LITMIR.BIZ

       Seven Priceless Lessons in California

      I quickly came back down to earth at Newmarket. All those winners in Naples didn’t seem to count for much once I was back in the old routine mucking out on freezing cold mornings and bitter spring evenings. When I returned to my digs after evening stables I’d sit on top of the fire. No-one else could get near it.

      Colin and I spent our spare time at the yard practising our whip actions. Once everyone else headed off for lunch we were left to sweep the yard and tidy up the feed-house. After that was done we rushed to the warmth of the tack room, armed ourselves with the nearest available whips, dipped the flaps in a bucket of disinfectant, then stood crouching at a jockey’s height on a small bench, and whacked the side of the ancient coal fire burning behind us for ages until our arms ached. The first mark left by the wet flap on the fire was our target for the day. Then we tried to hit the same spot over and over again.We wrecked the stitching on the flaps of lots of whips, none of them ours. After six months there wasn’t a whip in the place with the flap intact.

      As I was sixteen, I was ready to start my career in England but had to wait so long for my first ride I thought it would never come. Opportunities were scarce and winners were a distant mirage. The new flat-racing season was well over a month old before I was booked for a 33-1 shot, Mustakbil, late in April. This was at Kempton’s bank holiday meeting, and the man who booked me was the Derby winning trainer Peter Walwyn—who is affectionately know in racing as Basil for his resemblance to the character played so memorably by John Cleese in Fawlty Towers. My claim should have reduced Mustakbil’s weight by 5 pounds, so Walwyn’s mood was probably not helped when instead I put up 4 pounds overweight. Even so we looked like winning until my horse tired in the final furlong through lack of fitness. My conversation with the trainer afterwards might have come straight from a scene in that TV comedy.

      Perhaps he expected a polite thank you. Instead I managed to leave him almost as apoplectic as Basil Fawlty after a row with his head waiter Manuel. When Walwyn asked me what had happened in the race I pointed to the horse’s tummy and replied ‘Not fit’. It wasn’t the most diplomatic answer to a man who had been champion trainer, and I was hardly qualified to speak on the subject since at that stage I could scarcely tell the difference between a racehorse and an aeroplane.

      At first Walwyn didn’t seem to understand what I’d said. Then the penny dropped. ‘What! Not fit! You cheeky little bugger. Not fit!’, he spluttered. It could have been Fawlty speaking.

      ‘That’s right’, I agreed, too stupid to realise I was moving into dangerous territory. ‘Not fit, too fat’, I added before heading for the safety of the jockey’s room to protect me from further explosions. The next morning Walwyn rang Luca to tell him he wouldn’t be using me for a year. When he finally relented more than twelve months later and gave me a chance at Folkestone, there was a further disaster. His horse played up so badly in the stalls that I was forced to take my feet out of the irons and rest them on the bars. At that very moment the starter let the field go and Splintering, my mount, shot out of the stalls without me and reached the winning post riderless well ahead of the field. This time I could hardly blame the trainer for being speechless.

      My first winner in England finally arrived at Goodwood on 9 June, three days after my father broke his left leg in two places when his horse crashed into a concrete post in Milan. The filly who made the breakthrough for me was Lizzy Hare, named after Luca’s secretary who drove me to the course. She was led up that day by Colin Rate in a lurid new black suit, with pink seams, pink shirt, tie and socks. You could hardly call him shy and retiring then or now.

      Lizzy Hare was a promising filly who would go on to much better things in America, but that day she was dismissed as a 12-1 shot in a hot little handicap featuring three champion jockeys—Steve Cauthen, Pat Eddery and Willie Carson. We travelled well behind the leader Betty Jane, partnered by Willie, and then Steve took over with a strong run on Interlacing. For a brief moment there were five fillies spread across the course, but Lizzy Hare was finding plenty for me and squeezed through a gap on the far rail to take the prize by one and a half lengths from Interlacing. I was thrilled to win and ever more pleased to beat my great hero Steve Cauthen into second place. I knew Colin had backed Lizzy Hare and the way he rushed out to greet us suggested that he’d landed a nice little touch.

      In the car on the way home, I wrote on a box of tissues Frankie Goes to Hollywood. At last I was on my way, but if I was expecting a rash of winners it didn’t happen. The reality was that I was an Italian learning in a foreign country, so just to be getting a few rides was good. I didn’t panic—far from it because I had this inner belief that I was going to make it. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind. My father had been brainwashing me for so long during our weekly phone conversations I had begun to believe him.

      I already had so much experience on good horses on the gallops that by the time I was sixteen I knew I could ride in apprentice races with my arms tied and my eyes blindfolded. Compared to the other kids starting out that year I felt I was at least a couple of years ahead. Though I didn’t know it at the time, Luca’s head lad Arthur Taylor shared my belief that I’d make a name for myself. The stirrup irons that I wore on Lizzy Hare hold pride of place on the mantelpiece of his home. Apparently he removed them the same night because he wanted a memento of my first success!

      At the time everyone was talking about Dale Gibson as the next superstar apprentice. I had my doubts when I met him. He is skinny now but then he was about 5 stone, and so much of a skeleton he looked as though he was always on a hunger strike. I thought, if he’s my chief opposition, I can give him a run for his money. All I needed was the chance. You don’t want to be waiting forever but the days seemed to go so quickly.

      Increasing weight was already a worry, probably because I was eating too many cakes and ice-creams. My feeble attempts at sweating then were sporadic and lacked any discipline. Sometimes at the end of the day I’d take a dustbin liner from Val’s kitchen, cut a hole for my head, put it on, then run round the streets of Newmarket to work up a sweat.

      Although I’d had only one winner so far, I was riding at least twice a week, getting the odd 50-1 shot and a few for Luca in apprentice races. I felt my time would come. Another Newmarket trainer, Clive Brittain, had given my dad a few rides years before and now he booked me for Merle in the Royal Hunt Cup at Royal Ascot. To be riding on the greatest stage so soon was a big boost. I’d never experienced anything like it: the unique atmosphere, the dressing up, the tradition and four days of top-class racing in the presence of the Queen. Suddenly I was part of the best race meeting in the world. It was a bit like being at Wembley for the FA Cup Final.

      Though Ascot would later turn out to be my luckiest course there was no fairytale start. The correct colours failed to turn up, so I wore a makeshift bib, which started to come open and flap around my shoulders as Merle moved into contention soon after half-way. I was tickled pink to finish a respectable sixth in the famous handicap race.

      Chris Wall, one of Luca’s former assistants, provided my second winner, Crown Ridge, at Ripon

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