The Steve Smith-Eccles Column

By Steve Smith-Eccles

I just love this sport because there is just always something to talk about and this week we need to start with young jockey Danny Cook who was the target of the punters wrath last weekend after taking the wrong course on board the David Pipe trained Our Vic in the valuable Boylesports Gold Cup at Cheltenham.  Now I know young Danny pretty well in my guise as an assistant/teacher with the Hands and Heels series and think pretty highly of him, though mistakes as glaringly obvious as that, and in a televised race to boot, can have career threatening repercussions. Now I have walked many a

"We all make mistakes" Danny Cook

course with the lad before racing and cannot believe he failed to do so on Saturday but we all make mistakes and I can only hope he is quickly forgiven. If David Pipe gives him another chance (and I am sure he will), it is up to him to grasp it with both hands and he did ride a winner at Hereford the next day, so clearly his confidence has not been affected. 

On Monday Kieren Fallon put the cat amongst the pigeons yet again with hid so called exposure of the underground drugs scene here in Newmarket, claiming drugs abuse is rife in the town, and I quote “it has the highest rate for its population of any town in Britain”! Now that seems to me like a shot in the dark unless he has been to every town in Britain which I rather doubt, Now at my age I know precious little about drugs (I am glad to say), but there are always stories and rumours flying around town true or false and I am told that recreational drugs such as cocaine are as freely available as a packet of sweets from the corner store.  Now I do not want to go off preaching (in my day it was drink and I was as guilty as anyone), but I have seen first hand the damage that can be done with two suicides that were supposedly drugs related at the James Fanshawe yard but when you have an industry full of young people, away from home, dealers are bound to target the area though alcohol has always been a similar problem and just as I did as a raw fifteen year old, five lads to a room, the temptations are all too obvious but at least the problem has now been highlighted and can hopefully be dealt with swiftly too?

Moving on to the bets for the weekend I was putting forward two selections for Ascot , however the weather has triumphed with the meeting being abandoned due to snow. The selections were to be the Nicky Henderson trained FAIRYLAND and the Nick Mitchell trained ELLERSLIE GEORGE. Fairyland is a tough old mare and came good last time out when winning a Listed handicap hurdle at Newbury and has been raised seven pounds for that comfortable win but connections tell me she has come out of that race really well and is improving with every race, going from strength to strength.  She is as tough as teak and jumps for fun which is always a good thing to have on your side.  Ellerslie George has won two of his three starts this season and seems better this season having changed trainers from Howard Johnson who raced him almost exclusively around the two and a half mile mark, but stepped up in trip he has started winning again and may be able to keep that up here.  I was impressed with the nine year old last time out when he made every yard of the running to land the prestigious Badger Beer Chase at Wincanton to beat The Tother One a length and a half and who in turn went on to run a blinder at Cheltenham. 

The lack of selections has given me the chance of informing you of an exciting opportunity that has come my way. I have recently got involved with a racing syndicate who have just purchased a lovely yearling filly by Kheleyf who will be trained in Newmarket by Jonathan Jay with the intention of  having a bit of fun at the track (and hopefully to back her when she wins and make our fortunes).

I have attached a link to the web page so will not bore you with all the details here, but suffice to say I have been to Newmarket personally to see her and she is a feisty little madam with the build to make it as a racehorse and looks a picture.

We plan to be perhaps the first syndicate to try to tailor her races around the geographical spread of her owners to make sure everyone gets the chance to see her race, and we have deliberately teamed up with Jonathan Jay as he is one of the more sociable helpful and amicable trainers we know, and has a better than average understanding of how to place a horse to her best advantage.

We also plan to organise some hospitality each time she races to make sure we all have a day to remember.

Click here please for full details, it takes you straight to the webpage.

Steve

About Steve....

I was born and bred in a mining village in Derbyshire and prior to coming into racing the only thing I had ever sat on was a donkey on Skegness beach and the odd pit pony. My Dad used to watch racing on a regular basis and I would say to him that I was going to be a jockey when I grew up.

I was small as a child and I was influenced in the respect that you either went down the pit after school or you got out of the village so I looked for other directions to go in - racing was one of them.

Coming to the end of my schooling, father wrote off to three trainers - Frenchie Nicholson, Arthur Stephenson and Harry Thompson Jones in Newmarket. The latter was predominately a jumps trainer in those days but did have some Flat horses and he took me on a month's trial. I went down there on July 28 1970 and within weeks I was riding gallops and took to it like a duck to water. You started off by cleaning head collars and mucking out and then you were given your own horse to look after and then you moved on to two.

After three months I was riding work on a regular basis. Greville Starkey was his first jockey in those days and Lester Piggott used to come down on occasion as well so there were a lot of good riders around to learn from.
I have always been a great believer in jockeys being born with the ability to ride and it can be brought out so from an early stage Tom Jones must have seen that in. I was always going to be too heavy for the Flat so I started to do some schooling with Stan Mellor and also took to that quickly - within three and a half years I had my first ride in public over jumps.

After about four years I was riding regularly for the stable and then in five and a half years I took over as first jockey. At that time Tingle Creek was around, although he was getting towards the end of his career. The first time I rode him he won what is now the Tingle Creek Chase, it was the Sandown Pattern Chase back then, and won the race three times in all. The last time, when it was his retirement race, he actually broke his own track record. This was the horse that put Smith Eccles on the map.

My first Cheltenham Festival winner was in 1978 on a horse called Sweet Joe, who won the Sun Alliance. Zongelero was with Tom Jones as a four-year-old but he was sent down to Nicky Henderson with the proviso that I would ride him - that got my foot in the door with Nicky. Zongelero was one of the greatest bridesmaids in the game - I finished second on him in the Mackeson, the Massey Ferguson and the Hennessy.

I rode triple Champion Hurdler See You Then for Nicky in the mid-1980s also and it is phenomenal how it worked out with him. In the first one he was due to run in, John Francome was due to ride him but was badly shaken after a fall in the Arkle, the race prior to the Champion Hurdle. So within 10 minutes of the race, I picked up the ride and the rest is history.

I rode in a great time for National Hunt jockeys. Francome was probably the best but I also rode against Jonjo O'Neill, Ron Barry and later the likes of Peter Scudamore and Richard Dunwoody - some of the best there have ever been.

Tingle Creek probably provided me with my best memories. I was young and brave at the time and that style of riding really suited the horse - all he needed was to be pointed in the right direction. He either met a fence long or even longer - he would never get in close and fiddle. He never fell and I can't even remember him ever making a mistake.

In England I rode 868 winners and around the rest of the world another 30 or 40. My best season numerically was 68 and that actually put me second in the championship to John Francome. We did not have as many rides as there are these days so the numbers are bound to be smaller and there was not as much racing and more importantly there were no agents - you just rode for the stable you were attached to basically.

Since retiring from the saddle I have kept myself nice and busy at home in Newmarket riding work and schooling the young jumpers over hurdles and fences, while I take a lot of pleasure from helping out the next generation of stars in my position with the BHA helping the Conditional jockeys in the Hands and Heels series. Despite an army of unscrupulous tipsters with false names hiding behind PO Boxes you all know who I am (or the youngsters can look me up on Google) – a successful jockey who is lucky enough to offer the best of both worlds – all my contacts in the National Hunt world built up over too many years to mention with most of the very top names in the business, plus being based at the headquarters of flat racing here in Newmarket, and privy to all the latest gallop reports and stable gossip, which I use very effectively to help us all make our hobby pay rich dividends.

So, why not join me now at the reduced price, and help me to write the next chapter of a life spent in the sport we all love...

Steve Smith-Eccles runs the "The Eck " Horse Racing information service.