‘Yes, sir,’ I said. ‘Never better.’
Someone rang a bell and it was time to mount.
‘Just remember,’ said the owner as he tossed me up onto the horse’s back, ‘not too fast to begin with. Let the others lead you round the first circuit. Kick on up the hill second time round and keep away from the inside after the last.’
‘Yes, sir,’ I replied.
‘See you in the winner’s enclosure. I’m off to see the bookies.’
I instantly became even more nervous than I already was. The owner clearly did believe we would win. I just hoped he wouldn’t wager too much.
The groom led the horse out onto the track and I turned him to canter down to the start.
Everything that could possibly go wrong now crowded into my brain: Would the horse run away with me? Would the saddle slip or the reins break? Would I fall off at the first fence? Would the horse put his feet into the open ditch? And, most worryingly of all, would I make a complete arse of myself?
‘Stop it,’ I said to myself. ‘Just do what you’re used to. All will be fine.’
We circled at the start as the starter’s assistant tightened the girths of all the runners. And then we were ready.
My heart was pounding as the starter raised his flag.
‘Walk in,’ he shouted.
I looked about me at my fellow jockeys and suddenly realised with horror that I didn’t have my goggles in position as they all had. I had been so focused on the coming race that I hadn’t concentrated enough on the basics. And, having seen the faces of those who had ridden earlier, I knew that goggles were essential to keep the mud out of my eyes.
I raised my hands to pull the goggles up from round my neck just at the very moment the starter dropped his flag. Everything happened so fast, much faster than I was expecting, and my horse was left flat-footed as the others sped away.
How could I have been so foolish?
I had carelessly given the rest of the field a good ten lengths’ start. So much for my instructions to slot in behind the leaders and let them drag me round the first circuit.
I snapped my goggles into place, kicked my mount hard and set off in pursuit.
‘Calm down,’ I said out loud to myself. ‘This race is three miles long. There is plenty of time.’
But the urge to close the gap quickly is a hard one to resist for both horse and jockey, and we were back on the tails of the bunch by the second fence. And only then did I start to enjoy myself.
Galloping along and jumping the fences was exhilarating in the extreme and I found that I was laughing with delight. But I wasn’t laughing for long.
The horse immediately ahead of me hit the top of the open ditch and stumbled on landing, sprawling nose first onto the turf in a mass of flailing legs, both equine and human, right where I was heading.
Fearing the worst, I closed my eyes – but, thankfully, my horse didn’t. He landed and then immediately took off again like a show jumper, leaping clean over the prostrate forms on the ground. I just about managed to stay aboard by gripping the saddle with my knees and throwing a hand up in typical ‘hailing a cab’ style. But it caused me to lose even more ground on the others.
Another of the runners went down at the next fence and I swerved to my right to avoid any trouble.
By the time we passed the enclosures with one circuit still to go, the six of us standing were spread out in line astern with me back in fifth, some fifteen lengths or more behind the leader.
I decided that, in order to have any chance of winning, I needed to be much closer and kicked on down the hill, throwing caution to the wind at the downhill fence by standing off and asking my mount for a big leap. He obliged and we passed one horse while actually in the air.
‘Good boy,’ I shouted in his ear, and kicked him again.
We passed the third-placed horse at the base of the final climb and came close to being second but, with just the last fence left to jump, the fuel tank was suddenly empty. Just as the owner had predicted, if we went too fast too soon, we would run out of puff – and we had.
The horse jumped the fence almost at the walk, coming to a complete standstill on landing, and it was as much as I could do to get him moving again up the hill and over the finish line. It was not so much his exhaustion that was the problem, more like mine. But those behind us were in no better shape, having already pulled up. The heavy going had taken its toll.
So we finished third. In truth, it was a bad third. Third – and last.
The groom met me at the gate and led the horse into the unsaddling enclosure where the owner was waiting for us. I was worried he’d be cross and that any chance of me riding for him again would have evaporated.
‘Well done, lad,’ he said with a wan smile. ‘At least you got round.’
I slid down off the horse’s back and was so drained that, try as I might, I couldn’t undo the girths. The rules clearly state that all jockeys must remove their own saddles. Only in the case of accidents, illness or other exceptional circumstances were they allowed help to do so.
I wondered if being totally exhausted was considered an exceptional circumstance.
The owner could see the problem and stepped forward, undoing the girth buckles with ease. I felt like a fool as I dragged the heavy hunting saddle from the horse’s back, almost sitting straight down on the mud due to my jelly-like legs.
‘Don’t forget to weigh in,’ said the owner. ‘Then get changed. I’ll wait for you in the car.’
I couldn’t judge if he was angry with me or just wanted to get out of the rain that had now returned with a vengeance.
I staggered into the weighing tent with the saddle and sat on the scales. Any concerns I might have had that I’d be underweight were unfounded as the needle rotated round to twelve stone, one pound. The extra was probably due to the mud I’d accumulated on the front of my clothes.
‘Fine,’ said the clerk. I was within the allowable limit.
I went into the changing tent and sat down heavily on a chair, almost too tired even to feel depressed by my inadequate performance. I had thought that I was quite fit but there was clearly work to be done in that department.
I cleaned the mud off me as best I could in the wash area, dressed, collected my rider’s certificate and medical book from the Declarations Clerk, and then carried my kit and the saddle out to the owner’s car. At last some strength was returning to my legs.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said miserably into the silence on the journey home.
‘What for?’
‘For making such a mess of it,’ I said.
‘Don’t worry. Everyone has to learn somehow, and third’s not too bad for your first ever race. At least you didn’t fall off.’
‘But you thought I’d win.’
‘I did hope you might,’ said the owner, ‘but I didn’t really expect it.’
‘Did you lose an awful lot of money?’
‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘In fact, I made some. I backed you each-way at long odds and the place money more than covered my win loss.’ He tapped his jacket pocket and smiled at me. ‘And you’ll win on him next time out.’
‘Next time?’ I said.
‘I think we should enter him at Charm Park in three weeks’ time. Don’t you?’
4
Shuttlecock doesn’t get me on the second run either, but I do pay a price for being a little over-cautious.
‘Miles Pussett down in five-three point one-six seconds,’ announces Tower.
No ‘Hello, hello’ call on this occasion because my time is almost a whole second slower than my first attempt, but I’m still in the Grand National, albeit having dropped to fifth place overall.
I drag my toboggan off the ice and carry it over to the vehicle that will take me back to the top. It is called the camion, Swiss-German for truck.
Fifth will do for the moment, although any chance of overtaking the leading runners is slim. But, somehow, I don’t care too much.
&
nbsp; There had been a time in my life when being only fifth in anything would have sent me into a deeply depressive state, but seven years and many hundreds of hours of psychotherapy later, I have changed my outlook on life.
Now, simply being alive is like winning, and I take great joy from that alone. And I have the Cresta Run to thank for making it so.
* * *
Charm Park, near Scarborough, was a very different point-to-point compared to Duncombe. This course was on the level throughout, and turned left-handed rather than right. And a spell of relatively fine weather, plus some well-draining ground, had made the conditions underfoot hugely different as well.
Again, the owner and I arrived well before the first race to walk the course, a wide grass strip left untouched round the perimeter of a large rectangular ploughed field.
‘Nineteen fences this time and a relatively short run-in after the last,’ the owner said. ‘Watch out for the sharp turns at the corners. It’s all too easy to run wide and lose ground.’
I nodded. It felt completely different this time. Sure, I was still excited, but I was also more measured, and more determined.
‘And don’t be afraid of making all the running. The ground today is quite firm compared to Duncombe Park and I know our boy stays on well in these conditions. If he’s good enough, he’ll win from the front and you can run the finish out of the rest of them. Just don’t get carried away and go too fast too soon like you did last time.’
‘OK,’ I said, rather shamefaced. This time I’d be ready.
For three weeks, I had been working not only on the fitness of the horse, but also on my own.
When not at school or riding, I had been running up onto the moors or working out in a makeshift gym – our over-the-road neighbour’s garage fitted out with a pull-up bar and a set of dumb-bells. I had even neglected my girlfriend, and not least because I had heard her sniggering with some other friends about my debacle at Duncombe.
I had also been over and over the happenings of that first race in my head, analysing where, when and why things had gone wrong. As a result, I was far more aware of my surroundings on this occasion, and resolved that I would be one step ahead of events rather than simply reacting to them.
So, when I walked out of the changing tent to the parade ring, I had an air of self-assurance and a real belief that we would win.
And we did.
When the starter dropped his flag, I was ready with everything in place, including my goggles. I jumped off in the middle of the pack of ten runners but I took the lead going to the third and never looked back. I jumped the remaining sixteen fences alone, did not run wide at the corners, and won by ten lengths easing up.
My first winner.
How exciting was that?
The owner was all smiles when I returned to the unsaddling enclosure.
‘Splendid,’ he said, clapping his hands together and then patting me on the leg. ‘Absolutely splendid.’
I slid off the horse, unbuckled the girths without any problem, and went to weigh in.
‘Well done,’ said one of the other jockeys in the changing tent. He was the one who’d come to my aid at Duncombe. ‘You said then that you intended to win, and now you have. See you around.’
He put out his hand and I shook it.
‘Yeah,’ I replied. ‘You will.’
And he did see me around because the owner ran the horse three more times before the end of the point-to-point season and we won them all.
My girlfriend wasn’t sniggering now.
* * *
‘Miles Pussett to the box.’
I carry my toboggan into position for my final run of the Cresta Grand National.
It is do or die time, although dying is not actually on my agenda for today. Not any more.
The bell rings and the barrier is lifted. Time to go.
Just like in a point-to-point steeplechase, a good start is needed. My spiked shoes grip the ice as I run forward, pushing my sled ahead with my right hand. At the very last moment, just when it feels like the sled is about to go without me, I dive onto its surface and we are away.
The top section is where the run is at its steepest and I am soon hurtling along. Over Church Leap where the ice seems to fall away beneath me, such is the acute angle of the gradient, and then the rapid left-right-left of Curzon, Brabazon and Thoma, and on to Junction Straight where I shift my weight forward for more speed.
I flash past the St Moritz Tobogganing clubhouse with the massed spectators on the terrace a mere blur in my peripheral vision.
Next is Rise and Battledore, then the mighty Shuttlecock.
Do I rake?
Is it better to be careful and finish among the also-rans or to take a chance and go for glory? It is the same question that steeplechase jockeys have to ask themselves when in contention on a tired horse coming to the last fence. And the best of them would always say the latter.
Ruby Walsh was twelve times Irish Champion Jockey and won more races at the Cheltenham Festival than any other rider. He is one of the greatest, if not the very best ever, to ride in steeplechases. Yet he also had more falls at the last fence than anyone else. For him, it was much more acceptable to go crashing down while trying to win than end up safely being second – and to hell with the consequences, and the injuries.
It is that ‘win at all costs’ attitude that makes the great great.
I decide to go for glory over safety and keep my rakes up through Rise. I shift my weight back and left, ready for Shuttlecock, and I almost make the turn – but not quite. Not this time.
I rise up the outer wall and lean further to my left, but I have a fraction too much speed and suddenly, as the bend tightens, I am gone, somersaulting over and over into the straw and snow, and then painfully into the big red crash mats, all the while trying to keep out of the way of my heavy, tumbling toboggan. It is always the toboggan that does the most damage and it can kill you if it hits you in the head or neck.
I lie on the ground for a moment, slightly winded by the impact, assessing whether I have any serious injury, other than that to my pride.
Nothing appears to hurt much so I jump up and wave my arms vigorously above my head towards the control tower situated on the top of the clubhouse – the recognised signal that medical assistance is not required.
‘Pussett is up,’ Tower intones dryly over the Tannoy. ‘And apparently unharmed.’
Damn it!
But I suppose I am lucky. There is a life-size montage of X-rays in the club bar showing the mass of metalwork that has been inserted into all parts of the human anatomy as a result of breaks sustained in falls on the Cresta. It is shown to all potential riders just before they are required to sign a liability disclaimer stating that they understand the risks and will not hold the club responsible for any injuries, or worse.
The Cresta Run was first created in the winter of 1884–5 by guests at the nearby Kulm Hotel, who formed an ‘outdoor amusements committee’. Since then five men have lost their lives riding its ice, albeit far fewer than jockey fatalities in steeplechases over the same period.
Thankfully, the use of full-face crash helmets, protective joint pads and the introduction of back protectors similar to those used in horseracing mean that serious injuries are rare. Far more common are minor cuts and bruises, with the occasional lost finger after it has become lodged between the toboggan runners and the ice. As they say in the club bar, ‘It can usually be sewn back on but it won’t be any good again for picking your nose.’
It is often stated that the St Moritz Tobogganing Club is the last true bastion of amateurism in modern international sport and this, together with its members’ c’est la vie attitude to mortal danger, is what attracted me to it in the first place – plus the adrenalin rush, of course.
* * *
After that heady spring of my seventeenth year, with four point-to-point winners on my CV, I was quickly invited to ride work for one of the Malton licensed trainers.
/> It was not yet the full jockey title I craved for, but it was a huge step in the right direction.
‘We’ll get on with the application for your amateur permit,’ the trainer said. ‘Then we’ll see.’
And so, after six months of riding out and working in the stable yard, I was entered for my first ride in a race under the official Rules of Racing, a two-and-a-half-mile hurdle contest on a Saturday afternoon at Catterick. A race exclusively for amateur riders.
I tried to think of it as just another race, following on from my point-to-points, but there was one major difference that changed everything.
This particular contest was a handicap, so the horses had to carry differing weights, dependent on their official rating – the higher a horse was rated, the more it carried. Theoretically, handicaps should give every horse an equal chance of winning, although it never results in a mass dead heat as some run better than their rating and others worse. And, irrespective of their rating, all of the horses in the race were to carry less than the twelve stone of a point-to-pointer.
My horse was not particularly well rated and hence was handicapped to carry just ten stone three pounds but, as a novice rider with no wins to my credit, I received an additional seven-pound allowance, which meant my horse would actually carry only nine-stone-ten.
A week before my race, I stood on the bathroom scales at home and was horrified to see the dial rotate round to nine and a half stone. Much to my chagrin, I was growing taller every day, and all the work I was still doing in our neighbour’s garage to improve my stamina had clearly also bulked up my muscles.
That left just three pounds for all my clothes, boots, saddle, saddle-pad, girths and stirrup irons. It was not enough.
For the first time, but certainly not the last, I wasted – the jockey’s term for quickly losing weight.
I borrowed a plastic sweatsuit from one of the stable staff and, wearing two sets of woollen long johns plus two long-sleeved thermal vests underneath, I went for a stiff run up onto the moor every morning before school for that whole week. In addition, and much to my mother’s annoyance, I refused most of the food put before me on the kitchen table each evening.
Iced Page 3