HE won the first big race of the Flat season, but was pulled up by the courts when he went drink-driving and crashed on the York ring-road.

Now, up-and-coming jockey Graham Gibbons has the handicap of a four-and-a-half year driving ban and has to cadge lifts or hire taxis to get to racecourses.

He had starved himself for two days and had stopped drinking eight hours before he took to the road on April 23, York Magistrates Court heard.

But he was still three times the legal alcohol limit and it was his second drink-drive conviction in three years.

"In that condition, you could have killed someone or caused serious injury," district judge Martin Walker told him.

Jockey Gibbons, 24, of Highthorn Road, Huntington, pleaded guilty to drink-driving at the Haxby Road roundabout on the A1237. In addition to the driving ban, he was placed on probation for a year, told to take a probation service drink-drive rehabilitation course and ordered to pay £50 costs.

On March 25, Gibbons hit the national racing headlines when he won the prestigious William Hill Lincoln Heritage Handicap on 22-1 outsider Blythe Knight, trained by John Quinn, of Settrington, near Malton.

On April 24, less than 24 hours after police released him, he rode his second winner of the year when he won the big race of the day at Pontefract Racecourse, on Zomerlust, at 16-1.

At York Magistrates Court, prosecutor Emma Pearce said that Gibbons' Ford Mondeo drove into the back of another vehicle at 1.40pm on Sunday, April 23. No one was injured and Gibbons told police the other car had acted unexpectedly.

But the judge told him: "The only reason it happened was the large amount of alcohol still in your blood system."

Miss Pearce said that Gibbons' breath test gave a reading of 109 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35. Gibbons was banned for 30 months in October 2003 for drink-driving.

Defence solicitor Barry Warburton said the jockey drove 100,000 miles a year and had suffered hardship during his previous ban when he had got lifts from others and employed a driver.

On Saturday, April 22, he had had a night out, returning home at 4am and sleeping until noon.When he woke up, he set off for Easingwold to watch a point-to-point. He only drank on one night a week. Gibbons had three races on the Saturday - starting in Newbury with the 2.40 and finishing with the 8.30 and 8.55 at Wolverhampton.

A jockey was airlifted to Harrogate Hospital after a horror fall at Wetherby races yesterday. Young rider John Flavin, from Ireland, had won two races before being unseated and kicked by his horse in a handicap chase.

Updated: 08:27 Monday, May 01, 2006