by Dick Francis
I set to work to restore some order to the huge muddle, and by studying ’chasing records to find out which horses had run at which meetings, made up transport accounts fairly easily for each owner. After that, having no idea which horses had been shod most, I added all the blacksmith’s bills together, divided the total by the number of horses in the yard, and charged the owners a fixed sum for each horse. The training fees would have been easy to calculate if only George had noted when new horses came into the yard and others left, but as no owners complained of being overcharged I suppose their memories were as short as George’s.
It was only after I had spent weeks painstakingly writing down each item separately for each owner, that I realised that there was not a single bill for veterinary services. Not being able to believe that George’s horses were so exceptionally strong and healthy that in six months none of them had needed blistering or to have cuts or coughs attended to, I asked him if he had kept the vet’s accounts separately, hoping perhaps to be given a nice tidy little file.
‘Bills?’ said George. ‘Bobby O’Neil has never sent a bill in his life, as far as I know.’ And until towards the end of the three years I stayed with George, no bill appeared.
Bobby, a happy-go-lucky Irishman, simply could not be bothered to keep accounts either, so between the two of them there was a complete vagueness about the number of Bobby’s visits, until in the end Bobby found my continual questions such a nuisance that he too engaged someone to sort things out for him.
When I had at last put everything down into columns I started to add up. The totals were alarming. I was sure I must have made some fundamental mistakes, so as a quick check I added up all George’s expenses for the same months, and was brought face to face for the first time with the sad truth, that training, like crime, does not pay. George’s expenses were slightly more than the money he would receive from the bills I was labouring on.
The loss he had made after all his hard work with the horses did not worry George at all.
‘I will put it against the income from the farm,’ he said, ‘and it will save me a bit of tax.’
It seemed all wrong to me that the job which George took seriously and always put before his farm work, should in this way be reduced to the level of an expensive hobby, so I adopted the item called Chemistry, and increased it a little on every bill until the loss disappeared.
‘Chemistry’ became the symbol of solvency for George from then on, and I have often wondered if any of the owners was surprised at the number of extra pills, drenches, and antiseptics which his horse was apparently needing.
I went to George with the understanding that I would be allowed to ride his horses when the owners did not object to having a beginner on them, but I had not really expected to start very soon. However, I had only been in Cheshire for a week, when George said I could ride in a novices steeplechase at Woore a few days later.
‘The horse belongs to a friend of mine,’ he said, ‘and it has never run before.’
As I had never ridden against professional jockeys before, I thought the combination of an untried horse and an untried rider in a novice ’chase on a sharp country course was bound to be a hair-raising affair, but I was thrilled to be given the chance.
‘What is it called?’ I asked.
‘Russian Hero,’ said George.
Every morning I had been out with both strings for exercise, galloping and schooling the horses over hurdles and fences, and for the last few days before the race, I paid all my attention to the big bay horse I was to ride at Woore. He had, I was told, already run in several point-to-point races, but had had no success, and had fallen once or twice.
When the great day came at last, I followed George into the weighing-room, feeling very strange and a little shy, and was shown to an inconspicuous corner of the changing-room by the valet who was to lend me all my kit. After he had made sure that he had some breeches and a helmet to fit me, I went out again to walk round the course.
During my first year or two as a jockey I walked miles, going round every new course I rode on, looking for peculiarities at the jumps, and making sure I knew which way to go. It is asking for trouble to go out to race without being certain of the route, and unfair to the man who has asked one to ride for him. One cannot try to gain a few yards by squeezing round a corner, if it may turn out to be the wrong one.
I learned this lesson very thoroughly one day at Ludlow a few months later, when I was going to ride in a two horse race for George. I told him, laughing, that I had heard my opponent on the favourite ask somebody where the two and a half mile starting post was.
George said at once, ‘If he doesn’t know where the start is, he probably hasn’t walked round. You let him go off in front, he may go the wrong way.’
To my surprise, because I had taken George’s suggestion as a joke, that is exactly what happened. When we got near the point where the course separated into the hurdle and steeplechase tracks, I saw the man in front of me waver and hesitate, and he chose the wrong one. He discovered his mistake when he found the wrong sort of fence round the bend, but by the time he got back on to the right course I had a comfortable lead, and I won the race.
I felt so sorry for my opponent when he returned to hear the opinion of the losing half of the crowd, and the more pointed remarks of the horse’s owner and trainer, that I promised myself I would always make quite sure of the way before I started.
I did not expect to find myself in front, that first day at Woore, but the course was unfenced, and as it was necessary to pass all the marking flags on the outside, it helped to know just where they were.
Back in the weighing-room changed and weighed out I sat waiting for the time to go out to the paddock, trying to look calm and unconcerned, as if this was already an everyday affair to me. The summons came at last; George gave me a leg up and some reassuring advice in the parade ring, and off I went.
It would be very satisfactory to be able to say that I won that race, but in fact I did not. Russian Hero and I went quietly round together, both of us, perhaps, concentrating on finishing safely without disgracing ourselves, and we came in fourth.
This performance could not have been too hopeless, because after that George asked me to ride quite often, but always, of course, when not much was expected of the horse. Owners had no objection to me riding when their horses were obviously not good enough to win the races they were running in, but they always wanted to put up an experienced jockey if they thought the horse was likely to win. Russian Hero, for instance, had shown so much promise in his first race with me, that George decided he was good enough to win a race he was entered for at Birmingham. Jack Bissil rode him, and he won.
Although I understood the owners’ feelings very well, I could not help wishing, as time went by, that I could have a chance to win on the horses I had schooled and ridden in their early races. However, I was getting a lot of practice in the art of race riding, even though I rarely finished in the first three. I learned how to judge the pace of a race and to know which of the other horses were going well, how to gain a length by taking an opening on the rails, and how sometimes to avoid trouble by racing on the outside.
Many people were very helpful and gave me good advice. The valets in the weighing-room passed on to me any remarks they had heard about the state of the ground, or any changes in the stiffness of the fences.
Jack Moloney, a great cross-country rider, who had been three times second in the Grand National before the war, was still riding when I started, and he was exceptionally kind to me. If we were riding in the same race he would never fail to come across to me and tell me something helpful, as we were circling round before the start.
‘The sun makes bad shadows here in front of the fences,’ he said once. ‘Don’t take off too soon.’
Another time he said, ‘Jump the water on the outside. They cut it up badly by the rails in the last race.’
When I was glancing round one day as we lined up he said
, ‘Don’t worry about anyone else. Watch the starter’s arm. You’ll see his hand press down on the lever which lets the tape up. Jump off then. Don’t wait until the tape is actually up.’
I took this advice, and got a flying start in front of the rest of the field. I always tried to do it from then on; but with more caution after the sad day when Joe Murphy set off a second too soon and ran into the tape which caught in his mouth as it sprang up, and pulled four of his teeth out.
Most of the jockeys were not talkative, although they were friendly in their manner. Only one or two of them took an unfair advantage of my inexperience. Once a knee was thrust upwards under my thigh in an attempt to make me lose my balance, and once I was pushed over so far on an unrailed course that there was no room for me at the jump, and my horse ran out; but these incidents are very uncommon, and there is almost no deliberate rough riding nowadays.
During the long bitter cold spell of my first winter with George, he sold his farm and moved his string of horses to the vast stables near Cholmondeley Castle, where he trained until 1961. After the move, with its hazards of ferrying all the horses over roads deep in snow and ice, we settled in slowly, and waited for the thaw.
The season of Hunter Chases was approaching, and I was hoping that at long last I would be able to win a race. It was five months then, since my first effort on Russian Hero, and I was getting a little despondent over my lack of success.
The thaw came, racing began again, and the weeks passed as before. I rode the bad horses, the green horses, and the tired old horses, but I could not win a race.
The most hopeless mount of all was a wild chestnut, who had got loose one morning and galloped head on into a signpost. He lost all sense of direction after that.
It was not until the second spring meeting at Bangor-on-Dee that I broke my duck.
George was running a horse called Wrenbury Tiger in a Hunter Chase, and as he thought it would be favourite in the betting, and might easily win, he had engaged Mickey Moseley to ride it. Mickey, a noted Cheshire horseman, was hurt a few days before the race, so George asked Dick Black, who was then a leading amateur, to come instead. Dick Black said it was too far to come from Berkshire for only one race, and George, not being able to find any other good amateurs who were free, finally said that I might have a go.
George may have been doubtful of my chances, but I was delighted at the prospect, and dear Wrenbury Tiger, as if he knew how much was in the balance for me, behaved beautifully, made no mistakes, and duly won the race.
Later on that afternoon I was to ride in a novice ’chase on a horse called Blitz Boy. I had ridden him three or four times before, and we hit the ground every time with depressing regularity. At Bangor-on-Dee my relief and joy at having at last ridden my first winner must have inspired him to greater things, because he cleared all the obstacles with ease, and we won that race too.
It is odd how luck runs. In the few weeks of the season that were left, everything went well for me. I won seven more races, which placed me half-way up the amateur jockeys list, with the respectable total of nine.
The last day of the season was a rainy one at Newport, Monmouthshire. I was going to ride three good horses, and as Mary was there, and we were to be married a week later, I was anxious to end the season with a bang.
I did.
My hopes for the day crashed with me to the ground almost in front of the stands. The horse I was riding got up and galloped straight into the neighbouring river where he swam off strongly down-stream, but I stayed painfully where I was, with a snapped collar-bone. And the rain poured endlessly down.
Mary and I were married, the wonderful hot summer wore on, and in August racing began again, in Devonshire.
The Devon circuit is always good fun. It is so far away from home that one must stay down there, and this is an excellent excuse for a few days’ holiday by the sea. There is an air of ‘back to school’ about the first day at Newton Abbot, with everyone greeting the friends they have not seen for a month or two, and gossiping about the pleasures of Majorca, or the hardships of water ski-ing. And some, of course, saying how the rain (or the dry weather) has ruined their hay crop, and that a farmer’s lot is not a happy one.
George sent several horses to Devon, to stay there for some weeks, and run in the six or seven meetings that are held there every year, and I went down in his place to see that everything went well. It was the first of many such journeys, for I suppose in the years since then I have been to Devon and back about a hundred times.
One of the horses was Rompworthy, a small compact brown gelding, which belonged to Mr Dyke Dennis, whose estates Douglas was managing in North Wales. Rompworthy was for two years the mainstay of my existence as a jockey; and Mr Dennis was always very good about letting me ride it, instead of asking someone better. Altogether he won thirteen races with me in the saddle, and he was a horse I was very fond of.
He had some odd habits. He preferred left-handed tracks, and always went better when it was an advantage for him to jump to the left. He hated being clipped, and was so violent that he defeated all attempts, even when a twitch of rope was twisted round his nose. His shaggy and untidy aspect in the winter was no indication of his worth, as many people ruefully learned to their cost when they had backed something else. He was always a most consistent and genuine horse, providing the ground was fairly hard. Only on one surprising day at Chepstow did he ever win in the mud.
Mr Dennis himself was as good to me as his horse. Whenever he was running Rompworthy, or one of his other horses, at some distance from Cheshire, he would take Mary and me off in his car, with Mrs Dennis, to stay for a day or two near the meeting. We had some hectic and hilarious week-ends with him, for he had a great sense of humour, and did not care at all what anyone thought of him.
He drove us to Rothbury, one rainy Friday, and when we got there, spent hours patiently following all the clues to a black-market ham he had heard of. After two bottles of whisky had loosened the local tongues, and a dark and clandestine night journey been made, he returned triumphantly bearing a wizened brown lump as if it were worth its weight in gold. The chase meant far more to him than the ham, for he owned five farms himself, and could not have counted his pigs.
The day of Rothbury Races can hardly be said to have dawned, because the sky was dark with rain clouds, which almost swamped the hilly little course in the afternoon.
One thin elderly lady must have taken refuge from the cloudburst and had spent her time in the bar absorbing an overdose of alcohol, for, to the utter consternation of all the jockeys, she suddenly appeared at the door of the changing-room, which was a long wooden hut, and asked if this was the way to the ladies’ cloakroom. Without waiting for an answer from the stupefied jockeys, she ambled calmly down the hut, trailing her wet umbrella behind her, past two rows of open-mouthed men in various stages of undress. She went straight into the washroom at the end of the hut, and a little while later walked back and out of the door into the rain again.
No sooner, however, had we stopped laughing, than she reappeared in the doorway, walked down the hut into the washroom, and came out again clasping the umbrella.
‘I left me gamp,’ she said, ‘by mistake.’
We did not like to point out that that was not the only mistake she had made, as she still seemed quite unaware of our nakedness.
During my second season with George I rode nearly all his horses regularly, as the owners seemed to be content that I should do so, and I got a tremendous lot of practice. Before the Cheltenham National Hunt Meeting in March, I had ridden in well over a hundred races since the Devonshire circuit, and there were in fact only four professional jockeys who had had more mounts than I.
Russian Hero had won for me at Haydock Park and Leicester, and several of his stable companions had been successful too. One of them, called Salmon Renown, started favourite in a race at Haydock, and made a shattering mistake at the second open ditch. He lost a good twenty lengths, but managed not to
fall, and we went into the water jump a long way behind the rest of the field. The water jump at Haydock is in front of the stands, and Salmon Renown gave the not-too-pleased crowd another display of acrobatics when he slid almost to a halt on landing. However, on we went, tailed off and almost a fence behind, and disappeared into the haze at the far end of the course. I am told that people on the stands rubbed their eyes, and thought we must have taken a short cut, when Salmon Renown and I came back first out of the mist, and won comfortably by ten lengths. It was an amazing effort, and it still surprises me, especially as the horse was not very notable afterwards.
I intended to remain an amateur until the end of the season, and was delighted to be asked to ride in most of the important amateur ’chases which all come at that time of the year. The National Hunt Steeplechase, the Foxhunters Chase and the United Hunts Chase at Cheltenham, the Military ’chases at Sandown, and the Foxhunters Chase at Liverpool were among them.
The Stewards of the National Hunt Committee had other ideas. When I arrived at Cheltenham they asked to see me, and in a friendly way pointed out that I was riding so much for no fee that I was possibly taking rides away from professional jockeys who depended on them for their livelihood. Would I either, they said, ride only in amateur races in future, or become a professional and compete fairly for my rides.
I asked to be allowed to go on as before until the end of the season, and at first I thought they would agree, but they changed their minds and decided that I must become a professional at the end of that week.
The thought of missing the Sandown and Liverpool ’chases was very depressing; but as it happened, I would not have been able to take part in them in any case, for I broke my collar-bone again on the last day of the Cheltenham meeting, and spent the first three weeks of my professional career with my feet on the ground.
My amateur status had served me very well. I had become known as a rider, and I had been able to partner a lot of horses because I was not allowed to accept any fee. Many of George’s owners were farmers, to whom the jockey’s on top of the trainer’s fee was no small matter, and they were glad enough to get someone to ride for nothing. I, in my turn, intending always to be a professional jockey in the end, if I should turn out to have any luck at the game, was very pleased to be able to gain so much experience. I looked upon what it cost me to remain an amateur for so long, the travelling expenses, valet’s fees, the expensive saddles, breeches and boots, as a sort of capital investment. I was, in effect, buying myself a niche in the professional world.