Jenny Pitman

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 10:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety five, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:28

My Castaway this week is a racehorse trainer. The daughter of a tenant farmer in Leicestershire, she was brought up in a happy, healthy, and horsey environment. She started racing when she was eight, and she left school at fifteen. Her deep love of horses has brought her spectacular success. She won the Grand National in 1983 with Corbier, and in 84 she trained the winner of the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Since then, she's picked up practically every major prize the sport has to offer, including winning both those big races for a second time.

Presenter0:59

She's said to be fierce, dedicated, and emotional a mother to all her charges a mother who knows, she says, before any one else when one of them isn't quite right. She is Jenny

Presenter1:12

I'm talking about your four-legged charges, of course. You make them sound like children almost. Well, I think they are, actually. They they have.

Presenter1:19

mannerisms that you get to know and understand. I think that

Presenter1:24

If a mother walks into her house and she's got her own children playing on the floor.

Presenter1:28

She can see if there's a problem with one of them. When you walk into a horse's box, a horse will acknowledge you.

Presenter1:35

in a certain way.

Presenter1:37

And when they don't do that, then I think

Presenter1:40

There's something not quite right yet. You make it sound slightly mystical almost, as if they're they're talking you have a sort of inner sense. Or do you wake up in the middle of the night and think, I know what's wrong with so and so? Oh, that is awful, because I

Presenter1:53

I have this habit of waking up between three and four in the morning. If I've got a problem with a horse and I can't solve it, and all of a sudden you think

Presenter2:00

I know what's wrong with that. All of a sudden. All of a sudden, it's an intuitive understanding. Where do you get it from?

Speaker 12:02

So it's a kind of

Presenter2:07

Um my father, he was always horses. Grandad had horses. We didn't have tractors on the farm when we lived at home. We had horses. We used them like people use tractors nowadays. And I'm not that old either.

Jenny Pitman2:18

Uh

Speaker 12:18

Mm.

Presenter2:20

So so it's kind of in the family. Your father has this knack as well, this intuition. My dad is the greatest judge of a horse I would ever know. It doesn't matter to him whether it costs five pounds.

Speaker 12:21

Sick.

Speaker 12:23

Yeah.

Jenny Pitman2:23

Uh

Speaker 12:23

Sling it.

Jenny Pitman2:23

Uh

Speaker 12:24

Uh

Speaker 12:25

Oh my, that's wonderful.

Presenter2:32

£50, £500,000, £50,000 or £500,000. It's either right or it's wrong. And he can tell you in a twinkling. But he's 81 now and I promise you you could walk a horse the width of this room and he would tell you what its faults were. It's is unreal. You see in the old days horses didn't have passports like they do nowadays where everything's registered. The old days the old guys used to have to live on their knowledge and their wit and so it was important.

Speaker 12:38

And he can

Speaker 12:39

Oh, I use

Presenter3:00

But it takes more than that knowledge and wit, doesn't it, to train winners, which is what you've done. And someone said that that your talent is born of of qualities that are intrinsically feminine. Do you think there's anything in that thesis? It's kind of patience and understanding and as you as you were saying, like children, discipline.

Presenter3:19

I love my horses and when we break them in, I mean the the professional term is breaking them in. I don't actually like the word breaking because it sounds as though you do something awful to them and I

Presenter3:28

like to take these horses through a process of getting used to having a bit in the mouth and then they're lunged round in circles so that they're taught balance and driven on long reins and then they have a

Presenter3:39

roller and a saddle put on them, and we take them through these stages very quietly.

Presenter3:44

I hate falling out with them.

Presenter3:47

I like the horses too.

Presenter3:49

like what they're doing and to get used to you and trust you. Because if they like what they're doing, they'll do it for an awful lot longer, which really isn't any different to ourselves. Well, you were nice to your two boys.

Presenter4:02

I'm not awfully sure how how good a mother I've been. I've tr

Presenter4:06

Unfortunately at school we don't get lessons about it. And as I spent most of my time as a kid with my dad, I was taught about horses as opposed to spending time with my mother. Perhaps I didn't learn as much as I should, but if I didn't, I beg their forgiveness.

Speaker 14:19

I wonder what

Jenny Pitman4:21

Uh Uh

Speaker 14:21

Uh

Jenny Pitman4:21

Uh

Speaker 14:21

Like that.

Presenter4:24

I want to talk to you as well in a minute about the the Pittman family and and the Grand National, but let me ask you first for your first desert island disc.

Presenter4:31

Well, my first choice is Elvis Presley, always on my mind. We grew up with Elvis Presley, you and I, and there's no greater singer, and to listen to his love ballads just as I'm lying on the sand listening to the sea and the seagulls, I think'd be quite nice.

Jenny Pitman4:48

Maybe I didn't treat you

Jenny Pitman4:54

Quite as good as I should have.

Jenny Pitman4:59

Maybe I didn't love you

Jenny Pitman5:05

Quite as often as I could have.

Jenny Pitman5:10

Little things I should have said and done.

Jenny Pitman5:16

I just never took the time

Jenny Pitman5:21

You were always on my mind.

Jenny Pitman5:26

You were always on my heart.

Jenny Pitman5:32

Maybe I didn't hold you.

Jenny Pitman5:37

All those lonely, lonely times

Jenny Pitman5:43

And I guess I never told you.

Jenny Pitman5:48

I'm so hurt

Jenny Pitman5:49

That you might

Jenny Pitman5:53

If I made you feel

Jenny Pitman5:56

Second best.

Jenny Pitman5:58

Girl, I'm so sorry, I was blind.

Presenter6:12

Elvis Presley and always on my mind. There's such a a Pittman link with the National, Ginny. Let's just run through some of those links. You won the Grand National for the second time this year, 1995, with Royal Athlete. You didn't want him to run, did you? Not in that race. Well, in fact, I thought that the horse he's had a lot of problems, Royal Athlete, through his career, and he hasn't been the best of jumpers you'd ever come across in your life. He's made some awful bloomers.

Presenter6:40

He's actually a bloody-minded horse, isn't he? On all accounts. He's very strong-minded. He is the type of horse that.

Speaker 16:40

He's actually

Speaker 16:42

Yeah.

Presenter6:48

When he's relaxed and things are switched off, he is very pleasant to ride, but for no reason at all the light'll switch or the triple flick and he is very headstrong and then he is not listening to you in any shape or form. Hope he does not like me.

Speaker 17:05

Exactly.

Presenter7:07

But you ran him in the end'cause his owners wanted him to run. Yes, and um so how about it? He he's a very, very good horse and he is very tough, extremely tough in his mind.

Speaker 17:10

Yeah.

Speaker 17:12

Hi Simpson.

Speaker 17:20

But how so

Presenter7:23

Because I've been fortunate enough to train two Gold Cup winners and a Grand National winner before, I sort of lay on the bed that night and I thought, you know, how can this happen again? But it it's obviously a thrill to to win the Grand National in a year. Is it impossible though to beat the experience of that first time in eighty three when Corbier won?

Presenter7:43

There's things to like about your successes for different reasons. I mean to have won the Grand National in 1983 with Corbier, he that horse was an incredibly tough character. He had courage that was immeasurable. If you said to him, Corky, I want you to do this, and he was going to gallop until he dropped, he would do that for you. And at the end of the race in 1983, just halfway up the running, you can see grease paint coming to collar him. And grease paint got to his quarters and he just sort of surged. And he would never have beaten him then, actually, grease paint. You know, people might say grease paint was unlucky, but Corky was never going to let him beat him. But of course, ten years earlier in 1973, exactly what you've just described happened to your then-husband, Richard Bittman, didn't he? Because he was on crisp, and then suddenly this virtual unknown called Red Rum came up on the outside. Yes, and I think at the inside. I think because you remembered the crisp red rum situation, of course, when you saw grease paint coming, you have this fear in your mind that it's all going to happen again.

Jenny Pitman8:35

Yes, and I'm not sure.

Presenter8:50

I'm not quite sure how I've handled it. When Crisp got beaten, I

Presenter8:55

I was pretty unhappy about it for quite a while afterwards. I mean, people would only have to start talking about the Grand National and I'd start trembling.

Presenter9:03

And it then nearly happened well, it did happen again in'ninety one' to your son, didn't it?

Presenter9:07

Yes, um, that was particularly sad. I felt that Garrison Savannah has never had the credit that he deserved. For me, it's Corbier with a different coloured coat on, that's all. And he is very much like him. A real character, a real cantankerous old monkey. But up came Seagram on the outside. Then, of course, there was the the terrible fracker in the National of two years ago, when in fact you won it. Esh and S, your horse, won it.

Speaker 19:25

MC Gram.

Presenter9:35

But it wasn't a race. I couldn't believe it. It was like

Presenter9:40

Of all the permutations that you imagine, when you've been in racing as long as I have, you've seen a lot of things happen in races and sometimes you see the unusual happen.

Presenter9:48

Of all the permutations that your mind can possibly come up with in the dreams you have leading up to the Grand National, that isn't one of them.

Presenter9:57

I think what made it hard to swallow was that it was a catalogue of incompetences that were nothing to do with us trainers and people.

Presenter10:05

buy a horse and have a horse to be a national horse. And it's not just a year's training, it is years. Someone said, How long did it take you to train Corbier to win the National? And I said six years. That's what it takes.

Presenter10:18

Tell me about record number two.

Presenter10:21

Record number two is Roy Rogers, a Four Legged Friend, and I used to rush in the house on a Saturday morning to listen to Uncle Mac's and children's favourites, and if Four Legged Friend wasn't played, I used to have withdrawal symptoms for the rest of the week.

Speaker 210:39

A four-legged friend, a four-legged friend.

Speaker 210:43

He'll never let you down He's honest and faithful right up to the end That wonderful one two three four-legged friend

Speaker 210:59

A woman's like cactus and cactus can hurt, cause she's just a tight-waisted, winky-eyed flirt. She'll soon have your land and your pride and your gold, and bury you deep long before you grow old. A four-legged friend, a four-legged friend, he'll never let you down. He's honest and faithful right up to the end. That wonderful one, two, three, four-legged.

Presenter11:31

Roy Rogers and a four-legged friend. Your childhood, Jenny Pittman, sounds really quite idyllic, you know, long hot summers and lots of horses and animals about and Uncle Mac on the radio. It wasn't quite that idyllic, was it? I mean, it were you fairly strong. I think it was probably idyllic from my point of view, but probably not from my parents. But no electricity, you know, money, very short. I know that, but if you've not had these things, you don't miss them, do you? I mean, I actually do not envy the kids today. We used to be out and about on our ponies. What used to happen was that people had send ponies for us to break or handle or ride or whatever. If they had problems, they came to us as kids.

Speaker 111:43

I think it'll probably

Speaker 111:50

I know that, but if you if you've not

Presenter12:11

And occasionally, my dad would be driving along the road, and he might see.

Presenter12:16

a camp of travelers and they'd pull up and

Presenter12:19

Do a deal and buy something from them and we'd take it home. School didn't figure largely in the school. Oh no, I hated school.

Speaker 112:24

Oh no, I hated school.

Presenter12:25

I mean, it was just a nightmare. It was like a prison sentence. I didn't mind Thursdays because we had PE for three lessons following on from one another all afternoon.

Presenter12:35

But I didn't go very often. I used to What, you didn't turn up when you didn't feel like it?

Presenter12:40

No, it wasn't that. I just

Presenter12:42

You know, we used to have to work on the farm. I mean, there were seven kids and if it was harvest time you were harvesting. If it was haymaking time, you were haymaking. If my dad had cattle to go to the market, you went with them. But what did you want to do with your life then? Did you know or did you just want to live on a farm and be with horses in particular forever? Oh, no, whatever I did, it would be with animals and horses. I mean, I

Speaker 112:59

Uh

Presenter13:03

Wouldn't have minded being a traveller myself, or been in a circus, or

Presenter13:08

Just something with horses. But who were your heroes or heroines? Who did you admire? Roy Rogers.

Presenter13:18

Um

Presenter13:19

Who did I admire? Um difficult to say really. I suppose my dad was my hero. I mean I used to follow him around like a little lap dog.

Presenter13:29

And you left school officially at at fifteen. Did you have a job then?

Presenter13:33

Yes, I'd I'd had a weekend job working in racing stables for a trainer called Chris Taylor and so I worked there at weekends and then when I left school I went to work there. I got three pounds four shillings and fivepence, of which I used to give thirty bob to my mum, uh which would be one pound fifty in today's money.

Presenter13:54

And then aged sixteen, as a stable girl, you moved south to a job in Cheltenham, and you met a young jockey called Richard Pittman more of whom in a moment, but let's have record number three.

Presenter14:05

Yes, record number three's Every One's a Winner Babe. Errol Brown sings this song and he owns a horse called Gainsay and Gainsay was one of my very good horses.

Presenter14:16

And the record was played at Aintree when Gainsay won the fifth of his five races that season. He won a race at Cheltenham, which was lovely. And it was the first time, I think, that music was played on BBC television to accompany their sports programmes.

Jenny Pitman14:35

Never could believe the things you do to me.

Jenny Pitman14:39

I never could believe the way you are.

Jenny Pitman14:44

Every day I bless the day

Jenny Pitman14:49

That you'll be stop

Jenny Pitman14:53

Tell me what's a winner

Jenny Pitman14:56

True.

Jenny Pitman14:57

For you is such a flu.

Jenny Pitman15:02

It's a winner, baby. That's gonna last. That's gonna last. You never win.

Jenny Pitman15:08

Satisfied, satisfied.

Presenter15:30

Hot chocolate and everyone's a winner.

Presenter15:33

I'm sure, Jenny, you remember the first time you met this aspiring young jockey called Richard Pittman. Can you describe it to me?

Presenter15:40

Yes, we were riding out at uh exercise with the horses from Chris Taylor's and we had quite a big string at that time, there was three or four of us.

Speaker 115:46

I get that.

Presenter15:48

And we were going along the road and this fella came round the corner on a push bike on the wrong side of the road and nearly clipped us up. So

Presenter15:57

I told him that I thought he was uh less than wise to be riding his bicycle on the wrong side of the road.

Presenter16:03

Um and soon after that you were desperate about him, hm?

Presenter16:07

Well, it seemed like it at the time.

Presenter16:10

But you you were married at nineteen, so I mean one minute you were, you know

Presenter16:14

A daughter, and the next minute you were a wife, really. There was not a lot in between, really, was there, for you? I know, but the thing about this is that we get old and we get wiser, don't we? If only we could look back and rearrange our lives with hindsight. Is it true that he brought his best friend on honeymoon with you?

Presenter16:29

Well, um, he actually took one of the lads from the yard. We get in the car to go away. And I keep looking at this lad sat in the back thinking, Well, he's going to drop him off at the bus station in a minute or drop him off at the railway station or drop him off somewhere and I couldn't believe it that

Presenter16:44

Two and a half hours later he was still sat in the back.

Presenter16:48

That should have been an omen. I think it probably was.

Presenter16:52

So Richard developed his career as a jockey and and you had babies and carried on working as a stable lad, sort of thing, didn't you? But when did you decide that you wanted to train horses yourself?

Presenter17:04

Well, actually that wasn't for a very long time. I mean, I'd got, um, the two boys. There's only fourteen months difference between Mark and Paul's birthdays. And we

Presenter17:17

lived in a little bungalow in Lambourne when we first got married and I must say that I was not very happy. I was a bit like a sparrow in a budgie's cage.

Presenter17:24

Um I'd always been an outdoor person.

Presenter17:27

So we bought a stable yard at Hinton Parva.

Presenter17:31

There was not a house to live in there, so

Presenter17:33

We lived in a caravan and I don't mean a mobile home, I mean in a caravan.

Presenter17:37

the bed came down into the sitting room and

Presenter17:41

It was that cold I used to have to go to bed in my overcoat.

Presenter17:44

And you've got the babies in there as well. Oh yes.

Presenter17:47

But just to wake up in the morning

Presenter17:49

And to know that the horses were just over the wall just made me feel better. I didn't mind. And Richard was off being a jockey and becoming a rider. So you know, was there a point at which you thought

Speaker 117:57

Yeah.

Presenter18:03

Hang on, I'm going to do something here as well. I think I could train horses. No, we I actually started looking after sick and injured horses. I'd had a horse of Lord Caduggan's, in fact, called Road Race, that had had a spell with me, and he had said to Richard, Well, I don't think he's good enough to go back into racing under rules. Would Jenny like him to go point to point then? And I thought, Would I? And so, really, I started training point to point as first. And then it was Tony Stratton Smith.

Presenter18:35

Who I trained a horse for called Beretta, and then I had another one called Gillipus.

Presenter18:41

That had been unsuccessful racing under rules, and they'd come to me. And he said to me, Would I like to be his trainer? And so.

Presenter18:52

The marriage had got a little bit shaky by that time. Richard Pittman had stopped race riding and

Presenter18:59

I'm not blaming him altogether'cause I think it's always two in these situations, but a lot of jockeys when they pack up riding, often their marriages break down as well, which I I'm not quite sure why, but it's well I'm not quite sure what it is, but

Speaker 119:09

Uh

Jenny Pitman19:09

There are two more.

Speaker 119:11

Yeah.

Presenter19:13

But there is a certain irony here, isn't there, that that your career it was kind of mid-seventies was in the ascendant. You were moving from having, as you say, been very successful at point-to-pointing, moving into National Hunt proper and going up in the world when Richard was deciding to stop being a jockey. He was kind of on the way down, as it were. Yeah, I know that. But it I mean, I was quite a rare animal at that time from the point of view that to be successful training point-to-pointers and to train professionally is a very, very big step. But did you also want to prove something to him?

Presenter19:48

To others as well, I guess that

Presenter19:51

You know, some people would say, Oh, what's going to happen to Jenny? and think that with concern and some people would say, What's going to happen to Jenny now? You know, as we have a habit of doing in life. And so for them that wanted me to be all right, I had a debt and I wanted to show them that I could be all right. And for those that perhaps thought that, well, perhaps I wasn't going to be all right, I was determined to show them that I was going to be all right.

Speaker 120:13

Right?

Presenter20:17

And so I was going to survive. I hadn't got a clue how. All I knew was that I was going to.

Presenter20:25

Record number four.

Presenter20:27

Good number four is Shaking Stevens this old house because when I went to Weathercock House it was derelict and the windows were falling in. We were under tarpaulins for months. There was no floors in there because they'd all been dug up and the kids and I lived on soup and anything that could be cooked on the top of a cooker for God knows how long. And um we used to sing Shaking Stevens this old house and we used to have to laugh about it because otherwise you would have jumped off the seven bridge.

Jenny Pitman21:04

This old house wants new children, this old house wants new wife. This old house was former comfort with both sunlight. This old house wants rain laughter. This old house pertinent shot. Nazi journals and the darkness were lying in the wall.

Jenny Pitman21:29

Time fixed the shams, hang your time.

Jenny Pitman21:32

And he

Jenny Pitman21:34

I'm on ping up to men

Jenny Pitman21:38

Painted, and I'm gonna need this hot on the longest sheet to get it ready to be a perception

Jenny Pitman21:51

This old house is getting shaky, this old house is getting old, this old house that's in the rain, this old house that's in the cold. On my knees, I'm getting chilled. But I feel no, feel no fain. As I see an angel

Presenter22:11

Shaken Stevens and this old house. So it was Christmas seventy seven. You were divorced with two young sons. You were flat broke. You were living in a house that needed everything doing to it. Four of your six horses were lame. You had an appendicitis.

Presenter22:26

Were you not tempted to throw it all in this training, Lark? I mean, it was quite a lot to take on, wasn't it? I think probably I was.

Presenter22:34

Never mind the training lark. There was times when I thought like throwing the lot in, but

Presenter22:40

Kids don't ask to be born to you. And I used to look at my two lads and I used to think of the choices they uh hadn't had. So, I mean, to to to scoot on through time, I mean, it was mere five years later, I think, that you you won the national.

Presenter22:56

And then the following year you won the Gold Cup with Borrow Hill Ladd and you were voted National Hunt Trainer of the Season and the rest is history. Do you think it's inevitable that in the face of that triumph against the odds kind of thing that you you've got a reputation for being tough? The Margaret Thatcher of the Turf, they call you. I've been called a lot worse than that. It's quite funny actually. I mean you have to laugh, you know, because I've been

Presenter23:22

called all sorts of things. Some words I don't understand. There was an article written not too long ago and my vet rang up in the morning. He said, I read that article yesterday. He said I thought it was fairly accurate.

Presenter23:33

I said, Oh, right. I said, um

Presenter23:36

Well, there's one word I didn't understand, Ellen. He said, What's that? I said, That V word.

Presenter23:40

And I have a terrible habit of teasing and he said, What what V word? I said, Well, Virago He said

Presenter23:48

I said, what does that mean? I'd already looked it up in the dictionary, but I didn't like to say it. He said it means cantankerous old cow. I said, oh, yeah, it is accurate then.

Speaker 123:54

Oh yeah.

Presenter23:57

So there is some truth in it, is there?

Speaker 123:57

So there is

Presenter24:00

I wouldn't be in the in a position to judge, but it's probably true. But you you must know what you're quite you are notorious for kind of well, not suffering fools, for slapping people if you think I mean l physically you slapped a jockey once, didn't you? Because you thought he'd cut up one of your horses. I didn't think he had. It was obvious that he had. The horse came back in with all its marks.

Presenter24:21

But that had been an ongoing situation.

Presenter24:24

When you've got things to protect, like your kids in your home and all the rest of it. And women.

Presenter24:30

when I was first on my own, were trying to run their own business, were thought of an easy target. So I guess that if someone came along to me and

Presenter24:41

Thought that they were gonna tuck me up is the word we may use, then I used to have to say to them that I didn't think it was such a good idea.

Presenter24:51

Record number five is uh Phil Collins One More Night.

Presenter24:55

Tony Stratton Smith.

Presenter24:57

manage Phil Collins and it was Tony in fact that

Presenter25:00

asked me to start training professionally and

Presenter25:05

Tony

Presenter25:06

Had faith and saw.

Presenter25:08

talent in people that people didn't know they had. Unfortunately, the only time I ever met Phil Collins, who seemed to be a lovely chap, was at Tony Stratton Smith's funeral, and that was a very sad occasion.

Jenny Pitman25:30

Oh no.

Jenny Pitman25:37

I've been trying for so long

Jenny Pitman25:42

But you

Jenny Pitman25:44

That you know how I feel

Jenny Pitman25:51

We must stumble if I fall.

Jenny Pitman25:55

Sell me back.

Jenny Pitman25:58

So I can make it see

Jenny Pitman26:04

One more night

Jenny Pitman26:12

One more night,'cause I can live forever.

Jenny Pitman26:18

Give me just one more night

Jenny Pitman26:21

Buddha's one more night.

Jenny Pitman26:28

Uh

Presenter26:32

Phil Collins and One More Night. Tell me about you and your owners, Jenny. I would imagine that that's the side of the business you're least fond of, dealing with the owners.

Presenter26:42

Oh, some of them are great fun. Um some of them

Presenter26:46

A best-forgotten one might say, but my owners have been very loyal to me and very supportive, and without that you can't be successful. But what's the deal? Do they have to accept your judgment on everything, or can they contradict you and say, We really don't want you to do that? or as I we were saying earlier, I do want you to run my horse in that race, or no, I don't.

Presenter27:07

I think that when an owner says to you, I want my horse to run here, then

Presenter27:12

If I've got reservations about it, I would point that out to them. I'd say, Okay, fine. That's not a problem. But who has the last say?

Speaker 127:19

But who has the law?

Presenter27:21

Well, of course they do because they pay the bills. But at the end of the day, I don't think people

Presenter27:27

that have horses in training in my yard, find it a competition to have the last say. I think that the welfare of the horse

Presenter27:34

is is foremost in in people's minds. But it's surely in the nature of owners that of course they want their horse to be successful, but they want it out there running, don't they? They want to go to the races, they want to take their friends, they want to say, That's my horse. Oh, we all do.

Speaker 127:36

But if

Presenter27:46

I mean, make no mistake about it. We we can't train winners of horses stood in stables or just going up and down the gallops. We all need them to run.

Presenter27:54

But horses are like any athlete, and sometimes they get knocks and bumps.

Presenter27:59

But

Presenter28:00

keeps them off the games for a while. But when a horse gets injured you can decide that he shouldn't race for a year, that he should be rested for a year if because as I say your approach is is is long and patient and building up their strength for perhaps the Grand National or whatever.

Speaker 128:02

Yeah.

Presenter28:14

That must be very difficult. That was must be a call you dread to make to the owner. Oh, it's a nightmare. I mean, one of the one of the worst things we have to do is to ring an owner and say to them

Presenter28:24

I'm sorry, but your horse has picked up an injury.

Presenter28:28

People that have horses know that they're athletes, people that have horses in training.

Presenter28:34

really don't live in a real world if they think that these things don't happen or somebody really has been pulling the wool over their eyes. So how do the ones react whom you said uh are best forgotten?

Presenter28:45

What do they do? What do they say these things? Some say, well, I want it to run at all costs and I say, well, you know, really.

Presenter28:54

I'm not prepared to do that.

Presenter28:56

It isn't easy, but if I think that a horse is going to be injured, I had um some horses taken away from me a while back.

Presenter29:05

Couple of years back.

Presenter29:07

Because I wasn't prepared to run a particular horse on hard ground on a particular day because it was the I said, I'm sorry, I can't do that. He said, Well, I want it to run anyway. I said, Okay, fine. Um if that's what you wanted to do, you'll have to get someone else to take him because I can't do that. I knew that that horse was going to come back lame, and so he moved his horses. But that is that is up to him. There's only you know, I I can only live by what I see.

Presenter29:36

Next record, number six.

Presenter29:38

Number six is Las Vegas, and it's sung by Tony Christie. Peter Callender wrote this song, and Peter.

Presenter29:46

Used to have a horse in training with me called The Songwriter and Peter's been trying for donkeys years.

Presenter29:51

To make me into a lady, he's not succeeded yet. He's now beginning to despair.

Jenny Pitman29:59

Oh Las Vegas, you'd be the death of me.

Jenny Pitman30:05

City of Sino, what a mess I'm in. Look what you've done to me.

Jenny Pitman30:13

Oh Las Vegas, I'm losing everything.

Jenny Pitman30:20

Why do I stay when every game I play I just get deeper in?

Jenny Pitman30:28

Hey Las Vegas, can nothing save us from you?

Jenny Pitman30:36

Night after night, watching the wheel go round

Jenny Pitman30:43

Hey, Las Vegas, the devil gave us to you.

Speaker 130:44

Yeah.

Jenny Pitman30:51

One of these days, I'm gonna burn you down.

Presenter30:57

Tony Christie and Las Vegas. Your stable lads call you the missus, Jenny. Do do you still muck in or muck out or?

Presenter31:06

I do whatever's necessary. The one thing about uh my lads is they know that I wouldn't ask them to do something I wouldn't do myself. But you're a stickler for discipline, as I understand it. I mean you rule these stable lads with a rod of iron, don't you? No, I don't beat them with sticks and I don't uh put them on little wires so they can only run so far up the yard and back.

Presenter31:28

But they're frightened. I'm a bit like margaritas. No, they're not frightened of me at all. They.

Speaker 131:28

I'm a bit like

Presenter31:33

They know that I want the job done properly. Do you ride out with them these days? Not no, no. The pain started to outweigh the pleasure. I'm very saddened by it, actually.

Speaker 131:37

Not

Presenter31:42

But uh because I love riding and I think riding for pleasure

Presenter31:46

Is something to be treasured because it didn't matter how black the day was, if you just rode over the downs, we've got some lovely rides with us and uh

Presenter31:56

You could just get on your horse and ride over the downs, and you'd come back, and it didn't seem quite so bad. And you don't do that at all any more? No, I had a

Presenter32:04

horse a couple of years ago that was an old show jumper and he was a lovely old character. But I did injure my hip oh, a lot of years ago, twenty years ago, and it does get a bit painful, particularly when it's cold. I used to be riding back from the gallops with one leg hanging down because it was too painful to bend it.

Presenter32:23

And what about on race days themselves? Do you still get the colliwobbles?

Presenter32:27

Well, terrible. I mean, I actually cope alright until they're down at the start, unless, of course, it's a Grand National. And then I get.

Presenter32:36

Anxious. And you bet?

Presenter32:38

No, not if I can help it. I'm I'm such a jinxy gambler, the lads burst into tears. If I suggest that I I think I'll have a few quid on that today, they immediately burst into tears.

Presenter32:51

Record number seven.

Presenter32:52

Record number seven is You Needed Me by Ann Murray, and this is for.

Presenter32:57

David Markham Paul.

Presenter33:00

for giving me the strength to survive for all the bad bits and helping me share the good bits. David, being your partner in life now and for the last how long?

Speaker 133:08

And so

Presenter33:10

Ooh, eighteen years I think. We've been engaged eighteen years. We I think we're going for the Guinness Book of Records. He asked me to marry him a long time ago and he's never mentioned it since. I think he's chickened out.

Jenny Pitman33:21

I cried a tear.

Jenny Pitman33:25

You wiped it dry.

Speaker 133:25

Yeah.

Jenny Pitman33:29

I was confused.

Speaker 133:29

This

Jenny Pitman33:32

You cleared my body.

Speaker 133:33

Mm

Jenny Pitman33:36

I sold my soul.

Jenny Pitman33:40

You bought it back for me

Jenny Pitman33:44

And held me up.

Jenny Pitman33:48

And gave me dignity

Jenny Pitman33:51

Somehow you needed me

Jenny Pitman33:55

You give me strength.

Jenny Pitman33:59

To stand alone again.

Jenny Pitman34:03

To face the world

Jenny Pitman34:07

But on my own again

Speaker 134:07

Uh

Jenny Pitman34:11

You put me high.

Jenny Pitman34:15

On the pedestal

Jenny Pitman34:19

So high that I could almost see eternity

Jenny Pitman34:27

You needed me.

Jenny Pitman34:31

You need it.

Presenter34:33

You Needed Me, sung by Anne Murray.

Presenter34:36

You and David have been together for eighteen years, you say, and um of course Richard Pittman, your first husband, is a commentator for the BBC. Um so you see him at the races, you know, you've seen him through the last eighteen years. Has he now

Presenter34:49

accorded you perhaps what you wanted from him in the first place, which is a kind of recognition and respect. Does he recognize what you've achieved, do you feel?

Presenter34:59

No, that's a funny way of putting things when you say accorded you in the first place. I guess if you.

Presenter35:04

um get engaged to someone and get married to someone, you want them to love you in the first place. But has he never come up to you and said, By God, Jenny, I never thought you had it in you, I never thought you'd do it. I mean, you have achieved so much, you know, you're one of the one of the nation's top trainers.

Presenter35:20

No, Grandma Pitman did the other night when she came to Mark's wedding. Um

Presenter35:25

But I I haven't had

Presenter35:29

much to do with that side of the family for a very long time. But you said earlier on that there was an element uh uh of your attitude which was, I'll show them.

Presenter35:39

I mean, you must feel pretty smug these days because you've shown that ten times over. Get on with you. I think that.

Speaker 135:39

I mean

Speaker 135:42

No, you don't.

Speaker 135:44

Yeah.

Presenter35:46

You set off thinking I'll show you.

Presenter35:49

And then when you've got there, it's

Presenter35:52

It really isn't important. So we come to your desert island, and n no men, but perhaps more importantly, no horses, I'm afraid. Um, can you manage without them on this island?

Presenter36:02

It's going to be um very difficult to manage without the horses, very easy to manage without the men.

Presenter36:09

What else can you find to train on a desert island? Well, men are more difficult to train than horses. They keep squeezing the toothpaste in the middle, which I find infuriating.

Speaker 136:11

Booa

Presenter36:20

Last record. Tell me about that one. My last record is Status Quo singing whatever you want. I met Status Quo at Newbury Races one day. They had sponsored a race and they are real scallywags and they have concerts all over the country and they sent us some tickets to go to one of their concerts and they said, Did you come, Jen, to the to the concert? I said, Well

Presenter36:42

It had standing concert on the ticket, so I thought

Presenter36:45

I didn't really know what that meant and one of the lads said, Well, you have to stand up the whole time. I thought, Well, I can't stand up for two and three hours.

Presenter36:52

at a time and anyway they said they next time they have a concert in our area they're gonna put a commode on the stage form.

Jenny Pitman37:04

Right.

Jenny Pitman37:49

Yeah.

Jenny Pitman37:50

Whatever you say, playing buddy, you take control

Presenter38:02

Status quoem, whatever you want, whatever you win, whatever you lose. Whatever you choose of these eight, Jennie Pitman, which won, if you could only take one of them?

Presenter38:12

Well, I'd have to choose Four Legged Friend. I've chosen all these songs for the memories that they've brought me and for for the words and the meanings of them. And I could lie back in the sand thinking of

Presenter38:26

Corbier, Borough Hill Ladd, Garrison Savannah, Toby Tobias.

Presenter38:30

the joys that they've given us and

Presenter38:33

All the rest that have not reached their heights, but have still given us immense pleasure. You get the Bible, and you get the complete works of Shakespeare. You get to take another book. What should it be for you?

Presenter38:44

Well, I I did give this some thought and I was relaying the story to one of my owners who said that, Oh, Jenny, what book are you going to take? And I said, Well, there's only one book that I read.

Presenter38:56

most days for the last twenty five, thirty years. And he turned to me and put his hand on my knee and whispered quietly

Presenter39:05

The Bible? I said well, yes, sort of. I said it's called Horace Hazey's Veterinary Notes for Horse Owners, actually, but it's sort of my Bible, and it is a great source of amusement to me, as well as a great book of knowledge. What about your luxury?

Presenter39:19

My luxury would have to be a television set so I don't miss Coronation Street.

Presenter39:25

Okay, Jenny Pittman, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Presenter39:30

Thank you, sir, it's been a pleasure.