Steve Smith-Eccles Week in Racing....

By Steve Smith-Eccles

Well as far as I am concerned there is only one place I can possibly start this week and that just has to be the fiasco that took place at Newcastle on Tuesday when not one but FIVE jockeys took the chase course during a race over hurdles?

Now as you will have probably read, some of the jocks have been bleating away about the severity of their twelve day bans but in all honesty I think they got away pretty lightly and I don’t see anyone standing up for all the punters who did their dough? In a nutshell, they went the wrong side of the rail that divided the chase track from the hurdles course at the bend to the back straight just after the winning post but it was clearly marked

One of five riders banned for taking the wrong course Peter Buchanan

with a big “H” at the start of the rail and jockeys should know to keep the marker on their left hand side as they will have been taught since they first learnt to ride so there really are no excuses.

The fact of the matter is that however many times you ride a track is irrelevant as they change from meeting to meeting with the rails regularly moved in the search for better ground and the hurdles moved for the same reasons, and you can imagine in the current wet/frozen spell they have been re sited even more often than is the norm. In my position as a jockey coach with the British Racing School I can never stress strongly enough the importance of walking the course before a race with my young protégés but what makes this incident (which is sadly no one off) even worse is that Peter Buchanan, who rode the 2.5 jolly here, HAD walked the track before the race, though to be fair to him he was stuck in a pack of horses and may well have been taken that way regardless.
Really, there are no excuses, but as I have said before the Clerk of the Course is certainly partially to blame because riders in the hurly burly of a race should not be put in a position to choose which course to take. Frankly, it would not take a minute to run a tape blocking the other course off and thus making it plain as day which way to go, and while there are no winners here in the racing industry, there are clear losers with the punters and I am tired of racing shooting itself in the foot so often when they should be competing with other sports for the gambling pound so why risk scaring punters away like this?

Looking forward instead of backwards now and weather permitting we have some cracking racing over the weekend from Haydock and Ascot.

Starting at the Northern of the two (Haydock), their feature race is the Bluesquare Gold Cup due off at 15:35. This three and a half miles will be a war of attrition in the likely testing conditions and horses with plenty of stamina will be at a premium here and 2009 Grand National winner MON MOME has that in abundance, and is my each way selection here. Trainer Venetia Williams has brought this ten year old along steadily this season and he was seen to good effect staying on well in to a highly creditable fourth behind Our Vic in the Peter Marsh chase here last month. The three miles that day would have been way too short for him that day but with the extra half a mile here, plus a three pound drop in the handicap he ought to turn the tables on his conqueror that day on twelve pound better terms and when the others are stopping he will still be gathering steam and is excellent each way value at 17.0 as I write.

At Ascot the feature race is the Betfair Ascot chase at 15:15 over two miles five and a half furlongs and Philip Hobbs’ PLANET OF SOUND is my selection here. A good novice chaser last year, his two runs this season saw him win on his reappearance in the Haldon Gold Cup at Exeter, a valuable and well contested event over two miles one furlong, before finishing a staying on second over two miles and three furlongs in a Grade Two chase here in November, three lengths behind Albertas Run. He is now six pounds better off with that horse today, and more importantly the step up in trip is just what the doctor ordered and I like his chances here.

Supporting races at Ascot include the Reynoldstown Novice Chase at 14:15 which could see PUNCHESTOWNS have his final prep race before Cheltenham in which he is currently favourite for the RSA Chase. He has won both his starts over fences this season at Newbury and Sandown, jumping well on the whole (apart from making a serious blunder on the downhill fence at Sandown when jockey Barry Geraghty did well to keep the partnership intact), and a clear round here should see him win this with ease.

The opener at 13:40 is a two mile novice hurdle and I like the chances of MENORAH who could set the ball rolling for the Hobbs yard, and is considered the home team’s best chance of giving Dunguib a run for his money in the Supreme Novices at Cheltenham. He has won three of his four races so far with his last run seeing him beat recent Newbury winner Bellvano at Kempton on Boxing Day and there will be some long faces if this one is turned over here.

Bets Summary:

1pt each way MON MOME 15:35 Haydock Saturday at SP

1pt Win PLANET OF SOUND 15:15 Ascot Saturday at SP

3pts Win PUNCHESTOWNS 14:15 Ascot Saturday at SP

3pts Win MENORAH 13:40 Ascot Saturday at SP


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.