Irish jockey Mick Kinane, who rode Sea the Stars to an unprecedented six Group One wins this season, has retired at the top of his game after a hugely successful 34-year career in the saddle. “I made the decision a little while ago. It was just a question of timing,” Kinane said Tuesday. A 13-time champion jockey in Ireland, Kinane rode more than 100 Group One winners, including four in the English 2,000 Guineas and three in the Epsom Derby. He claimed the biggest races in Japan and Australia while Sea the Stars was his third success in the Prix De L'Arc de Triomphe, the richest horse race in Europe. “At 50 I still feel fit and sharp enough to do any horse justice but, after the season I have just had in partnership with Sea the Stars, I have the privilege of being able to end my career as a jockey on an incredible high and that's what I want to do,” Kinane said in a statement. After scoring his first winner at Leopardstown in 1975, Kinane went on to be retained by leading trainers such as Dermot Weld, Aidan O'Brien and latterly John Oxx as he developed a reputation as a big-race rider. Kinane rode many of the stellar racehorses of his generation – Rock of Gibraltar, Galileo, Hawk Wing, Yeats – and was on board Weld's Vintage Crop when in 1993 it became the first European horse to grab victory in the Melbourne Cup.
