In racing’s record books 2022 will be remembered especially for Alpinista’s Arc de Triomphe and Baaeed’s all-round brilliance. But it was the year, too, in which we lost the sport’s most popular owner, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, and the greatest ever jockey, Lester Piggott. His figures still astound. Lester won 30 British Classics including an unrivalled nine Derbies. His 116 winners at Royal Ascot included 11 in the Gold Cup and in all he won 4,493 Flat races. Nobody but Lester could have beaten Rheingold in the Derby as he did on Roberto. But what I will always remember was his victory in the 1990 Breeders’ Cup Mile. Five years after retiring and only 12 days back in the saddle following his gaoling for tax offences, he rode a reluctant Royal Academy to win with a sweetly timed long sweeping run. Not one to waste words, his post-race comment was: ‘You don’t forget.’
Trawling this year’s racing literature offerings, most had a Lester story and the amiable David Smalley, maths lecturer-turned-starting price reporter and veteran of the racecourse press room, included one in his book of memoirs, A Head Full of Jolly Robins (Bound Biographies for a Motor Neurone Disease research donation). A Brighton bookie pal offered David, who seems to know everyone in racing, a lift in his plane to Deauville where Lester emerged from the weighing room to hand the pal £100 worth of francs, telling him to put the money on French jockey Freddy Head: ‘He’s a certainty in my race.’ The rest of them followed the tip only for the Frenchman to finish like a train but too late. Lester, muttering ‘he couldn’t ride an effin donkey’, refused to pay a share of the taxi back to the plane.
Among some excellent betting yarns, David has a happier revelation about this year’s champion jockey William Buick, a family friend. When David’s wife was diagnosed with motor neurone disease, young William, then on the way up, quietly offered to pay for any treatment anywhere in the world that might help.
A racing volume I always relish is Milo Corbett’s annual doorstopper Bloodstock Notebook because of its offbeat racing-related excursions. This year’s collection includes bookmaker Rob Waterhouse, husband of Australian training legend Gai, musing on nurture vs nature. He insists: ‘The climate where the foal is raised is of primary importance in determining a runner’s distance preference.’ He argues: ‘Foals raised in a hot environment like Queensland mature more quickly than their opposite numbers raised in Newmarket.’
Milo indulges in a mega-gossip with Jilly Cooper which includes the response of her late husband Leo when he was asked what Jolly Sooper wore in bed: ‘Dogs mostly. If I reach out in the night and touch something furry I get my hand bitten.’ No wonder Jilly is horrified that her latest oeuvre will have to be vetted by a ‘sensibility editor’.
Bloodstock Notebook (£22.50, Amazon) is worth it for Rolf Johnson’s penetrating commentary on the racing year alone and he has a Lester story too. When Rolf was working with Toby Balding, the trainer was late to Newmarket one day to saddle their Lester-ridden runner in the Bunbury Cup. When Piggott walked into the parade ring, he noticed his intended mount Casino Boy was in work shoes, not racing plates. When Lester quizzed the lass, she told him: ‘Nobody told me whether he was “off” or not.’ Said Lester: ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ He grabbed the horse, led it to the farrier and had the shoes removed – and then rode a blinder on the barefoot animal to lose by just a neck.
Jump racing owes much to the feeder streams from the point-to-point world and the latest from Anne Holland, writer of 25 books, is Stirrup Stories and Lambs’ Tales (New Generation, £9.99), a highly personal memoir of the ups and downs of country life. The recollected music of the hounds in the woods, her first kiss on horseback at the Eridge Hunt, the husband jointing lamb or pig carcasses in her bath will stir memories among any who have enjoyed the camaraderie of riding for love, not money. Tales of raising lambs given names like Tiddlypush and Scruffy will be too twee for some but you cannot but share her joy when she wins on Tarkaotter at Badbury Rings after being run away with before the start. ‘“Has she ever ridden before?” I heard the starter ask.’ In fact, Anne was one of the first group of women to be granted a licence to ride under National Hunt rules after the Sex Discrimination Act in 1975. Men could get one by post, needing merely a reference from a trainer. Women were rigorously interviewed in person. When Anne lined up for a selling hurdle at Stratford-upon-Avon on King’s Rhapsody in June 1977, one of the pros called over: ‘You’ll stay on the wide outside, won’t you, dear?’ Anne went to the front on the 20-1 shot and stayed there to win.
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