Steve Smith-Eccles - 'The Eck' puts you straight!

By Steve Smith-Eccles

Short and sweet this week as I have been ultra busy with the hospitality boxes and giving out plenty of winners to the corporate guests here at Newmarket where the sun has kept on shining and the champagne has gone down very easily I assure you!

Pride of place goes to trainer Richard Hannon who seems to have an unaccountable knack with his juveniles in recent years, going from numerous winners at the lower end of the scale to almost monopolising the Group races one after the other and anyone following his juveniles of late must surely be quids in? 

On the jockeys front it is hard to give out accolades with Tom Queally riding better than ever which I can only guess comes down to a new found confidence since getting the stable jockeys job at Henry Cecil’s but the unsung Amy Ryan must run him close after a brilliant ride on board Sea Lord who had to lump top weight to victory in the very competitive mile handicap on Friday and it will be interesting to see if her success is a

A bright future Amy Ryan

springboard to more and better rides? There is still a good deal of sexism in the racing game (sadly) and I am not convinced the girls get a fair crack of the whip (pun intended), but while she can claim her apprentice allowance (which is why she got her first ride for the Mark Johnston yard), she should stay among the winners but the crunch will come when her apprentice claim disappears?

Looking ahead to the weekend, Ascot and York put on the main cards but my first bet runs at Nottingham when Brian Meehan and Martin Dwyer team up with MONTPARNASSE who looks sure to appreciate the extra quarter of a mile in the 15:45. He had stayer written all over him when getting detached early on before running on well to take his maiden last time out at Windsor and I hear he has improved again for that run and is expected to run a big race here.

At Ascot, the summer mile due off at 14:50 is the big race of the day, but a real minefield as far as I am concerned.  With eleven runners it may be worth searching for a touch of each way value and FORGOTTEN VOICE could be worth the risk at a decent price. He was a class act but rather lost his way of late but needed his first run since returning from Dubai when blowing up close home here last time out but with the Noseda yard hitting top form this week he is not without a squeak this afternoon. At York, the big race is the John Smith’s Cup at 15:05 and I am yet to give up on WIGMORE HALL unlike most of my contemporaries. He was mightily impressive on his return at Newmarket but has been unlucky since with all sorts of trouble in running and off eight stone five and with Martin Lane taking three pounds off his back he is attractively weighted and is another each way option in a massive field.

Steve’s Bets this week:

3pts Win MONTPARNASSE 15:45 Nottingham at SP

1pt each way 1/5 1,2,3 FORGOTTEN VOICE 14:50 Ascot at SP

1pt each way 1/4 1,2,3,4 WIGMORE HALL 15:05 York 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.