by Dick Francis
The Judge, then, studies the colours the jockeys are wearing, and the Clerk of the Scales looks at his list to find out what weight they ought to be carrying, and then at the scales, to see if they coincide. The scales themselves are usually in the form of a chair for the jockey to sit on, beside a large clock-face marked in pounds; this has a long pointer swinging round it to indicate the weight on the chair, and one feels one is being weighed like a pound of sugar in the kitchen. Scales where separate weights were added slowly until their sum balanced the jockey used to be the rule, but these are dying out because it took such a long time to operate them.
Weighed out, the jockeys hand over their saddles to the trainers of the horses they are to ride; the trainers carry them away to put on their animals, in the saddling boxes close to the parade ring. Ten minutes before the time of the race the jockeys leave the weighing-room and go to join the owners and trainers for a few last minutes’ conversation about tactics, the weather, the horse, and his prospects for the fray.
These short before-the-race meetings were the only times I ever saw some of the people I rode for, and even with those I knew well, I never had an opportunity of telling them how aware I am of their supreme importance to racing.
The whole enormous industries of flat racing and steeplechasing depend on the pleasure that owners get from seeing their horses run. Breeders, trainers, jockeys, secretaries, stable-lads, blacksmiths, bookmakers, tic-tac men, horse-box drivers, journalists, judges, starters, handicappers, clerks of scales, clerks of courses, valets, tote operators, and the men who pick up litter on the end of pointed sticks would all be on the dole if that pleasure faded away.
Pleasure it is, not profit; for it is generally agreed that the quickest way to lose a lot of money is to buy a string of race-horses. This is particularly true of steeplechasers, for they can rarely be sold to studs when their racing career is over. Most of them are geldings or mares, and successful stallions are unusual. As a result, people who own steeplechase horses do so from love of the sport; they do not expect to win large amounts, and they are very pleased if their horses earn enough in prize money to pay the training expenses. Not very many of them do earn enough, and this is partly because the prize money for most National Hunt races is too small. Some of the larger meetings have lately offered more races worth more than a thousand pounds to the winner, and there are several races worth more than five thousand pounds to the winner, but the average is three hundred pounds, and there cannot be more than a hundred well-endowed races every season, out of a total of well over two thousand.
Competing for the two thousand races in the 1955–56 season were no fewer than five thousand different horses, and as many of them won more than one race, roughly two out of every three contestants did not grace the winners’ enclosure. Though the statistics for every season are much the same, the horses themselves are not, and a failure one year may redeem himself the next.
Unfortunately there seems to be no sure recipe for attaining the winning minority, for even expensive, well-bred, and cherished favourites have come to grief, while the most unlikely-looking bargains of the sale ring have proved themselves world beaters.
Encouraged by the winning habits of Rompworthy, who cost Mr Dennis a hundred pounds as a young horse, and by Russian Hero, who was bred and reared by Fearnie Williamson on his farm, a man with big ideas bought an untried horse for fifty pounds, and waited for his fortune to be made. He said he did not care about steeplechasing itself, and as long as he knew when the horse was going to run in his colours, so that he could bet on it, he did not intend to bother and go to see its races.
Contrary to all expectations, for the horse was a poor one, his fairy tale immediately came true.
He only owned the horse for a fortnight. In that time it won a race at twenty to one, heavily backed by its ignorant owner and left alone by sensible people, and ten days later it won a selling race, and was sold afterwards for a large sum. It never won another race.
His owner thought he had found a wonderfully simple way of making a lot of money quickly, and soon bought two more feeble-looking animals for small sums. But the bills for training fees rolled in and the bets were lost, for the horses this time did exactly what their trainer expected of them, which was nothing. Disgusted and poorer than when he started, their owner gave them away, for no one would buy them, and took up football pools instead. (Here his chances of winning the biggest prize are slightly less than those of his being murdered: about one in four million.)
And the moral of this Cautionary Tale for Get-rich-quick Race-horse Owners? If at first you succeed beyond your wildest dreams, don’t try again.
Luckily for us all, however, this sort of owner is rare, and all the others remain faithful to their fascinating but expensive sport. It costs more to keep a horse in training than it does to send a child to boarding school; but of course one cannot hope to recover the school fees by judicious betting on the end-of-term examination results, or to put the child up for auction if he is a dunce.
The short parade ring conversation ends, the trainers give their jockeys a leg up, and off they go to the start.
The starting stalls familiar in flat racing are not used for National Hunt racing. A single strand across the course is pulled down to a catch at shoulder level, and when this is released by the starter’s lever, the tape flies up at an oblique angle, so that the horses start off underneath it. At some small meetings the arrangements are less formal: the starter pulls a white elastic rope across the course and to start the race lets it go, so that it springs back and clears the way for the horses.
As the jockeys circle round at the starting-point, making sure their girths are tight enough and their stirrup leathers the right length, the Starter calls a roll to make sure that everyone has arrived. There are no places to be drawn for in National Hunt racing, and one can start from whatever position one likes. Jockeys who are eager to start on the inside can sometimes be seen holding a private race down to the start, and the first there man-œuvres his steed next to the rails and almost hooks his foot over them like a grappling iron, to resist any attempts to squeeze him away.
On most courses it is an advantage to start on the inside, but on some it is not the shortest way round. Several steeplechase courses are figure-of-eight shape and on these it is definitely quicker in the end to start on the outside, for this position at the beginning is the inside one on the long curves further on.
At Aintree, I think the best place to start is in the centre, because down the half mile stretch going away from the stands the ground slopes gently from right to left in such a fashion that the drops over the fences are greatest near the rails, and a horse may easily lose more time making the extra effort in jumping there than he gains by being on the inside.
Horses which have never raced before should not start on the inside, either. They already have quite enough to cope with in the startling and unnerving experience of the noise, bustle and smells of their first visit to a racecourse, without having to fight for a position every inch of the way. A horse might lose his confidence for ever if he were pushed into the wings by a stronger horse, or fell because he could not force himself over the fence in the small space he would be allowed, so I liked to take very inexperienced horses round in the centre or towards the outside of the field, where there is more chance of making sure that they can see the fence clearly and will not be jostled when they take off. It is time enough to go the shortest way round when the horse is used to his surroundings and capable of holding his own in the position from which everyone else is probably trying to oust him.
When the race is over the riders return to the weighing-room in varying degrees of elation and misery. The men on the first four horses have to be weighed again to make sure they are still carrying the weight they set out with, before the result of the race is confirmed. One is allowed a margin of grace on weighing in; two pounds less than the declared weight and four pounds more will be accepted, but a bigger differenc
e on the light side will lead to disqualification, and on the heavy to a severe fine.
One jockey weighed out one day at the very lightest weight he could manage and then, because he thought the horse he was riding was so bad that there was no fear of his coming in the first four, he added a felt pad to put under his light saddle, to avoid chafing the horse’s back. The race was a fiasco, the good horses fell, and to his confusion the jockey won. As he rode back he was contemplating disaster, and disgrace; the pad in its original state would not have brought him over the four pounds extra limit, but the felt always soaks up the horse’s sweat, becomes wringing wet, and weighs much more than when it is dry.
The jockey received the surprised congratulations of owner and trainer abstractedly, but as he brushed through the weighing-room door, solved his problem by unobtrusively dropping the felt pad on the ground. His sigh of relief was barely out before a helpful bungler picked up the pad and followed him into the weighing-room waving it in the air and shouting for all to hear, ‘Hey—you dropped this.’
Accepting his burden again with a weak smile and an inward curse, the jockey sat apprehensively on the scales. He weighed three and a half pounds more than when he last sat there, and although the Clerk of the Scales frowned at him, he was within the legal limit.
When he stood on the trial scales privately, clad only in his breeches, he found that he himself weighed three pounds less than he had half an hour before. It is quite usual to lose a pound or two during a hard race, but he said he had sweated it all off from fear, after he had won.
The last race ridden, and all effort done, everyone chews over the day’s doings with sandwiches and fruit cake in the changing-room, and drinks tea to fortify himself for the journey home. When the last farewells have been shouted, and the last exhaust has racketed away into the distance, peace returns to the darkening racecourse.
And Brer Rabbit goes back to his burrow.
7
Horses
I HAVE been very fortunate, for it was my privilege to ride some great horses, including Silver Fame, Roimond, Finnure, Mont Tremblant, Halloween, Crudwell, and Devon Loch.
I hesitate to include Halloween, because I rode him only once. We parted company in mid-air, and that was that.
There can be little doubt that Silver Fame was the greatest horse Lord Bicester ever owned. He was a big, pale chestnut with a white blaze down his face, and legs with short cannon bones, built for strength. Workmanlike and wise, he thoroughly understood what was wanted of him, and he never gave up fighting before he was past the winning post. If it can be believed of a horse, he had a never-faltering will to win. He won the Gold Cup at Cheltenham one year in the very last stride, with Martin Molony riding him like an inspired demon up the hill, solely because of this battling quality.
Cheltenham and Sandown were his favourite courses, and Aintree was unlucky for him.
I rode him at Liverpool only once, and it was his last appearance there. He had never got further than Becher’s in the three other races he had run there, but he was entered for the Champion Chase, and it was decided that he should have one more try. He gave me a wonderful ride round, jumped faultlessly, and led into the last fence, a length in front of Freebooter. I can only think he was careless, for he took off at the right moment, but he brushed through the top of the fence, and crashed to the ground on landing. He had fallen fast, and lay still for a long time, winded. Lord Bicester hurried down the course towards us. Some fool stopped him on the way and told him his horse was dead, so he was very distressed when he reached us. Silver Fame, however, was only getting his breath back, and after a while he got up and walked off none the worse.
It is a wretched disappointment to feel oneself falling at the last fence when the race is won. Tim Molony, who rode Freebooter, believes that he would have beaten Silver Fame in any case, but I am sure he is wrong: it was almost impossible to pass Silver Fame in a long, close-fought finish, for he always found an extra ounce of strength, and kept his head in front.
Two seasons later, after Freebooter had won the Grand National, the two horses opposed each other again, in the Stanley Chase at Sandown Park. There were not many other runners, and the race developed into a duel between them. Jimmy Power, who had won the National on him, was riding Freebooter, and he and I went round together for most of the way. Silver Fame took a length lead three fences from home, and kept it all the way up the hill to the winning post.
To have his head in front was enough for Silver Fame; he saw no point in exerting himself to win by a large margin. This habit could be disconcerting to his jockey, and it was extremely misleading to the students of form on the stands, who, if Silver Fame had beaten moderate horses by a length only, got the impression that he was unfit. From poor horses, or from Freebooter, it was the same; he would win, if he could, by one length. No more, no less.
It was really unnecessary for George Beeby to give Martin or me instructions for the race, when we were on Silver Fame. The horse knew it all better himself. He never forgot a course after he had run there once, and he remembered exactly at what point he had first been asked for a winning effort. Without any sign from his jockey he would quicken his stride at the right moment, and take himself to the front.
I rode him one day at Cheltenham in the Golden Miller Chase. It was a four mile race then, which meant almost three circuits of the course, and it started in the same place as the two and a half mile races. I felt Silver Fame try to start his winning run at exactly the right place for a two and a half mile chase. He was clearly at a loss when I pulled him back, but as we went out into the country for the third time he seemed to understand what was happening, pricked his ears, and took heart again. At the same point as before, without waiting for a sign from me, he began to race in earnest. He may have been surprised by having to go four miles, which he was not used to, for he could not manage to lead by his usual distance of one length. He only won by a head.
Lord Bicester retired him honourably from racing as soon as age began to affect his brilliance. Some horses are raced for a long time after they are past their best, and it is pathetic to see a horse that has been a world-beater running in lower and lower class handicaps. Silver Fame was spared this indignity. Lord Bicester took him home and sent him out hunting, but I am told he never took to it as eagerly as he had to racing.
Roimond was a horse of a different colour.
He was splendid to look at, big, strong, and well-muscled, with a rich dark chestnut coat, and he was slightly Roman nosed. In temperament also he was completely different from Silver Fame. He was moody. Sometimes he tackled the job with a will to win, and on those occasions he was magnificent, but on other days he would set off in a race as if he were utterly bored by it all, and nothing his jockey could do would make him go any faster. Infuriatingly he would suddenly decide to race when he got to the last half mile, but by then it was usually too late.
Normally he was a front runner, and he wore down the opposition as one by one they made their effort to pass him, so if he lagged behind at the start and was lying sixth or eighth in the field, one knew at once that he was in one of his surly moods, and he would be very unlikely to win.
He was a very good jumper, and he was so strong that even if he met a fence wrong he could crash his way through it. When he fell it was because he had underestimated the stiffness of the obstacle.
Although I always enjoyed riding him when he was in a good mood, Roimond was a very tiring horse. His back was so broad that it was like sitting astride a range of hills, and my thigh muscles always ached afterwards.
In both of the two greatest races he ran for me he was second. One was the Grand National of 1949 when he finished behind Russian Hero, and the other was the King George VI Chase on Boxing Day at Kempton Park three months earlier.
Some of the best horses, including Cottage Rake, Happy Home, Red April, and Cloncarrig, were running in the Kempton race, but Roimond, feeling good, set off in front, and led them a terrific g
allop all the way. All of them tried to catch him, and in the end the greatest of them managed it. Cottage Rake joined us at the last fence, and although Roimond raced on doggedly at his former speed, the Irish horse went past us to win by five lengths.
In 1951 Roimond won the Mildmay Memorial Chase at Sandown, with Tim Molony riding him. In the same race I was on another of Lord Bicester’s horses, and although I could have ridden either of them, I had unhesitatingly chosen Bluff King.
Bluff King, a seventeen hands horse with enormous feet, had been especially trained for the Cheltenham Gold Cup which should have been held ten days before. The Cheltenham meeting was abandoned because of frost and snow, and the Gold Cup postponed, so it was decided that Bluff King should run at Sandown instead.
When the race started, Roimond and Tim set off in front, and led all the way until the last half mile. There Roimond seemed to be tiring, and Bluff King was still going very strongly, so I took him to the front. He led over the last fence, but he was a young horse and almost a novice still, and he would not put his head down and race; it alarmed him to be alone in front, and he was trying to look round for the other horses. Also he had reached the peak of his training programme ten days before, and the interval was just enough to take the edge off his stamina. In any case, Roimond came strongly up the hill, passed Bluff King again, and won by two lengths. Tim himself was surprised at the result, and I had proved once again that a jockey often chooses the wrong horse.