by Dick Francis
All three courses have big stiff fences, and I have observed that they always look biggest when one is riding a poor jumper.
Down the far side of the course at Haydock there are drops to the fences very like those at Aintree. Indeed this course, nearest on the map to Liverpool, is a good preparation for the big test, and since the war Sheila’s Cottage, Russian Hero, Freebooter and E.S.B. all won races at Haydock before they won the National.
Haydock is one of the few courses where it does not pay to come over the last fence close to the rails. Straight ahead are an open ditch and the water-jump, and the way to the winning post veers fairly sharply to the right to avoid them. By jumping the last fence towards the outside and going straight on one finds oneself close to the rails again a hundred yards later.
Both Haydock and Newbury are officially described as ‘undulating’ because of a slight dip at one stage of an otherwise flat course. On the other hand, the new course at Ascot, though officially ‘flat,’ has a severe pull up from Swinley Bottom. The last six fences are all built on this rising ground, and I’m sure it must seem never-ending to a tired horse.
‘Hilly and Easy’ courses are those where the inclines are not too steep or do not occur near the winning post. Most of them have short circuits. Fontwell Park and Plumpton are little more than a mile round; but Warwick, the exception, is deceptively as long as Doncaster.
Warwick racecourse runs up and round the lower slopes of a sharp little hill rising in the centre of the course, and except from the very top of the stands the horses are lost to view behind it for over a furlong. They sweep down off the hill along the back straight, and the rest of the course is flat.
In spite of the hill, in dry weather the track is a fast one, and the English record for a two-mile hurdle was put up there by Shahjem in December, 1955. In wet weather the course drains very patchily, and the fence at the foot of the hill often has to be missed out because water collects and lies around it.
At one meeting at Warwick there was an alarming and unusual numbers of falls. Some of the fences had been entirely and stiffly rebuilt, while others had not needed such fundamental repair; but one could not tell from looking at them which was which. The horses soon found out. Brushing lazily through the tops of the old fences they suddenly came to a new one and hit it with a bang.
Except to the victims it was an interesting and informative meeting, for it proved without a doubt that whereas horses can adapt themselves to a different construction of fences on separate courses, they expect all the fences on one course to be alike.
Lingfield is one of the pleasantest of all courses to ride on. The fences are beautifully built and very wide, and the high wings make them so inviting that one almost feels like jumping them oneself without bothering to take a horse along too.
The one hill is well away from the finish, and although it is a steep pull up to the top, there is then a fast downhill stretch before one sweeps round the final curve into the straight. As with all the ‘hilly and easy’ courses the extra speed one can achieve going down the slope more than makes up for the effort of getting to the top of it.
‘Hilly and Difficult’ courses, like the ‘flat and difficult’, are long galloping tracks with big fences. On all of them the finishing line is on or just after an up-gradient, and there is no free-wheeling run-in for a tiring horse.
The hills at Lingfield, Plumpton, and Devon and Exeter are the steepest in the country, but they are so far from the finish in each case that one can take a breather going up and at the top before gathering one’s forces for the final effort. At Towcester, however, on the fourth most severe slope, there is no respite for horse or man, because the winning post is at the top of a heart-straining climb. The last three-quarters of a mile is unrelentingly uphill, with three fences, including an open ditch, to be conquered on the way.
On soft going many horses are so tired by the time they get to the last fence that they are almost walking over it, and some of the world’s slowest finishes must have been fought out on the run-in.
Meetings at Towcester are all held in the spring and autumn, so, although it is sometimes heavy, the going is never deep enough to ask cruel or impossible labours from the runners there.
I have had to put Plumpton in both ‘hilly’ columns, because I could not decide which it should properly belong to. For many years I would have unhesitatingly have called it difficult, but one day I rode Domata there, and it was a revelation. Domata jumped the course with the utmost ease, gaining lengths at every fence, and winning on the strength of it, for, as it was his first run of the season, he was not fully fit.
It occurred to me that I had always thought of Plumpton as difficult because I had never been round on a really good horse. Plumpton has its virtues, but it does not usually attract the top class stars. Had I ridden there only on Finnure, Crudwell and Lochroe, I would probably never have thought the downhill fences at all formidable. As one lands over them the ground is dropping away, so that the second or third stride from a fence may still find a horse overbalancing on to its nose.
Even though the landing-side of the water-jump is flat and the fence itself is perfectly ordinary, I think I fell at it more often than at any other fence in the whole of Britain. Three times on one day I walked back, rather damp, from this furthest obstacle. Eventually it dawned on me, as I lay inspecting it from close quarters for the umpteenth time, that the landing side was less cut up away from the rails; and by jumping the fence on the outside from then on I usually managed to cross the water safely. Recent alterations to this fence, and to the worst downhill one, have made them easier to jump.
In three-mile ’chases at many courses one jumps nineteen fences instead of the minimum eighteen. At Sandown, however, everyone has extra fun for their money, because in a three-mile race there are no less than twenty-two obstacles.
Sandown has always been my favourite course after Liverpool, but working on the reverse principle from Plumpton, I think now that this may be because I have usually been round there on a good horse.
The three-mile ’chases start with the horse’s backs to the highest part of the course, and there is a short downhill run to the first fence.
Round the corner, along the back straight, there are seven exacting fences close together; three, then the water, then another three. Everything depends upon timing one’s distance between them, like crossing the string of traffic lights on the Great West Road. If you meet the first one right you get a smooth clear run, but if you are wrong at the first you have trouble with them all.
After these seven there is a long curve round towards the straight, and one starts to go uphill as one approaches the Pond fence, named by the giant saucerful of stagnant water which lies between the chasing and hurdling courses. The slope upwards is continuous past the next two fences and all along in front of the stands.
At the top, out of sight of most people in the enclosures, the horses swing right and race down beside the Members’ car park, where all that can be seen of them is the jockeys’ bright caps bobbing above the Daimlers, the Bentleys, and the Morris Minors.
On the second circuit the Pond fence and the two after it up the hill sort out all the tired horses. One bad mistake at any of these three fences may lose a race, because it is a strong horse which can pick up speed again after being unbalanced in his all-out climb.
After their race the horses have so long a walk back to the paddock that it is quite common for a jockey to be called out for the next race before he has got back into the weighing-room to start changing. The half hour between races, which drags along for racegoers on a cold day, is pitifully short for the mad quick-change scramble behind the scenes of those jockeys lucky enough to be in full employment.
Quite different are the days when one is due to ride only in the last race. The afternoon seems never-ending, and when at last one is changed into colours the winter light may be already fading, and there is a steady drift of people going home. It is all very depress
ing. Give me Sandown in a rush every time.
The only major steeplechase course which is not devoted to flat racing in the summer is Cheltenham, the headquarters of National Hunt racing.
The brown and purple hills which stand in an arc round the course are justly famous, but it is little use my describing them or showing a picture of them. Landscapes have to be seen in the moving air, with the noises and smells of the earth alive in one’s senses. Pictures seem dead to me. Visual memory may be defective and imagination mistaken, but the mind can recall the essence of a place, familiar, dreary, or exotic, without the help of a photograph or a painting.
On the hills at Cheltenham the changes in the light from a brilliant sparkle to a soft mist are so infinite that they could keep an artist (unsatisfactorily) employed for years.
Cheltenham, like many hilly courses, calls for sit and suffer tactics. Unless the winning post is at the top of an incline it is not particularly wise to ride one’s horse hard uphill, for he will use in climbing the energy he needs later on for a winning run: nevertheless one feels, in easing one’s mount, that time is being lost, and it is even worse when other horses sprint past. Hence the term ‘sit and suffer’, horribly familiar to all regular jockeys.
There are two uphill stretches at Cheltenham, one in front of the stands, and a fairly stiff one on the further side of the course. At the top of this slope, there is a gradual swing to the left on the new course, but a sharp bend on the old course. Green riders gallop fast up the hill, passing the sit-and-suffer brigade with ease, but on the old course they find their speed carrying them wide round the bend, and they at once lose the lengths they have tired their horses to gain.
From the top bend there is a long steep downhill gallop to the third last fence; after the next jump a fairly sharp rising curve leads round to the last fence, before one tackles the uphill finish. It is a difficult course to ride a waiting race on, because if one is not close up round the last bend, the late fast run has to be made in a short climbing rush. It can be and has been done, but on this course, more than any other, it is easy to leave a waiting-race horse too much to do at the end.
On the other hand, it is asking a great deal of a horse to expect him to lead all the way. Setting the pace up and down the hills is too much for many natural front runners, which win from in front on flat courses with ease, but often fail at Cheltenham.
The most notable exception I have ever seen was Lord Bicester’s Royal Approach, which came over from Ireland in 1954 to run in the Cathcart Steeplechase, the last race of the Festival meeting. Ridden by Pat Taaffe, he started off in front, and went further and further away from the rest of the field, winning by a distance without exerting himself, and making the other runners look like donkeys. Tragically the horse broke a bone in his knee while turned out at grass a few months afterwards, for he showed, at six years old, every promise of becoming another great star in Lord Bicester’s string. After two season’s rest, he raced again, but without his former signs of greatness.
From Cheltenham, Aintree and Sandown, to Cartmel, Plumpton and Wye, every racecourse has its own personality. No two are alike. Each has its own flavour, oddities and customs, and almost its own insignia, like ribbed woollen stockings at Cheltenham, rain at Haydock Park, and straw-bale grandstands at Bangor-on-Dee.
In some ways every course is the same. At the gates everywhere one is greeted by the smell of jellied eels, a glimpse of the regular tipsters, the welcoming ‘Hello, Dickie boy’ of Johnny, Fatty and Tishy, the newspaper sellers; and the familiar argument between the turnstile keeper and the man who is unlawfully trying to get in free.
9
Chase Me a Steeple
THERE is no one technique of race-riding which can be clung to through thick and thin, mud and concrete, ditch and hurdle, world-beater and rogue. Every course, every horse, every fence demands a constant renewal of attention, and in the variety of the challenge lies much of its abiding fascination.
Every jockey developes a personal style which is as easy to spot through race-glasses as the colours he is wearing, and many specialise in either hurdles or ’chases; but a man who unimaginatively rides every race to the same pattern, and treats every horse with the same pressure or lack of it, will sometimes lose when he might well have won.
There is always discussion about the virtues of the contrasting ‘forward’ and ‘backward’ seats, and each in turn is hotly declared to be better. A compromise of ‘in the middle’ is often thought to be best of all. It seems to me that each is designed for a particular job, and each is right at the right time.
The forward seat is to be seen in its most extreme form when a tall thin horseman sits like a squashed-up ‘N’ over the withers of a show-jumper. The theory behind this crouch is that a horse scarcely feels the burden of his rider if the weight is balanced over his shoulder, and in modern show-jumping it has become the custom for the rider to allow himself to be thrown into the air by the horse’s leap, so that at the moment of greatest height he has scarcely any contact with the horse at all. It can hardly be called a graceful proceeding, but it is effective if it is done properly. Unfortunately for the large number of people who attempt it, however, it is very difficult, and calls for great skill and constant practice.
Being thrown up into the air is easy enough to manage, as I have often and unintentionally found out, but retaining a safe balance demands extraordinary control when the head is down beside the horse’s mouth, the seat is in the air over his withers, and the knees are barely touching the horse. Thousands of jumps are ruined, after this point has been reached, by the rider falling back into the saddle with an audible bump. Often a horse can even be heard to make a noise somewhere between a cough and a groan, when eleven stone of solid body, light as a feather at the height of the jump, suddenly knocks all the breath out of him as he is landing. Down go his hind legs, down go the poles and bricks, up goes the score of faults.
A modified form of the forward technique is useful over hurdles, but it would be suicidal to stick to the show-jumper’s crouch, which is designed for accuracy and not for speed, because it does not allow one’s legs to grip properly, and the slightest check or twist in the horse’s stride as he hit a hurdle would dislodge the jockey. The reins have to be held very short, and little allowance can be made for a horse suddenly pecking as he lands, and thrusting his head down or out to recover himself. Indeed the ‘bottom up’ position is only seen in racing when a rider is making an involuntary descent from the saddle.
In hurdling there is no need to lift all the weight entirely off the horse, for speed and not height is the aim. It is enough if the weight is balanced where it is least trouble to the horse and safest for the equilibrium of the rider. The exact spot of this balance varies greatly from horse to horse. It is, for instance, no use trying to lean up over the neck of an indifferent jumper, but one may sit forward with confidence on the natural sort of hurdler which barely raises the height of his body from the ground when he jumps, and flows over the hurdles mainly by lifting his legs higher than for a normal galloping stride.
Continental riders adopt the forward seat much more consistently, for their hurdles and fences are soft and rarely unbalance a horse which hits them.
For a few months at the end of 1954, French hurdles were introduced into English racing. Letters were written by the thousand to Sports Editors about them, jockeys opinions, however unprintable, were faithfully collected, and in every bar from Lambourn to Newmarket, press comments were digested with the beer.
Normal racing hurdles are a larger edition of farmers’ sheep hurdles, interlaced with gorse to make them more visible, and hammered into the ground with a mallet. Each flight, according to the width of the course, consists of from six to ten separate hurdles standing side by side but not tied together in any way, so that if a horse hits one hard enough it may be knocked flat on the ground without disturbing its neighbours. When one hurdle is broken in a race it is immediately replaced by a new one from t
he stack kept ready beside every flight, so that horses never have to jump damaged hurdles second time round. The top bars of the flight must be at least three feet six inches from the ground, and the hurdles all slope at a slight angle away from the approaching horses so that they do not have to face a completely upright obstacle.
The French type hurdles were different in almost every respect. Only in height and slope were they the same. They were built in movable ten-foot sections, but were so heavy that four men were needed to lift them. They were constructed of birch twigs rammed between two parallel bars eighteen inches apart and the same distance from the ground, and wired down on to a base-board. On the approach side the gap between the bar and the base was covered in with green-painted planks, so that in a race it seemed as though one was jumping a succession of green window-boxes planted thickly with two-foot high birch twigs. The hurdles were fixed to the ground by large staples like overgrown croquet hoops, which were dropped over the ends and hammered down.
Trainers were at first in favour of the French hurdles because they were safer for the horses’ legs. Ordinary hurdles deal out harm in various ways: rapping the bars bruises a horse and may make him shin sore, brushing through the gorse stings and leaves prickles in his skin, and breaking the wood by bad jumping may lead to the offender or any other runner suffering a badly pierced leg. Hurdles swinging back into place when they have been hit forward by one horse may tangle the legs of the horse behind and bring him down; and a rebounding hurdle is a very nasty thing to have to deal with, as I have sometimes found to my cost.
With the French hurdles, on the other hand, there was no danger from sharp wooden stakes or flapping sections. Horses could gallop over and through them with no trouble at all, and the birch did not scratch them.
At first it seemed that there could be no drawbacks to these mild obstacles, and many people thought they would become the normal thing on all courses. But gradually one became aware that their very easiness was a snare. Many a hurdler discovered that he did not hurt himself if he hit the birch, and began to treat the little fences as if they were not there at all, often galloping straight over them without making any particular attempt to jump. On the few occasions when such a horse misjudged his distance calamitously his fall was fast, hard, and dangerous.
