Spittin Mick

There is no cannier, or more careful, man in racing than Sheriff Hutton trainer Mick Easterby, 76 this weekend. If he didn’t exist, Yorkshire would have to hew him out of Wensleydale stone. He says he would like to win the Lottery and spend all his days counting, not spending, the money. He collects farms the way other people collect Toby jugs or first-day covers. The sign on his office wall used to declare, and probably still does: ‘If I can’t take it with me, I don’t want to go’. True or not, the story they tell of the owner who called Mick Easterby and said he’d like to buy a nice four-year-old hurdler takes you to the essence of the man. ‘I’ve got just the ’oss for you’ was the reply. ‘Nice Roselier gelding, for £10,000.’ ‘Well, actually, the business has been going rather well lately, Mick, and I was thinking of something around the £20,000 mark,’ said the would-be purchaser. ‘Oh, you should have told me you wanted your own horse, ten thousand was just for a half share…’

You don’t win a reputation as the sharpest cattle and horse dealer in the north without being able to seize your opportunities, and when Mick Easterby sent his first-ever runner to Lingfield Park last Saturday we should all have recognised that. I was too convinced of Blue Bajan’s chances in the Winter Derby on the Polytrack even to look at a saver on his huge great Gentleman’s Deal, a 17.2 hands horse who is already combining stallion duties with a racing career that had secured him six victories in six races on the all-weather before he arrived at Lingfield. In the event Gentleman’s Deal, the 4–1 joint favourite, wore down Blue Bajan and then held off the finishing thrust of Grand Passion to take the £56,000 winner’s prize.