Saturday was a severe disappointment for me because I found it hard to watch a horse I had ridden several times, Wayward Prince, win the Grimthorpe Chase.
I had won on him a few times when he was a young horse and he ran well for me; I always felt that he could shine. He is 10 now, he had a few little problems, but to see the owner-trainer getting another jockey was disheartening. It can be hard to take sometimes especially when you always knew that the horse had something.
There was talk about retiring him before. Then the trainer decided to run him again, but she didn’t tell me. This is a side of the game that is very tough. You drive around the country; you shed blood and tears, but it is so difficult when you don’t get an opportunity to shine when all the conditions are right for a horse.
The week before Cheltenham is a big one for punters with all the hype and drama that is attached, but for most jockeys we are just focused on what we normally do: trying to win races. As I’ve got older my approach has changed a bit, four or five years ago I might have been looking forward to the Festival from a long way out.
Experience teaches you, though, not to look beyond the next day. That is what I do now and I feel that it serves me well. Of course you like to do well at the Festival, but being realistic it is extremely hard for jockeys to do well. I’m including the top 20 or so riders in that, you have to be so focused all of the time. There is no point worrying too much too far out from Cheltenham.
The likes of AP McCoy, Barry Geraghty, and Ruby Walsh will have the firepower of the Paul Nicholls, Jonjo O’Neill, and Willie Mullins yards. They will have favourites all through the week so they will expect to get a good reward.
For others you can turn over big money in the Festival, but being realistic you might have only three or four decent chances in the week. You have to be very careful what you do because you might get opportunities at other tracks to record a few wins. That is what we are in the game for, we are still doing a job.
Having a winner at Cheltenham is brilliant, it is rightly hailed as the Olympics of racing, but realistically if you are better served elsewhere that is where you go. You want to win rather than being stuck on a couple of 100/1 shots. You’re running a business and you have to think of your cheque.
You feel for guys like Jason Maguire, who is going to miss out on Cheltenham again. He has been handed a two week ban, most of the jockeys felt he didn’t do a whole lot wrong. With a bit of luck a guy like Jason could earn thousands of pounds at the Festival. He is a very good rider, but to miss out on Cheltenham is very unfortunate.
Having a central group of stewards to make decisions is something I think the BHA should look at. I think that racing would be better served if you had maybe 12 stewards in London, who would review all races in the UK across the board. I think that would lead to a greater consistency which is something jockeys reckon can be lacking.
In America stewards enquiries are held the day after a race, that can give everyone a chance to reflect, and for jockeys to explain exactly what they were doing. I know there are lots of hoops to jump through, but having a pool of stewards would benefit everybody and it is something that needs to be explored.
