Leading northern jockey Lindsay Charnock has been forced to retire due to a circulation problem in his groin.
It brings to an end a 29-year riding career during which the lightweight rode over 600 winners in Britain, landing the Cesarewitch twice.
He has been sidelined all year with a blocked artery in the groin and the 45-year-old has been told that the latest of several operations, a 'bypass', means he cannot ride again.
'I had been fearing the worst and I was half expecting it but it still takes a bit of coming to terms with,' Charnock told the Racing Post.
'I had planned to ride until I was 50 but I`m getting out in one piece, even if they are not quite the same pieces I started with.'
Charnock, who started out as an apprentice with Denys Smith and landed the first victory of his career on Sally`s Choice at Lanark in 1970, gained his first big win on Last Tango in the Ayr Gold Cup in 1976.
After being seen for many years as a journeyman jockey, he had started to make his presence felt in the bigger events in recent seasons and won the Cesarewitch for Mary Reveley on Old Red in 1995 and Turnpole two years later.
He also formed a formidable partnership with Tim Easterby, for whom he won last year`s Lowther Stakes on Jemima, and the 1998 Windsor Castle Stakes and Weatherbys Super Sprint on Flanders.
