When Billy Loughnane was officially crowned champion jockey at Ascot’s British Champions’ Day last weekend, he was, at 20, the youngest to take the title in more than a century. But what of the teenager born and bred in Newmarket who had first lifted the crown back in 1923 when he was just 19 and still an apprentice.

Like Billy Loughnane, Charlie Elliott was born into racing.

His father was travelling head lad for trainer Lord George Dundas, who was based at Beaufort Cottage Stables in Newmarket High Street, and Charlie’s natural affinity with horses saw him sent as an apprentice to trainer Jack Jarvis at Park Lodge Stables where he learned to ride.

Jarvis described him as a natural. “Seldom can a boy have made swifter progress,” Jarvis remembered in his autobiography They’re Off. “I don’t think he knew what he was doing half the time,” he said, “but as it was the right thing to do I never enquired what went on in his young head. He was learning all the time and by the age of 19 he was the equal of any jockey in the world.” High praise indeed from a scion of one of the most famous families in racing

At 16 Elliott brought off a double with his first two rides, Rakings and Golden Myth at Nottingham on March 22 1921. When congratulated by his guv’nor on winning by a neck on the latter, he replied: “Thank you sir, the other kid rode well too.” The ‘other kid’ was Freddy Fox who had ridden his first Classic winner a decade before.

Jarvis quickly decided Elliott was ready to assume the mantle of stable jockey which meant riding in the Classics on level terms with the likes of greats like Steve Donoghue and Gordon Richards.

The responsibility seemed to sit lightly on his young shoulders and in 1923, the year he won the jockeys’ championship for the first time, he rode his first Classic winner, Ellangowan in the 2,000 Guineas carrying the colours of Lord Rosebery. He shared that first title with Donoghue having ridden 89 winners but the following year, when still an apprentice, he became outright champion and among his 106 winners was Flack in the 1,000 Guineas

Elliott rode in 29 Derbies between 1922 and 1953 winning three, coming second twice and third four times. His three victories at Epsom were all to prove technological landmarks for the great race.

Call Boy, trained by Jack Watts at Primrose Cottage in Newmarket and owned by theatre magnate Frank Curzon won in 1927 and was the first to be broadcast on radio. Bois Roussel’s win in 1938 was the first covered by television and when Nimbus won in 1949 his victory was the first declared using evidence provided by the photo-finish.

And Elliott’s prowess was not confined to home turf. In 1929 he had headed for France to take up a lucrative offer from trainer Marcel Boussac but behind the cross-Channel move was something a little more sinister. Elliott, the boy who came from nothing, had developed a taste for the high life which was expensive and had to be paid for. Betting among jockeys was under the microscope and Elliott sensed the stewards were gunning for him.

Racegoers in France were treated to Elliott’s genius as he won the French Derby four times in the 1930s and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe on three occasions. He returned to England in 1939 when war broke out and before the end of the conflict had ridden four more Classic winners.

In 1951 he rode the first winner of the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, then the Festival of Britain Stakes, and two years later another Ascot Gold Cup on Souepi trained in Exning by George Digby. His first guv’nor, Jack Jarvis, said it was the best race he ever saw him ride. “A stride before the post he was beaten, a stride after it he was beaten but on the post he won,” he said.

When he retired from the saddle in 1953, still managing to scale 8st 4lbs, he went to train in France winning four out of five Classics in five years. Back in Newmarket in 1958 he had a small string at Machell Place and finally relinquished his licence in 1963. Retirement was not to prove kind and he fell on hard times eventually being caught shop-lifting. He died in Paddington in London on January 6, 1979. He was 74.

Charlie Elliott was undoubtedly one of the greatest jockeys of all time known as a superb stylist with an innate sense of timing.

“I think it’s true to a large extent that great jockeys are born not made, that the ability to communicate with a horse so that he’ll run for you, give you his maximum, is some kind of natural gift,” he once said.

“There’s something strange and marvellous happens between the horse and certain men who get on his back and you can’t explain it.”

Elliott was one of those certain men and it looks like Billy Loughnane could well be another.