Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Former National Hunt jockey with a record eight champion jockey titles and 1,678 wins, now a racing journalist.
On the island
Eight records
The keepsakes
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:07So if your parents had had their way, you'd have ended up in an estate agent's office, not in the saddle, would you?
If my mother had had her way, she uh even when I was going well, she used to when I came home for Sunday lunch, she used to ask me when I was going to get a proper job. But uh my father always said if he had his time over again he would do exactly the same.
Presenter asks
1:40What would have motivated your mother? Was it fear for you, fear that you would fall?
That's right. My father had a very bad injury. He rode as a jump jump jockey for sixteen years and what was ironic was that he had a fall on the flat. A horse clipped another horse's uh heels in front of him going round a bend and he went down and he smashed all his face up and he was left partially sighted in the one eye and obviously then that stopped him riding. I think he was about thirty four, nineteen sixty six it was. Obviously mother was aware of the dangers then and I think it was a lot more dangerous in those days. I think he started in about fifty one where the safety standards were a lot uh lower than they are now. When he first started riding they were just using cork helmets. They weren't having the fiberglass helmets that we have now.
Presenter asks
7:20The book
Rudyard Kipling
Where again when I get very drunk I ask anybody back to my house who will listen to me read a poem by … Read [it] to them, yes. And I love England is a garden as well.
The luxury
Uh I'm gonna take snorkeling equipment, I think, and I can swim around the coral reef to my delight.
Is it possible to describe the feeling of winning? Is it excitement, fear, or just doing what you believe you're here to do?
satisfaction. I r you really do feel you're just in your own little world, you've set out to achieve something. It's you know, it's fairly simple. You've got to gallop a horse round in a circle for two or three miles. But you've you've overcome those problems and you've you've achieved it. And that's that was always the kick to me. And from the first winner to the last, it was always the same reason.
Presenter asks
9:59How would you sum up the principle of the way Martin Pipe trained, these short, stress-free gallops?
Yes, it's basically it's it's interval training, uh which you know the athletes do. They he this his horses can surf for a minute or two uh over four or five furlong, break, come down and do that three times uh in the mornings. but also listening to the horse, keeping the horse happy.
Presenter asks
16:22What makes the Grand National special for a jockey?
The National has that special ingredient of a little bit of luck and a good horse and everything coming right on the day and the big fences. And it's just the sense of achievement of jumping round the Grand National course. When you jump round there you have tremendous respect for the horse. And even now if you go out to somebody's field and they say, Well, that's old So and so he jumped round the National in 1981 or something. You know, you you know, you want to go up and give him a pat and say, Well done, old boy, you know. Respect.
Presenter asks
24:56How did you know when it was time to go? What was the writing on the wall that made you retire so suddenly?
It had a fantastic run. And the way I put it is that steeple chasing is a culcu you're either a complete idiot and you say I'm going to do it at all costs and I'll never get hurt or you say well you know quite honestly you will get hurt one day and you take your chances, you take a calculated risk and I felt I pushed my luck and I thought well you know give yourself you know give luck a chance and get out a little bit earlier. Plus I had the financial incentive to do it. We have a jockers association which set up a pension fund which we can claim a pension at thirty-five and I was going to get some sort of money then and I thought to myself I've got to make a living when I retire from it sometimes and you know whether I do it ten years time or one year's time or whatever, at least I've got a little bit behind of me to go and have a a crack at it.
“I used to walk along and if it was a stone, I'd pick up a stone and there'd be a post over there and I'd throw at the post and I'd say to myself, Now if I hit that post I'll win the Grand National or I'll be champion jockey or something.”
“satisfaction. I r you really do feel you're just in your own little world, you've set out to achieve something. It's you know, it's fairly simple. You've got to gallop a horse round in a circle for two or three miles. But you've you've overcome those problems and you've you've achieved it. And that's that was always the kick to me. And from the first winner to the last, it was always the same reason.”
“I think the greatest attribute of a of a jockey is to be able to sit still on a horse.”
“The horse is ninety-nine percent of it and I th then it's got to be an idiot of a trainer, an idiot of a jockey to stop it stop it winning.”
“I didn't have to do it anymore. That was the hunger. If if you said... Yes, I think if you took everything away from me now and said, Look, you've got to go out and do it again, I could quite happily go out and do it, but I all of a sudden the hunger had gone.”