Group One-winning rider Steve Drowne announces retirement

Group One-winning jockey Steve Drowne has announced he will retire at the end of this month after nearly 30 years in racing.

Drowne, 45, rode the first of more than 1,400 winners in 1990 and said he felt the time was right to call it a day.

"I'm going to wrap it up at the end of the year," he told At The Races. "The time is right and I've had a good innings. I haven't set a date, just around Christmas. I won't be riding come January 1.

"You know it's going to come at some point. Financially it's getting tougher and tougher every year. It's just the right time. For 25 years I've been really flat out. It's 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

"It's not you suddenly think 'that's it'. I thought 'I've had a good innings, the winters are hard now and there aren't so many rides about'. You make your money in the summer and it lasts the year."

He added: "I thought when I did give up I'd want a second career. I'm going to find something to build on now.

"I was a farmer's son in Devon and always rode ponies, I worked on the farm for six months when I left school.

"I wasn't built to be a farmer so I applied for the racing school and got accepted. I left home at 16 and never went back."

Drowne rode for many top trainers including Mick Channon, Hughie Morrison, Roger Charlton, John Gosden and the late Geoff Wragg.

_Drowne has had a fine career spanning three decades _(PA)

His first Group One success was on Queen's Logic for the Channon stable in the Cheveley Park Stakes in October 2001 and his last came on Jwala in the Nunthorpe Stakes at York in August 2013 for Robert Cowell.

He won the Prix de l'Abbaye on the Charlton-trained pair of Patavellian in 2003 and Avonbridge two years later.

Among his other major triumphs were Harmonic Way in the 2001 Cork And Orrery Stakes at Royal Ascot, Pastoral Pursuits in the 2004 Park Stakes and Sakhee's Secret in the 2007 July Cup.

Drowne said: "Sakhee's Secret was probably the best sprinter I rode. He was very good, but unfortunately he went wrong on us as a four-year-old."