It is not just the superstars who make a sport. In cricket the Vaughans and Pietersens win the headlines but it is the gritty Paul Collingwoods, making runs when others are losing their heads, who give the England side character. So who expresses jumping’s ethos? Try Warren Marston.
A crowd-pulling name? Maybe not. But Warren is the weft and warp of the winter sport, the epitome of jumping’s spirit. Back in the early 1990s he was Adrian Maguire’s No. 2 with The Duke, David Nicholson. He rode Cheltenham Festival winners like Nathen Lad as stable jockey to Jenny Pitman. He has been around Richard Phillips’s yard for years, partnering the likes of La Landiere. And now this dire winter has been more like an Indian summer for Warren.
This season’s success story is the 35-year-old Gloucestershire-based Martin Keighley, and, as his stable jockey, the three-years-older Warren Marston, now 38, who made friends with Keighley in the Duke’s yard, has been a key factor, banging home more winners than he has done for a few seasons past.
‘A big thing for me is riding for people who want you to be riding for them. Especially with Martin I have enough confidence in him and in myself that, if I felt I had to do something that was totally contradictory to what we’d decided, I’d be happy to do that in a race because he knows that I’m trying to do what’s best for him.’
Wazza, as the weighing-room knows him, gives everything a ride, including those with a string of duck eggs in their record. A realist, he knew from the start he was never going to be champion jockey. ‘There are only ever going to be two or three people at the top of your profession in your time and there are plenty better than me.’ But he knows, too, the value of the experience under his belt: ‘You get to know the idio-syncrasies of the tracks. I do very well at Towcester, I feel, because that’s a difficult track to know when to make your ground and when not to make your ground.’
As he showed in winning a good race at Ascot on Keighley’s Any Currency, he’s not afraid to hold back if he thinks the others are going too fast and to get a breather into his horse. And trainers like Pam Sly, Milton Harris and other regular employers of his talent appreciate that Warren isn’t obsessed with the big meetings. ‘I’ve never felt that. If I go to Worcester and I ride a winner for my lot I get as much of a buzz out of that.’
The buzz is patently still there. An England schoolboy hockey international who plays cricket for Broadway and squash to help his weight, Warren goes for a run if there’s no race-riding for a day or two. ‘You’ve got to keep yourself young with this lot behind you,’ he says. But there is respect from his fellows. One day Willie McCarthy cut him up along the back straight. Warren literally gave him a mouthful. ‘I hurled a bit of abuse at him, delivered with such force I managed to spit out my gumshield and false teeth. He was very good. He wasn’t riding in the next and even though I’d given him a bollocking he went off to find them.’
Crucially, for Warren, racing is still a sport, not a business. ‘Lads come in, a horse has fallen with them and you’d think their world had ended. I say, “Watch the football tonight. Someone will miss a penalty but they’ll be on the field the next day….” You’ve split seconds to make a decision and sometimes horses do go on the floor because of a rider. Too many people think every jockey can ride every race and never make a mistake. But you mustn’t be frightened of making a mistake.’
Always there is the sense of fun. There’s plenty of theorising in the Phillips yard. One day top jockey Richard Johnson scoffed to fellow work riders, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets a horse whisperer in next.’ The next day Johnson arrived for work to find a ribbon wrapped into his horse’s headgear. ‘The guru’s been through. He said this horse is a bit worried and the ribbon will help,’ said a straight-faced Marston. By strange coincidence the horse, normally a hard puller, settled well that morning. The next thing Warren saw was Dickie Johnson wrapping his pink ribbon on to his second ride….
Warren says he’ll never train. ‘I wouldn’t have the temperament. Too blunt.’ So the longer he stays in the saddle the better. We need his kind.
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