The Steve Smith-Eccles Column

By Steve Smith-Eccles

First things first this week and the atrocious weather has left us racing pundits scratching our bums and wondering where the next half decent race meeting might actually come from?

Last week we were lucky enough to see jumps racing from both Cheltenham and Plumpton, and it needs to be said that this was almost certainly down to the frost sheets, massive plastic sheeting covering the majority of the course and keeping out the ravages of mother nature.  Sadly, things did not go according to plan totally last weekend as my understanding is (and I am open to correction) that a contractor provides the covers for Cheltenham (which worked perfectly), but are the same company who provide for Sandown who should have raced on Saturday but could not for weather related reasons, frost in the ground. The problem is that these covers are large, heavy, and time consuming to put in place so they need to be subcontracted out BUT the same company covers both tracks and therein lies the problem. By the time they were removed from Cheltenham Friday morning and taken to Sandown the frost was already in the ground so laying the covers would have simply insulated the frost IN not let it out! Whose fault this is, well that’s open to question, but surely in the modern era it is not beyond the brains of the racing authorities to liaise with the tracks and the contractors to ensure that one track does not race the day after another covered by the same company thus ensuring the availability of the necessary frost covers and keeping the likes of me in business?  

Best story of the week simply has to be the one published under the heading “MAN WHO THREATENED TO KILL CONDUIT ESCAPES JAIL”. Now for those not in to their racing (yet), Conduit is a five year old son of Dalakhani who is trained by Sir Michael Stoute and has now won over three and a half million pounds in prize money, but why would anyone threaten to kill a horse

The subject of death threats Conduit

I hear you ask? Well ask Andrew Rogerson, aged 26, who apparently forgot to place an accumulator for a betting syndicate that would have (and should have) netted them, £55,000 if the horse won the King George at ascot, which he duly did! Sending a text to owners Ballymacoll Stud he told them “we would just like to warn you. Should Conduit run in the King George, then the horse will be killed” which was followed by an e mail threatening more of the same.  Described as “naive” during the court case, he used his own mobile phone and laptop (duh?), and was given a 34 week suspended sentence plus 240 hours of unpaid work, but it doesn’t actually mention whether he would be safer in jail or if the syndicate members are still looking for their money! 

Looking for tips this weekend has been anything but easy as I am sure you can imagine with all the turf racing already abandoned and worse weather still to come so I have had to switch my attentions to the all weather in the hope that they eventually get the go ahead. If Kempton do survive then the most interesting horse on show potentially is the Mark Johnson trained JAN MAYEN who takes in the 12.55 over a mile and a quarter. A daughter of Halling, she is unraced at the age of four so has clearly had her problems but the interesting thing is that even in the current economic climate the trainer will have a queue of potential owners knocking at his door yet he has chosen or been persuaded to keep this filly in training so she must be showing something on the gallops. That is a risky assessment I admit but a valid one, and in a race that will not take a lot of winning she could be worth a small bet but is the only option I can find during this current cold snap.

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.