Sam Arnull

Sam Arnull
Occupation	Jockey
Born	c. 1760
Died	February 1800 Newmarket, Suffolk
Major racing wins
Major races Epsom Derby (1780, 1782, 1787, 1798) Epsom Oaks (1794)
Significant horses
Assassin, Diomed, Hermione, Sir Harry, Sir Peter Teazle

Sam Arnull (c. 1760 – 1800) was a British flat racing jockey of the 18th century. He won the inaugural running of Britain's foremost flat race, The Derby, on Diomed, one of the most influential horses in Thoroughbred history, and won again on a further three occasions.

Arnull hailed from a family of jockeys that dominated British horse racing in the latter part of the 18th century and early 19th. He was the younger brother of John Arnull and uncle of Bill Arnull. Between them, the family won twelve Derbies in the race's formative years. He himself won four of them — 1780 (Diomed), 1782 (Assassin), 1787 (Sir Peter Teazle), 1798 (Sir Harry) — as well as an Oaks on Hermione in 1794. Such was their dominance that "Newmarket [the home of British racing] without an Arnull would ... have seemed strange"

Sam was described as a "quiet and unassuming man" and was a man , being able to ride out at hunts on well-turned out horses, with a well-dressed groom. He and his family were known for being more trustworthy than other jockeys of the day.

Although his brother won more Derbies, Sam was perhaps the better of the two; when he died in 1800 he "is supposed not to have left a better" His dedication to the sport was certainly undoubted. For example, in spite of the fact he found that "wasting was a sore burden ... [he] performed the unrivalled feat of knocking off 7 lbs in a single day" to meet the weight for a horse he wanted to ride.

The inaugural running of the Derby was low key compared to the event which it was to become. At the time it merited but a small notice in the London Evening Post of 6 May 1780 but in retrospect was said to have "fairly caught hold on the public imagination".

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