TOM MARQUAND may have missed out on the BBC's Young Sports Personality of the Year award at the weekend but he had some compensation when picking up his first 'Lester' this week.

The Lesters are the Professional Jockeys' Association's Oscars when the leading riders in Britain, on the Flat and over jumps, are honoured. The 25th awards ceremony, sponsored by Stobart, took place at the Hilton Metropole in Birmingham on Tuesday night.

Marquand, 17, the champion apprentice jockey of 2015 who is based at Richard Hannon's East Everleigh stables near Marlborough and who learned some of his race-riding skills in pony races with the North Cotswold Hunt, was chosen by his weighing room colleagues for the Racing Excellence Apprentice Jockey of the Year award.

Twenty-times champion jump jockey AP McCoy OBE, who also lives in Wiltshire, added two more Lesters to his existing record haul of 23. He was crowned Stobart Jump Jockey of the Year and also collected the ARC Jump Jockey Special Recognition award.

The PJA commissioned Philip Blacker, the renowned sculptor and former jockey who designed the Lester, to sculpt a one-off solid silver Lester in AP’s likeness, which was presented to him in place of the traditional trophy for his Stobart Jump Jockey of the Year award.

McCoy had also received a Lifetime Achievement award at the Sports Personality of the Year ceremony in Belfast at the weekend.

Silvestre De Sousa, who captured his first Stobart Flat jockeys’ championship during the autumn, also won his first Lester as Stobart Flat Jockey of the Year.

The 2014/15 champion conditional jockey Sean Bowen won his first two Lesters as Racing Excellence Conditional Jockey of the Year and also for the AtTheRaces Jump Ride of the Year on board Just A Par at Sandown Park on the final day of the jump racing season.

Cathy Gannon, now firmly back in the saddle after a period of injury and having given birth to her first child, was voted the Great British Racing Lady Jockey of the Year. She has previously won the award for 2010 and 2011.

ATR viewers had chosen the Jump Ride of the Year and it was Racing Post readers who voted for the Flat Ride of the Year. That went to David Nolan for his ride on Rex Imperator at Doncaster in September.

Jack Berry MBE won the Flat Jockey Special Recognition award for his tireless fund-raising for a new rehabilitation centre in the North. Jack Berry House, which cost £3 million, was officially opened in April.