LITMIR.BIZ

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my English improved, he told me that his son Richard was making his name as a jockey over fences. George rather took me under his wing and we would sit outside on a couple of bales of straw most mornings that summer, eating breakfast together.

      Others weren’t too friendly at first. Some picked on me, mimicking my voice, generally giving me a tough time and giving me a clip around the ear whenever they felt I deserved it. No wonder I was homesick! If there were dirty jobs to be done you can be sure that L. Dettori was the one told to do them. That’s the way it has always been in racing: the youngest and weakest learn the hard way. It’s the law of the jungle. As they grow stronger they in turn make life difficult for the latest newcomers.

      Luca is on record as saying I was pretty wild when I arrived from Italy, badly in need of a firm hand to straighten me out, but that isn’t how I remember it. Far from it. It might have been the case four years later, but until I found my feet I was naive and so quiet you wouldn’t believe it. For the first six months I was probably the best apprentice in the yard, keen as mustard. I was up so early I arrived at the yard before the head lad so I was usually the one who opened up the tack room. Realising that I was a slow worker, I wanted to make sure my horses looked immaculate.

      I was also incredibly lonely in those early days and often used to cry myself to sleep. At the beginning it was almost a game with Luca Cumani. I had agreed to go to him without supposing for a minute that I’d stay very long. I felt I only ended up in England because football dominates every other sport in Italy.

      For the first six months it was work, to bed, work, to bed again…nothing else. The worst nights were Mondays. Then my dad would ring from Italy on the dot of seven, ask how I was getting on, and encourage me as best he could by saying that, if I stayed at Luca’s, I too could one day have a big car and fly in private planes like famous jockeys such as Lester Piggott and Pat Eddery. It was his way of brainwashing me. He also made it clear that it was a hard and tiring job, and at times a thankless one. I would need to make enormous sacrifices if I wanted to be a jockey.

      When I was talking to him I usually managed to hold back the tears, but when I put the phone down I was utterly miserable. It was all part of growing up but I’ve no doubt that my dad was far tougher than me. He had such a hard upbringing and didn’t hesitate to send me away to another country to further my future. I question him about it all the time. How would he have felt if I’d failed? He says he can’t answer that one because I became so successful. I know I am a thousand times weaker than him because I couldn’t do the same to my own son Leo. I am as soft as butter with my own children and could never send them away like that.

      I soldiered on as best I could, concentrating on my work, carefully looking after my three horses, and riding out every morning. Initially my social life was non-existent. I was quiet, withdrawn even, but as I began to find my feet I started to come out of my shell and be my more natural cheeky self. Initially I owed much to the friendship of Valfredo Valiani, another Italian apprentice with Luca. He was my saviour. Years later he returned to England in triumph as a trainer, winning the valuable 2001 Yorkshire Oaks with the filly Super Tassa.

      Things picked up further when I joined forces with two apprentices, both five years older than me, who also worked in the bottom yard. Initially I fought with Colin Rate and Andy Keates. It was madness to argue with them really because the age gap between us should have made me more cautious. To me they were the hierachy. They forced me to do all their chores, but after a few light-hearted skirmishes we teamed up against the rest of the lads.

      Colin had come late to racing at seventeen after training as a carpenter. He rode three winners for Newmarket trainer Ben Hanbury and would go on to achieve a fair bit of success for Luca Cumani. As he is from Sunderland, the biggest hurdle to our friendship in the early days was that we couldn’t understand a single word we said to each other. Colin quickly became my best friend. There is not a day when we do not speak and he always tells me exactly what he thinks.

      Colin’s mate Andy had more of a racing background. One of his uncles, Joe Mercer, had been champion jockey in 1979 towards the end of a great career, and another uncle, Manny Mercer, was killed tragically young in a fall at Ascot. Andy had a few race rides once he joined Luca shortly before me in 1985, but he was never going to make a jockey. For the past fourteen years he has worked for me as my driver and Man Friday.

      This duo were soon leading me astray, though I didn’t need much encouragement. We shared a genuine love of horses, a well-developed sense of the ridiculous, and a hunger for adventure that frequently left us broke. Part of our daily ritual was a 20p each-way accumulator on the afternoon’s racing because that was all we could afford. I’d been a mad keen punter in Italy on my visits to the races. Now Colin and Andy introduced me to the habit of spending the afternoon in a betting shop—and when we had collected the place money on our first accumulator I was hooked.

      When you are that young you cannot go to pubs or drinking clubs so I ended up as a typical betting shop punter, ‘doing my brains’ every week. Colin and Andy were just as bad. We were all addicted to betting. We’d take lunch together in the New Astley Club, a base for so many stable lads, play snooker and pool, then rush across the road to place bets and listen to the commentaries in a betting shop owned by a character called Cuthie Suttle.

      Cuthie soon became a useful source of funds when I was hard up. Sometimes he’d lend me the price of a haircut in the barber’s shop nearby when I needed one, or maybe £5 to keep me afloat at the weekend. When I backed a winner—which was not very often—I repaid his kindness by sharing bags of fruit and sweets with his customers.

      However, my new friends couldn’t save me from the ritual embarrassment of having my private parts greased, the fate of all newcomers to racing. It happened without warning at the end of work one morning. A gang of them held me down near the dung heap, removed my jodhpurs and pants, then encouraged one of the girls to cover my pride and joy with hoof oil. They finished off their handiwork by stuffing a carrot up my backside to loud applause, before leaving me writhing with embarrassment on the dung heap. Removing the carrot took only a moment but cleaning up all the grease and oil from my skin took several days of energetic scrubbing.

      Around the same time, I finally had the sense to change my lodgings which had become more and more like Fawlty Towers. The children there were driving me mad, my room upstairs was like a cell, and it was too expensive, even though I had to take my washing down to the launderette every Sunday. I also had to feed myself on Sundays and ended up having a large Wimpy while my clothes were drying. The parents of one of our stable lads, David Sykes, had a spare room at their council house five minutes from the yard. He took me to meet them and I moved in on the spot. It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

      Although Val and Dennis Sykes struggled to make ends meet they treated me like their own son from day one. For all of my two years with them I ate like a pig—which was probably not the most sensible habit for someone who wanted to become a jockey. Every evening, when I returned from work, a roast meal complete with Yorkshire pudding and all the trimmings would be waiting for me on the table. Val was superb at cooking cream cakes and egg custards, which I couldn’t resist the moment they came out of the oven. She and Dennis spoiled me too much and let me do what I wanted in the evenings.

      Twice in the early days Val even took me to her weekly bingo sessions in the town with her mother. This didn’t appeal to me so I invented an excuse when they invited me again. Val and Dennis were generous to a fault and made me feel great, though Val had her moments when I came back from work and deposited straw and mud on the stairs on my way up. She dug out the vacuum cleaner and stood over me as I cleared up the mess. I used to call Val ‘mum’ and she called me Pinocchio! She and Dennis had a smashing black labrador called Jamie which I often rode like a horse on the carpet in the evenings. When I heard a few years later that he’d died I took them an instant replacement in the shape a boisterous yellow labrador—which they immediately christened Frankie.

      After the tight discipline of home it was a relief that Val didn’t mind when I stayed out late with Colin and Andy as we trawled the pubs on Friday, Saturday and occasionally Sunday nights, if our funds lasted that long. We had the time of our lives, a right laugh. The boys were into drinking pints of vodka but I restricted myself to grapefruit

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