Richard Johnson reached 100 winners for the seventh successive season with victory on Possible Pardon in the Letheby & Christopher Handicap Chase at Chepstow yesterday.

Possible Pardon (5 to 1) made most of the running in the three-mile contest and kept on gamely to win by five lengths from Tom's Prize (7 to 1) with 3 to 1 favourite French Executive a further length-and-a-half further back in third.

Winning trainer Philip Hobbs has provided Johnson with 51 of his century.

The rider would have reached 100 much sooner if he had not broken his right leg in a fall from Lincoln Place at Newton Abbot in August having suffered a similar injury at Exeter 10 months earlier.

Out for three months this time, the 25-year-old got back in the winning groove on La Landiere at Wincanton in November.

Johnson has been runner-up in the jump jockeys' championship to Tony McCoy for the last five seasons and that looks the best he can hope for again.

He is well clear of the third in the list, Tony Dobbin, who has had 69 winners while McCoy has already amassed 214 winners this season.