This year's Epsom Derby marks 50 years since the famous win of Shropshire jockey, Sir Gordon Richards.

With 4,870 wins during his career, he is arguably the most successful jockey in racing history.

Five years after Sir Gordon's racing debut, disaster struck the Shropshire jockey.

He contracted tuberculosis and had to take time out from racing. But it was while he recuperated from the debilitating disease in a Norfolk sanatorium he met Bill Rowell, a fellow patient who was to have a major influence on his life.

The winners' enclosure

Rowell proved to be something of a mentor, teaching the young jockey how to cope with the riches that would come his way, as well as his popularity with high society in the class-ridden system that prevailed in Britain between the wars. The two became firm friends.

By December 1926, Sir Gordon was back in the saddle, and returned to winning ways in the 1927 racing season.

In 1932 with 259 victories under his belt, he broke the record for the greatest number of wins in a year, a record which had stood for nearly 50 years.

Achievement followed achievement, with Richards winning the Newmarket 2000 guineas in 1947 by an unprecedented margin of 8 lengths.

Despite these huge successes, there was still one race where a win had always eluded him: The Derby at Epsom.

The Champion Jockey in Donnington - named in honour of Sir Gordon Richards

In 1942 he won 4 of the 5 'Classics' on horses owned by King George V, but still the big Derby win he craved remained out of his grasp.

The 1953 Derby occurred on a week of great national, and personal celebration for Richards himself.

Elizabeth II had been crowned the new Queen in Westminster Abbey, the first successful ascent of Everest had taken place, and plain old Gordon Richards had become Sir Gordon Richards - the only jockey to be knighted.

This time Sir Gordon rode Pinza, a huge horse for a flat-thoroughbread at 16 hands high - and he rode a terrific race.

And it was a tough race, with Pinza in second position through much of the one and half mile course, competing against the Queen's own horse Aureole, and sweeping past the Aga Khan's horse, Shikampur, into first place with just two furlongs remaining.

The long-awaited win was accompanied by thunderous cheers from the frenzied crowd.

Winning The Derby was undoubtedly Sir Gordon's crowning victory, and he was promptly summoned from the winners' enclosure to be congratulated by the Queen.

Sir Gordon after receiving his Knighthood

Sir Gordon's riding career ended in 1954 following a pelvis injury, but he continued to indulge his passion for racing, by becoming a horse trainer and advisor.

Sir Gordon Richards died on 10th November 1988.

His legacy lives on in Shropshire today, with the Champion Jockey pub in Donnington is named in his honour, and the Pinza suite in Oakengates Theatre, named after his winning horse.

Not until 2002 was his record number of victories exceeded, by Jump Jockey Tony McCoy, and Sir Gordon Richards will be remembered for being a kind and down-to-earth man, who never lost touch of his Shropshire roots.

Can you pass the post first at Ludlow Racecourse? Try our tricky quiz and find out!