Richard comes from a well known racing family.
On leaving school he worked for Josh Gifford in Findon where a 2 week trial stretched into 16 years. He took over as stable jockey from Bob Champion.
Ten years before he stopped riding Richard bought his present premises where he ran a livery yard for horses recovering from injury.

Having ridden just under 600 winners he retired from riding in 1991 and 6 months later began training.
Among his successes have been I'm Supposin', owned by Philippa and Nicholas Cooper, who won the Kingwell Hurdle and in the same season came 3rd to Istabraq in the Cheltenham Champion Hurdle.
The Coopers also won the prestigious Whitbread Gold Cup with Eulogy giving Richard the unusual distinction of being only 1 of 4 people to have both ridden and trained a winner of this race.
Among Richard's other major wins have been 2 EBF finals, the Dovecote Hurdle and the Sussex National with Mullintor, owned by Tommy Thompson who has been with Richard since he started training.