Firstly, I would like to congratulate Darren Beadman on his achievement of winning the 2003 jockey's premiership. Whilst it was an achievement he has good reason to be proud of, in my opinion he still has a long way to go to emulate the feats of one of our greatest(if not the greatest) jockeys, George Moore.
Beadman is still young and has plenty of time to reach the heights of the one and only "cotton-fingers."
I truly cannot remember George Moore ever riding a "shocker" and some of the records he set will not be emulated(for example, winning 15 of the 28 races in the 1969 autumn carnival).
The only time I remember him being criticized was prior to the 1969 Golden Slipper, he was riding a potential star named Special Girl. He had a lead similar to the one that Nordic Flight had on Saturday. He nursed the filly over the last 100m and was nearly caught and beaten by a another fast finishing runner. The press questioned his tactics somewhat but the important thing to remember was that he still won the race!(So, even when he had a "bad day" he still won).
I am definitely not diminishing the efforts of Beadman or any other current jockey but I was privileged to see one of the "greats" and tend to believe that George was one of a kind-a unique talent.
Besides, no other jockey has ever acquired the "George Moore whistle" which he often utilised to gain a break between runners when he was trapped on the fence behind a "wall of horses" with apparently, nowhere to go.
I know it is difficult to compare riders from different eras but I think George's feats transcends the records of any other jockey I have seen. Remember also, that George retired then made a successful comeback and won a swag of Group 1's on Baguette, Rajah Sahib, Fairy Walk and other top performers.
I hope this bit of nostalgia will get a response from some of our older brigade of forum contributors who, like me have seen none better than "old-cotton-fingers."
Looking forward to hearing your opinions.

Cheers.