Someone tried to trip me as I walked out of the weighing-room door.
Maybe it was an accident… or maybe not. Either way, I stumbled and nearly had a fall before I’d even reached my horse. But it taught me an important lesson in racing – ask for no quarter and, what’s more, don’t give one.
The contest itself was mostly uneventful.
I didn’t win, not because I did anything wrong, but simply because one of the other horses was too fast. I finished second, two lengths away, and the owner and trainer seemed happy enough. However, there was one incident going down the backstretch for the second time that sticks in my memory.
I was riding close to the rail, trying to take the shortest route. As instructed, I was up with the leading pair that were running side by side about a length in front. The first fence on the back is the water jump, followed by three plain fences close together. As I approached the first of these I heard a call from a jockey behind.
‘Give me some bloody room,’ he shouted.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw that it was the one who had spat in my face, and he was trying to come up on my inside.
No chance, I thought.
If anything, I moved even tighter to the rail. If he wanted to pass me, he’d have to do it round my outside.
There was an anguished cry along with a string of expletives as he had to take a pull, and this unbalanced his horse such that it hit the top of the fence and went down onto the turf, nose first.
I smiled. Served him right.
I, too, could be a total effing bastard on a horse.
* * *
Grand National lunch at the Kulm Hotel is always a noisy affair and today is no exception.
Competitors, family, friends, fellow club members and all forms of assorted other hangers-on sit at long, jam-packed tables on the terrace, drinking beer or wine, telling and retelling tales of past exploits on the ice, all at full volume.
Some of their stories are even true.
Trophies are awarded to the winners and then there is the annual Grand National Firework, when those who have fallen in the race, myself included, are required to stand together and mime in the manner of an exploding firework. There is also a real one fired up and over the lake to a great height before it explodes with a huge boom that echoes around the valley, followed by cheers and applause from the revellers.
It is this uncomplicated fellowship and brotherhood of the Cresta family that I find so attractive after the aggressive cut and thrust of professional sport.
The lunch finally breaks up and, while some move into the Sunny Bar to continue drinking, I decide it is time to make my excuses and leave. Plus, the prices in the hotel bars are beyond my meagre budget anyway.
Riding the Cresta may be an amateur activity but that doesn’t mean it’s cheap.
For the past five winters I have come to St Moritz in mid-January and remained for as long as I can afford, riding the ice as many times as possible. One year, I ended up in hospital on my second day with a broken collarbone after an excursion off the track at Shuttlecock, but I stayed on anyway and, with the aid of some adhesive strapping, I was back on the ice just three weeks later.
Unlike in horseracing, there is no need for a doctor to pass you medically fit to ride the Cresta. You simply have to self-certify that, in your own opinion, you are well enough. So I had.
I walk up from the terrace, through the hotel lobby, towards the front door.
‘Good God, Miles, you’re a face from the past,’ calls a female voice to my left.
I turn to find a pretty petite woman with shoulder-length blonde hair standing at reception. Susi Ashcroft, racehorse owner, lover of dance and the arts, socialite and doyen of London’s charity set. One of the ladies who lunch.
‘Hi, Susi,’ I reply. ‘What brings you here?’
‘I’m just checking in. I have a runner in the big race tomorrow.’
‘What? At White Turf? On the ice?’
She nods. ‘Jerry thinks we have a chance of winning.’
Jerry would be Jerry Dickinson, racehorse trainer from Lambourn, for whom I was once contracted as a stable jockey, often riding Susi’s horses. In my experience, Jerry always told his owners that their horses had a chance of winning, he just didn’t tell them how big that chance was. After all, if you buy a lottery ticket, your odds against winning are forty-five million to one. Statistically, you are nearly five times more likely to be struck by lightning, and three times more likely to have identical quadruplets. But, technically, you do still have a chance. And people do win, even if everyone else is then so jealous that they hate them.
‘Is Jerry over here too?’ I ask.
‘Sure is.’
‘And Sabrina?’ I ask. Sabrina is Jerry’s wife.
‘No. Jerry’s come on his own. Sabrina’s at home, holding the fort.’
Of course she is, but I’m still disappointed. Sabrina had been my Good Samaritan, who stopped to help while everyone else passed me by on the other side. Without her numerous interventions when I was at my lowest, I would have surely emulated my mother and killed myself.
‘Jerry has two runners in the race,’ Susi says. ‘I just hope the other one doesn’t beat us.’ There is a touch of desperation in her tone, as if she thinks that that is quite likely.
‘Maybe they’ll dead heat,’ I say tactfully. ‘Then they can both win.’
She laughs. ‘I don’t really expect to win the race, although it would be nice. I just don’t want to be beaten by Brenda.’
‘Brenda?’
‘Brenda Fenton. Spends a fortune on horses. Jerry’s other runner is hers.’
‘Is she staying here too?’ I ask, looking around.
‘No, thank God. She’s at the Badrutt’s Palace down the road. She thinks it’s grander and more in keeping with her own perceived status.’ Susi raises her eyes to the high, ornate ceiling. ‘The Badrutt’s is more expensive but, from the pictures online, I don’t think it’s so nice. Silly woman.’
There is clearly not much love lost between the two.
‘And Jerry? Where’s he staying?’
She seems surprised that I should ask. ‘I’ve no idea. Somewhere cheap if I know Jerry.’
Somewhere cheap is where I am staying, too. On my first visit I’d discovered a quiet bed-and-breakfast Gasthaus in a back street on the edge of town, where a room cost far less for a whole week than for just one night at the Kulm or the Badrutt’s Palace.
‘Look,’ she says excitedly. ‘We’ve all been invited to a drinks party this evening put on by the White Turf sponsors for the international visitors. Why don’t you come along?’
I laugh. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Oh, do come. My husband, Michael, was meant to be here with me but he’s decided to attend a military history convention instead. You can come with me as my date.’ She laughs. ‘That will get the tongues wagging. There’ll also be a few others there from England, people who know you.’
That’s what I’m worried about. For the past six years or so I have been trying to keep a low profile and that’s how I would like it to continue. It is better that way for my mental health.
‘I have other plans,’ I say. I don’t, but she wouldn’t know that.
‘Then cancel them. You must come. In fact, I insist on it.’
I remember now that Susi always did do a lot of insisting.
‘Where is it?’ I ask, and immediately regret having done so.
‘Next door at the Country Club. I’ll meet you here in the hotel lobby at six o’clock. We’ll go together.’
Before I have a chance to object, she skips off towards the open lift, giving me a big smile and a wave as the doors close.
Damn it!
Going to a drinks party with a load of former racing acquaintances is not high on my list of fun ideas for a Saturday evening. In fact, it’s at the bottom.
But, after what Susi said, I am quite intrigued to meet Brenda Fenton.
I deci
de that I’ll pop along for just long enough to do that – without realising it will change my life for ever.
7
My first months as a professional steeplechase jockey could be described as steady rather than spectacular.
I followed up my second place at Cartmel with another runner-up slot in a hurdle race at Wetherby, and then one more over the Scottish border at Kelso.
I was eager to go one better, and my chance came in early November when I was engaged by another Malton trainer to ride the favourite in a conditional jockeys’ three-mile chase at Hexham, after his own trainee was injured in a fall on the gallops the day before the race.
I knew he’d only asked me because of who my father had been. Thirty years before they had been young jockeys together and he was doing the son of an old friend a favour.
Once again, I felt the heavy hand of expectation on my shoulders. It tightened the muscles in my back and neck, and I woke early on the morning of the race with a headache, which persisted throughout the day in spite of me taking painkillers with my meagre breakfast of just one small banana.
Managing my weight was becoming a real problem.
However little I ate, the reading on the bathroom scales remained stubbornly fixed at nine-stone-three. And I was frustrated that I still seemed to be getting taller, even though all the websites I visited stated that boys should have stopped growing by the age of seventeen.
The lightest weight that can be given to a horse in a jump race in Great Britain is ten stone: that’s 63.5 kilograms. However, as a conditional jockey, I received a weight allowance to compensate for my inexperience. The allowance could be as much as ten pounds, depending on the race, which meant I might be required to ride at nine-stone-four, just one pound above my actual body weight, and that had to include my clothes and boots, and, of course, the saddle, the girths and the stirrup irons, even if most of those are now made of carbon fibre instead of actual iron.
So far I had got away with it, as the horses I had ridden had not been given the lowest possible weight, but that was now all about to change at Hexham. Thankfully, my allowance for this particular race was only seven pounds, but that still meant I had to weigh out at nine-stone-seven.
Apart from the banana for breakfast, I’d had nothing to eat since the moment I’d been offered the ride. It was crazy. I was starving myself to do the weight when I absolutely needed to eat something to give me enough energy to ride. Between completing my duties at the stables and leaving for the races with the trainer, I went for a run in the plastic sweatsuit to try and shift a pound or two of fluid, and I wasn’t sure if I’d made the weight until I actually stood on the scales in front of the official.
‘Pussett. Nine stone, seven pounds,’ said the clerk, making a note in his ledger.
‘Thank you, sir,’ I replied with a sigh of relief. I gave my featherweight saddle to the trainer who had been watching, and then went back into the changing room to wait.
What I needed, I reckoned, were what were known as ‘cheating boots’ – paper-thin footwear worn by some jockeys to weigh out but then changed for a more substantial pair for the race itself.
It was strictly against the rules, mind.
One had to wear and use exactly what was weighed, or face disqualification. But I’d heard of one senior jockey who’d once weighed out without his saddle in order to make a particularly light weight. He’d told the clerk it was under the number cloth, but it wasn’t. I wondered if that was why they changed the rules so that the number cloth is no longer weighed.
Then there were stories of jockeys, in the old ‘sit down on the scales’ days, who would leave one foot on the floor. Hence the new ‘stand on a four-inch-high platform’ scales, which made that impossible.
As it was, I was wearing nothing at all under my thin nylon britches and coloured silks, other than the mandatory back protector for which there was a weight allowance. Not even socks, underpants or a stock collar round my neck. I put them on now and hoped that the clerk of the scales wouldn’t notice. Then I ate a high-calorie nutrition bar and drank a glass of water, trusting that I wouldn’t weigh too much as a consequence when the race was over.
Jockeys have always had battles with weight, and it is far worse for the flat-racing apprentices. The minimum riding weight for them could be down as low as seven-stone-seven – the same as for a flyweight boxer – and they are trying to control something weighing half a ton – ten times as much as the jockey.
Half a ton of inbred, unhinged and manic muscle, tendon and bone, trained to perfection to run at its limit, with inefficient steering, worse brakes, and a mind of its own that is often not in sync with that of the flyweight on its back, who may just be hanging on for dear life.
But how I loved it.
* * *
Hexham justifiably claims to be the most scenic racecourse in Britain, with spectacular vistas from the enclosures across the course towards the already snow-covered Pennine Hills, the backbone of England.
For my part, I was too nervous to take in the view, instead sitting quietly in the changing room contemplating the task ahead.
Finally the call came. ‘Jockeys out.’
The nutrition bar had given me a burst of energy and I positively skipped down the weighing-room steps to join the owner and trainer in the parade ring.
‘Good luck,’ said the owner, to whom I touched the peak of my cap in the manner I had seen more experienced jockeys do. He was a kind-looking man in a tweed suit, brown brogues and a trilby, and I could tell he was also very nervous. ‘Please win,’ he said to me earnestly. ‘I think the handicapper has been very generous to us in this race.’
So does everyone else, I thought. That’s why we were the favourite.
I wondered how much he had staked on his horse to win. He had the hangdog look of someone who was in far too deep for his own health, and had clearly wagered the shirt off his back.
More weighty expectation on my shoulders.
The trainer was more composed and also more specific with his instructions. ‘Remember what I told you when we walked the course earlier,’ he said. ‘From that severe dip at the end of the back straight, there’s a really stiff climb up to the last fence and then it’s fairly flat to the line, so don’t make the mistake of starting your finishing run too soon. I’ve seen lots of others do that here and run out of gas by the time they get to the last. Also, take it relatively easy at the start to conserve energy for later, but without allowing yourself to get too far back from the leaders.’
It sounded so simple.
‘And, most importantly,’ he went on, ‘don’t take the wrong course.’
‘No, sir,’ I said.
Hexham Racecourse is unique in British racing for having a completely separate piece of track for the last fence and run-in, running parallel with, but some distance outside and above, the main steeplechase circuit. It could easily catch out the unwary jockey.
As one of the highest racecourses in the country, Hexham is also famous for the strong winds that blow straight off the moors, and this day was no exception.
In spite of it being only early November, the icy blast cut through my thin silks like a sharp knife. So I was grateful to finally be given a leg-up onto a warm horse before I began to shiver uncontrollably.
There were nine runners in the race. We circled round at the three-mile start having our girths tightened, and then we were off.
As instructed, I settled in behind the others, but no one was keen to make the early running as we had all clearly been given the same instructions. It was almost funny as we popped over the first plain fence at only a canter. My horse didn’t like it and he was struggling against the bridle, wasting precious energy, both his and mine.
In the average steeplechase, it is generally accepted that an extra pound in weight carried equates to approximately a length worse in performance over the whole race. So, if two horses of exactly equal ability race, with one carrying one pound more, the one carryin
g less will win by one length; two pounds, two lengths, and so on. But it is not an exact science, with the weight advantage having more of an effect over longer distances, and in heavier ground.
In this race, over the more-than-average distance of three miles, the weight-to-length advantage I had over the other runners should be more, but not if we just cantered along for the first half a mile or so, making the race effectively shorter.
Hence, I decided to push on, even if it meant taking the lead, and not least because the second fence in this three-mile chase was an open ditch, and I would need greater momentum to cross it. I just hoped that the trainer, watching from the grandstand, wouldn’t believe I had simply disregarded his instructions for no good reason.
By the third, I was three or four lengths in front and making a good pace without over-draining my mount. One of the finer things about Hexham Racecourse are the copper beech hedges that form the wings to every fence. These, together with a sensible shaping of the birch, make the fences so inviting to jump, and my horse was clearly enjoying himself.
He was, without doubt, the best horse I had ever ridden and, when I got things slightly wrong coming to the water jump, he simply took control and ignored my plan to have him put in an extra stride, instead clearing the obstacle in a mighty leap that took us even further away from our pursuers.
Going down the back straight for the second time I let him take a breather, and two of the others came up alongside. One even headed us by a neck but I continued to hug the inside rail, meaning they had to go farther round the outside to get past me.
However, immediately after the dip, one of the two went for home, sprinting away and jumping the second-last obstacle with a lead of two or three lengths.
I sat and waited patiently, just as the trainer had instructed, coasting up the hill to the final jump before asking my mount for his supreme effort.
I did not take the wrong course, nor did my horse run out of gas.
I was still four lengths behind at the last fence. The other challengers had fallen back and I could see that the one horse ahead of me was wavering from side to side with exhaustion. Might I still win?
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