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The Turf

Robin Oakley

Wednesday, 6th February 2008

Robin Oakley surveys the turf

He takes the positive from everything. In the Nicholls yard, where he suffered a badly broken leg schooling just as things were taking off for him, he says, ‘I learnt how to conduct myself, how to deal with things when they aren’t going so well.’ With Hobbs, ‘I just loved riding those winners.’

There is about him something of champion Tony McCoy’s intensity as he declares, ‘Passing the post in front means everything to me. I just live for it. Racing is my life.’ So when does he plan to be champion? ‘It’ll be a few years yet, but obviously it’s an ambition if I can stay injury-free.’ As with McCoy, there is endless self-examination in the search for perfection.

Give Paddy Brennan a compliment, as I did over his riding of Osana at Cheltenham where he nicked the race by stealing lengths at the start and judging the pace perfectly from the front, and he says, ‘It’s a great feeling when it works out and you say, “I’ve done it,” but there have been plenty of times I’ve stolen ten out of the gate, failed to keep going and finished last.’

Rebased in the south, he was rapidly snapped up as first jockey to Nigel Twiston-Davies and they have become a formidable partnership. ‘He’s the best person I’ve ridden for. He wants to win as much as I do, but nine times out of ten he leaves me to decide the tactics. And most importantly he’s a good loser.’

The pair have a gentleman’s agreement, not a paid retainer, and Twiston–Davies, he says, is very good about letting him off to ride something better when the stable’s lesser lights are running. To the benefit of trainers like Charles Egerton, Tom George, Venetia Williams and Peter Bowen.

Twiston-Davies says of Paddy, ‘He thinks a lot. We discuss everything. He’s good at reading the race going on round about him, he’s good at presenting a horse to a fence and he’s a great judge of pace. He’s a great help schooling too, and if a horse loses he always says it is his fault.’

So is Paddy Brennan a good loser too? ‘No. He’s a terrible loser. Dreadful.’ Again, so very like McCoy.