Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A racehorse trainer who won the Grand National with Corbier in 1983 and the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1984.
On the island
Eight records
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.
A Four Legged FriendFavourite
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.
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. 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.
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.
Tony Stratton Smith manage Phil Collins and it was Tony in fact that asked me to start training professionally and Tony Had faith and saw 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.
Number six is Las Vegas, and it's sung by Tony Christie. Peter Callender wrote this song, and Peter Used to have a horse in training with me called The Songwriter and Peter's been trying for donkeys years to make me into a lady, he's not succeeded yet. He's now beginning to despair.
Record number seven is You Needed Me by Ann Murray, and this is for David Markham Paul for giving me the strength to survive for all the bad bits and helping me share the good bits.
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 It had standing concert on the ticket, so I thought 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 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.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:40Do you wake up in the middle of the night and think you know what's wrong with a horse?
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 I know what's wrong with that. All of a sudden, it's an intuitive understanding.
Presenter asks
2:39Someone said your talent is born of qualities that are intrinsically feminine - patience and understanding, discipline. Do you think there's anything in that thesis?
I love my horses and when we break them in, I mean 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 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 roller and a saddle put on them, and we take them through these stages very quietly. I hate falling out with them. … I like the horses too 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.
Presenter asks
16:52The keepsakes
The book
Veterinary Notes for Horse Owners
Captain M. Horace Hayes
and it is a great source of amusement to me, as well as a great book of knowledge.
When did you decide that you wanted to train horses yourself?
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 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. … So we bought a stable yard at Hinton Parva. There was not a house to live in there, so we lived in a caravan and I don't mean a mobile home, I mean in a caravan. … the bed came down into the sitting room and it was that cold I used to have to go to bed in my overcoat. … But just to wake up in the morning and to know that the horses were just over the wall just made me feel better. … I actually started looking after sick and injured horses. … I'd had a horse of Lord Caduggan's, in fact, called Road Race … And so, really, I started training point to point as first.
Presenter asks
22:26You were flat broke, living in a derelict house, four horses lame, you had appendicitis. Were you not tempted to throw it all in?
Never mind the training lark. There was times when I thought like throwing the lot in, but 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.
Presenter asks
24:00You slapped a jockey once because you thought he cut up one of your horses. Is that true?
I didn't think he had. It was obvious that he had. The horse came back in with all its marks. But that had been an ongoing situation. When you've got things to protect, like your kids in your home and all the rest of it. And women 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 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.
“My dad is the greatest judge of a horse I would ever know. It doesn't matter to him whether it costs five pounds, £50, £500,000, £50,000 or £500,000. It's either right or it's wrong. And he can tell you in a twinkling.”
“That should have been an omen. I think it probably was.”
“I was a bit like a sparrow in a budgie's cage.”
“It's going to be um very difficult to manage without the horses, very easy to manage without the men.”
“Men are more difficult to train than horses. They keep squeezing the toothpaste in the middle, which I find infuriating.”