Not Enough Time

by Henrietta Knight

  The third amateur was Richard Tate, son of the legendary trainer Martin. Richard was champion in 1968–9 and 1969–70. He and Terry had many good times together, including holidays abroad – in particular on Elba. In the fiftieth year of the Bollinger Awards he was on the team when Terry attended the trip to France. It was a celebration for professional and amateur jockey champions and they stayed in a French château and went down into the champagne cellars in Reims courtesy of Madame Bollinger. They all had a great time. Richard also remembers his first ride at Warne Hunt – now a discontinued racecourse. He had no proper equipment that day and no riding clothes. Terry lent him all his kit. He was unbelievably helpful to his fellow jockeys, even the amateurs.

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  Terry enjoyed watching the changing styles of riders after his retirement. Even during the week before he died, he watched races on the big television screen in his bedroom, and focused on the younger jockeys. He singled out several up-and-coming riders and they are already proving his judgement correct. Of the established jockeys, he always adored A. P. McCoy and spent many hours discussing racing with him. He was Terry’s idol and they had a huge amount in common. When riding, A. P. was driven by a determination to win, and fellow jockeys say that Terry was the same. He hated finishing in second place.

  There is no doubt that Terry was a fantastic champion jockey in his day, but he admitted that he had a style all of his own which would have been difficult for anybody to copy. He was five feet eleven inches tall but rode with extremely short leathers. He would take a lot of weight through his knees and almost knelt on his horses, which kept him off their backs and especially off their loins. As well as riding with short stirrups, he rode with short reins. He had superb balance and beautiful hands, but always kept a contact with the horses’ mouths. He maintained that a horse’s head was its balancing pole and that a jockey should always keep a good hold of the reins in order to give his mount confidence and support.

  Terry emphasised the importance of getting horses to race with a rhythm and he deplored jockeys who rode with long, looping reins and approached the fences with no contact. Of course they needed to be ready to slip their reins over an obstacle if the horses made mistakes but they had to be quick to pick them up again on landing. Terry would say to jockeys, ‘Sit into your horse. Keep an even contact and ride forward. Don’t look for strides, but let the fences come to you.’ ‘The memory I guard closest is of Biddlecombe at the last fence. He would send a horse at and over the obstacle with a dash and belief and compulsive commitment that I never saw matched before or since,’ Brough Scott wrote in the Racing Post. Interestingly, when walking around at the start, Terry never showed a fence to his horse. It was the same at home when we schooled the horses. He never let the jockeys go up to the fences before they began jumping, ‘The buggers will see the fences soon enough when they get to them,’ he would say. He was probably right; after all, three-day-event riders and showjumpers never show the first fence to their horses.

  Peter O’Sullivan wrote about Terry during the 1968–9 season: ‘After he had won on King Candy at Warwick, the stewards told him that he was too brave. He had ridden into the last as if it were not there and his nearest rival had hit the deck while upsides. The stewards lectured him because they considered his forceful riding had caused his opponent to fall.’

  Yet, very few people knew that Terry had his own idiosyncrasies. He habitually kicked with his right leg only and was never any good at changing his whip from his right hand to his left. This technique is regularly taught nowadays to young jockeys, when they are trained by professionals and they constantly practise on mechanical horses or Equicizers. Although it would have been hard to imitate Terry’s unique style, many young jockeys admired him and tried to mirror him. Enda Bolger, the cross-country king from Ireland and champion point-to-point rider over there on many occasions, remembers a day out hunting as a child in Co. Kilkenny. He was trotting along a road on his pony when Mrs McCalmont, the Master, rode up beside him and said, ‘You are riding ridiculously short, young boy. Put your leathers down!’ ‘I’m trying to look like Terry Biddlecombe,’ retorted Enda.

  Brough Scott also wrote, ‘On a horse Terry had incredible balance and power. Off it he had an engaging farmer’s boy charm. One day at Ludlow these two qualities combined to effect a treble as unique as it was cheekily outrageous. After winning the opening hurdle race, T. W. Biddlecombe was not engaged again and so joined a group of us down at the last fence for the second. Also there were a couple of young ladies to whom Biddlecombe and the splendidly named Johnny Gamble got chatting, and no sooner was the race over than the desperate duo were seen driving off to a local farmhouse in the young ladies’ car. The other races came and went with no sign of the champion, and it was not until saddling had started for the last that Terry came crashing through the back door of the Ludlow weighing room. As he duly cruised past the post, the commentator called out, “A splendid second winner for Terry Biddlecombe.” Who else knew it was actually a third?’

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  Day-to-day life for the jump jockeys in Terry’s era seems to have been considerably tougher than it is today, even though it was slower and less of a rat race. To get to the races they often travelled by train, where they would play cards and have a round of drinks. There were no motorways, and car journeys were tedious and slow. During the 1965–6 National Hunt season Terry travelled some 80,000 miles along the old roads in order to capture the championship. On the racecourses, there was little regard for a jockey’s well-being. Concrete posts held up the railings around the courses and when jockeys fell, they could be thrown against these lethal uprights. Indeed, when Terry’s brother, Tony, a top amateur rider and champion in the 1961–2 season, was riding at Wincanton in 1957, he was catapulted into the rails and posts on the far side of the course after his mount, Ascension, slipped on the bend. Terry, who had led up the horse, caught her when she was loose but their father, Walter, whipped off the saddle, vaulted onto the mare and galloped back across the course to find Tony, who was in a very poor state, with a badly broken leg that kept him in hospital for three months. There was no doctor attending him. Nowadays, all the uprights and railings are plastic and Terry’s father would never have been allowed to ride bareback and hatless down the course to find his stricken son.

  In days gone by, if a jockey had a fall, somebody had to find the doctor and the medical team and this might well not have been until some while later. Today, doctors see injured jockeys almost immediately. None of the jockeys wore body protectors and there were no proper crash hats. Instead they wore cork helmets, which looked more like halved eggs. They did not have chin straps to secure them and the helmets often came off in a race. If a jockey was concussed he was not necessarily stood down. If they felt OK, they rode again shortly afterwards. Nowadays, a jockey is not permitted to ride for at least seven days and has to pass a hospital concussion test.

  At home, I have several photographs of Terry riding in races that would make the hair of present-day medics stand on end. There is a picture of him winning a hurdle race at Cheltenham with his arm in plaster – the cast is clearly visible at the bottom of the sleeve on his colours.

  ‘What happened here?’ I asked him.

  ‘Oh, I had a small break in a bone in my arm and the hospital put it in plaster to protect it.’

  He won the race and nobody seemed in the least bit concerned. There is also a photograph of Terry riding round at the start at Hereford in a neck brace. ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘I had a hairline crack in a vertebra but I felt fine to ride, so I just gave my neck some support.’

  The racecourses had no hard-surface inside tracks in Terry’s era. Vehicles did not drive round beside the runners. No ambulances followed the jockeys, and if a jockey had a bad fall it could often be missed from the stands. In February 1970, Terry had an extremely bad fall on the flat, in the last race at Kempton. It was on the final bend. The ground was heavy and badly cut up. It was nearly dark. Terry was to
wards the back of the field and not going particularly well when his horse stumbled and went down onto its knees. As it struggled to keep its feet, it knelt on him with its full weight and kicked him. Terry always remembered the excruciating pain and how he somehow rolled under the rails, but nobody saw his fall from the grandstand and he was left in agony on the cold, wet grass. It was not until several other jockeys returned to the weighing room and saw Terry’s clothes hanging on his peg in the changing room that one of them said, ‘Where is Biddles?’

  An ambulance was finally dispatched to look for him and he was taken back to the medical room. He was badly hurt and his blood pressure had risen alarmingly. He was coughing up blood. He spent many weeks in Ashford Hospital and was taken there from the racecourse with a police escort and sirens blaring. He had split a kidney and had crushed his ribs. His whole riding career hung in the balance. The injury to that kidney was to give him trouble for the rest of his life. It never worked again, and during the final years of his illness the remaining kidney failed on several occasions. Renowned author and racing journalist Jonathan Powell said, ‘I can remember visiting Terry in hospital after that fall at Kempton and shaking my head in disbelief that he ever intended to ride again.’ It was due to this horrendous fall that Terry missed the winning ride on Gay Trip in the 1971 Grand National. He never forgot watching the race from his home on the television. It was bittersweet. He loved the horse and was pleased that it won, but he longed to have been riding him.

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  Among some of the senior jockeys who helped me during my training years, I will treasure the support I received from Dominic Elsworth, Mick Fitzgerald, Graham Lee, Jamie Osborne, Paul Moloney, Timmy Murphy, Sam Thomas and Andrew Thornton. They often used to come to West Lockinge Farm and ride out. They did plenty of invaluable schooling. They all rode winners for the yard, which gave me immeasurable confidence. They remain great friends, Andrew and Dominic were especially supportive in the final months of Terry’s illness.

  Dominic always remembers the trick that was played on him on his first day at West Lockinge. Sam and Timmy ushered him into the kitchen for breakfast and told him to sit in the chair at the end of the table, the back of which was covered by a jacket. Terry came in and saw him sitting there. He growled loudly, ‘Get out of my chair! Nobody ever sits in it, bar me. Can’t you read?’ He pulled off the jacket to reveal white initials T. W. B., painted on the wood. Nowadays, we still have that chair but I keep it in the conservatory so that nobody will misuse it. It is usually bedecked with damp washing as I don’t much like people sitting in it. It holds too many memories.

  Mick Fitzgerald rode a number of winners for us but wasn’t always the polished jockey he later became. ‘When I was in my first year as stable jockey to Nicky Henderson, I made far too many mistakes, just because I was desperate to get it right. I was second jockey to Hen at the time, behind Jamie Osborne. Terry had not long been on the scene, but it’s fair to say that his reputation as a brilliant jockey was not lost on Nicky and he enlisted Terry to coach me. We spent a few evenings in the sitting room at Hen’s house, all of us mind, not just me and Terry! I felt like a schoolboy as the videos were played, some of them were shocking and Terry in his inimitable way just said, ‘Sit still boy.’ I remain indebted to him for giving me his years of experience as a champion jockey and big race winners for nothing, because most of all he wanted to see me do well. I did not feel like a schoolboy anymore when I left Lockinge after those evenings and because of that I am now a jockey coach. I hope in some small way I can give young jockeys a helping hand, just by taking the time to speak to them, and making them realise that we are all too keen at times, yet it is not always the best way. I try to model myself on Terry and I am eternally grateful to him for all his help.’

  Apparently Terry’s race-riding instructions were renowned for being straightforward. Timmy Murphy found that he was incredibly sound and helpful, but kept everything simple, ‘If one had to change a plan and had to ride differently as the race developed, Terry usually understood why his race instructions had not been followed,’ he says. ‘He always supported the jockeys, and he understood our reasonings and where we were coming from. He was great with his advice. If ever I went to ride out at Lockinge and I was in pain from a fall, I never dared mention it to Terry, because he had suffered far more himself. He never complained but was just annoyed that he could not do the things that he used to do fifty years before.’

  It seems that all the regular jockeys at our yard really enjoyed the talks at breakfast time. Paul Moloney in particular was often spellbound by the stories of Terry’s riding days. ‘Having been such a successful jockey, it was fascinating to hear the day-to-day happenings in the olden days,’ he recalls. ‘It was a privilege to school horses at West Lockinge Farm and get helpful advice afterwards from Terry.’

  Warren Marston never rode out for us at home, but he was always most reliable when we secured his services on a racecourse. His feedback after a race was invaluable and he really knew the game. He used to say to his agent, Chris Broad, whom Terry called ‘Squeaker’, ‘If Hen has a horse that she wants me to ride and I am not otherwise engaged, please put me on it, as her horses are always well schooled and are good jumpers.’

  One of the most professional jockeys we ever had riding out was Graham Lee. Everybody adored him and he had such a wonderful way with people and horses. Terry thought the world of him and was exceedingly proud to have seen Graham change from being a National Hunt jockey – he won the Grand National on Amberleigh House – to riding so successfully on the flat. I asked Graham for his memories of his days at Lockinge and he started off like he always does: ‘They were happy days,’ he said. ‘With Terry, it was always an honour to be in his company and I was privileged to ride for a man who had everything – experience, knowledge, humour, class and presence.’

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  Although Terry accompanied me to the races less and less when his arthritis progressed and he became less mobile, I will always cherish memories of our earlier training days, when he walked courses in order to assess the ground. He always paid attention to the way in which the fences were built and presented. In his own jockey days, he walked every racecourse. He continually moaned about the laziness of his modern counterparts, very few of whom bother to look at the going and walk round before they ride. So much can be gained by noting the ground on the take-offs and landings and getting a feel for the course on a racing day.

  Terry always gave clear and simple instructions to the jockeys before our horses ran in their races. He would explain where to lie-up and where to drop out – in other words, where a jockey could afford to let his mount take it easy and get into a better rhythm and where losing any ground meant losing a race. As a jockey, Terry used to encourage his horses to relax, and this was often close to the back of the field. He maintained that they conserved energy. Yet with novice chasers he always liked the horses to be handy. It was largely due to Terry’s meticulous attention to detail that in 2004 Jim Culloty was able to keep Best Mate on the inside of the course on a fresh strip of grass that had not been used on the previous day and provided the best-possible going. The horse had a beautiful action but always needed good ground.

  Terry rode at virtually every racecourse in the UK except Fakenham, and he only ever visited the place once when we had a runner. In his days there were racecourses at Birmingham, beneath Spaghetti Junction, Bogside, the venue for the Scottish Grand National, Buckfastleigh, in Devon, Hurst Park, near Kempton, Manchester and Wye. It is sad when racecourses close; Nottingham and Windsor were great jumping tracks, but since the nineties they, too, have gone. Folkestone and Hereford were lost as well in 2012.

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  Finally, in Terry’s riding days it was not unusual for jockeys in a race to snatch or borrow a whip from another rider who was, most probably, going less well. On 12 March 1964 Terry rode The Pouncer for Eric Cousins at Stratford. ‘During the race I dropped my whip,’ he remembered. ‘Turning into
the straight I asked one of my fellow jockeys if I could borrow his whip. He said, “No.” “I’ll give you a tenner for it,” but “No,” was still the reply, so I grabbed the whip out of his hand and sent The Pouncer on to win. After the race, the jockey came and asked me for the tenner and I said, “I offered you ten pounds during the race and you let me down, so you’re not having it now!” I think I won by a head, but I should have won by about ten lengths – I was lucky.’ (Winner’s Disclosure).

  Nowadays, it is strictly forbidden to take another jockey’s whip in a race and there are severe penalties. On 4 December 2014, Davy Russell received a ban for borrowing Phillip Enright’s whip in Ireland – and the horse did not even win. Terry would have applauded him for his ingenuity. He was an admirer of Davy Russell’s, ever since the jockey spent a month at West Lockinge Farm during his early riding days.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Downward Spiral

  From about 2007 onwards, Terry’s general health and mobility began to deteriorate alarmingly. There were many simple jobs that he could no longer do, yet he remained in good spirits and was as outrageous as ever with his remarks. Arthritis, from which he had suffered for numerous years, took a stronger hold and his joints noticeably began to show the wear and tear from his racing days. No jockey who had experienced the crunching falls that Terry suffered in the sixties and seventies, resulting in forty-seven fractures, could have expected to make it into later life without aches and pains. He had punished his body in his youth and it had taken an unreal hammering. On top of this, medical care and attention in the mid-twentieth century was nowhere near what it is today, nor were the medicines.

  Terry’s hands and knees were his most badly affected joints. It used to upset him when he could not unscrew the tops off jam jars, or climb up the farmhouse stairs without a struggle. On many occasions, he would delay going up the staircase to bed at the end of the day until I was ready to steady him on the steps and walk behind him. His bravery knew no limits, although I often used to think how much easier it would have been if we had lived in a bungalow.