To be dropped for a ride is one thing, but to be "jocked off" a Cheltenham Gold Cup winner is another.

Norman Williamson lost the booking on Looks Like Trouble just weeks before the horse went on to win in March 2000.

The horse had performed badly with him riding in the King George VI Chase three months earlier.

And Richard Johnson replaced Williamson to take Gold Cup glory.

That apart, the big Cheltenham meeting has been a happy hunting ground for Williamson.

In his first Festival as an aspiring amateur in 1989, he rode 50-1 shot Charter Hardware to second in the Kim Muir Chase behind the subsequent Gold Cup winner Cool Ground.

And he was the leading rider at the 1995 meeting with four winners.

The haul included a Champion Hurdle-Gold Cup double for trainer Kim Bailey on Alderbrook and Master Oats.

But he later parted company with Bailey after press reports linked him with the trainer's wife.

Known as "Stormin' Norman", Williamson bounced back to form in a successful new partnership with trainer Venetia Williams.

They landed both the Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup and King George VI Chase with Teeton Mill in 1998.

But the horse, which looked set to be one of the leading chasers of recent times, pulled up with a serious injury in the Gold Cup and was later retired.

In January 2001 he won the Cleeve Hurdle at Cheltenham for the third successive year on Lady Rebecca.

And Williamson warmed up for the 2002 Festival, with a win aboard Ned Kelly in the Irish Champion Hurdle.