Willie Carson was born in
Stirling,
Scotland, in 1942. He was apprenticed to Captain Gerald Armstrong at his stables at Tupgill, North Yorkshire. His first winner in Britain was Pinker's Pond in a seven-furlong apprentice handicap at
Catterick Bridge Racecourse on 19 July 1962. He was
British champion jockey five times (1972, 1973, 1978, 1980 and 1983), won 17
British Classic Races and passed 100 winners in a season 23 times. His total of 3,828 wins makes him the fourth most successful jockey in Great Britain. Carson's best season as a jockey came in 1990 when he rode 187 winners. This included six victories at
Newcastle Racecourse on 30 June, making him one of only four jockeys to ride six winners at one meeting during the twentieth century. However, he came second in the 1990 jockeys' championship to
Pat Eddery. Carson had a long association with trainer Major
Dick Hern, for whom he rode his first three Derby winners. In 1980, Carson took over the Minster House Stud at
Ampney Crucis near
Cirencester and he and his wife Elaine have developed it into a state-of-the-art stud complex. He is the only known jockey since 1900 to have ridden a horse that he bred,
Minster Son, to victory in one of the Classic races, the
St Leger 1988. He and his then wife Carol had three sons Anthony, Neil and Ross. In the
1983 New Years Honours List, Carson was made an Officer of the
Order of the British Empire in the Civil Division for his services to horse racing. In 2011, Carson came fifth in the eleventh series of ITV1's reality television show ''
I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!''. ==Major wins==