the closing stages to check proximity of the eventual third, Dame Laura Knight, on his outside. However, he failed to pay the same attention to the 8/1 second favourite, My Roxanne, on his inside and, as he eased down close home, the Brian Ellison-trained filly got up to win by a nose.
The local stewards, unsurprisingly, took a dim view of his actions and banned Cosgrave for 28 days for failing to take ‘all failed to take all reasonable and permissible measures to obtain the best possible placing’ on Concorde. Reflecting on his major faux pas, Cosgrave said, ‘I’ve been riding for 24 years and it’s never happened before and I have to make sure it doesn’t happen again.’