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January 2025 Blog

Writer's picture: Jo O'NeillJo O'Neill

Updated: Jan 31

Why does January drag on and on? Racing was busy enough, even with the weather causing a few abandonments. It’s as if a dreary cloud settles on the whole month and everything feels endless, drab, cold, wet… However, not all was gloomy…


Giant Cookies

On January 10th, a visit from Kris Maiden of the Cotswold Larder and Cakery, situated in nearby Broadway, cheered us all up. He brought brownies and giant cookies that were amazing, topped with sweets and gave us all the sugar rush we needed to warm us up. We couldn’t thank him enough. Chris has been taking the same round to many racing yards in the area, so has definitely made this month a lot more joyful.


Sorting Tack

Recently, we sorted out piles of old tack that had been mouldering and abandoned in the tackroom or Narnia, as we call the spare tack cupboard. Head lad Alan Berry kept dumping down more and more piles of leather, PVC and neoprene, which we then sifted through. There were several unidentifiable pieces of leather that would’ve looked more at home in an S&M wardrobe. Leather had gone furry and blue with mould so I soaped, wiped and soaked it in Neatsfoot oil. Broken parts were binned, stirrup irons zip-tied into pairs and an order for much needed supplies was put into the office.

I also oiled twenty saddles, storing them so they can be rehomed. These old racing saddles earnt the nickname ‘fanny bashers’ because of their unforgiving leather seats and concrete pommels. Though male riders must’ve faired much worse for the obvious anatomical reasons. These saddles have been retired since every rider was kitted out in Fairfax bridles and saddles.

In a nearby stable, Eliza House was tacking up her next lot, Lyric, and called out, ‘You’re doing God’s work there, Jojo’, which I thought was a lovely way of describing the grubbiest of jobs.


Colin

On the 16th at Wincanton, Collectors Item (Colin) won the Somerset National. He’s a dear horse, with a vulnerable look in his eye and is loved by his groom Megan Petrie. He came to live down the pens this season and shares with Johnnywho. His win was the pens’ sixteenth for the season, bypassing the previous best. It was a milestone I’d not envisaged as we’d never got even close to those fifteen winners, tallying up eight winners the last two years. I was delighted and proud with the win – for the muddy pens, my colleagues, the owners, Megan and especially Colin.


Putting the Jumps back into Windsor

On the 19th, I took Fortunate Man (F Man) to Windsor Racecourse. We had six runners on their Berkshire Winter Million Day. I’d been Flat racing there but I was one of the few that had led up there over jumps: in 2005, Ascot had shut for the stands to be built and their meetings had been held at Windsor. A bonny horse, called Ballyshan (Sean), I’d looked after at Nigel Twiston-Davies’ had finished third there in a maiden hurdle under Carl Llewellyn. Nige had then driven on to ‘Olympia’, the London Horse Show as it is now, to watch a very young Sam riding in the Shetland Pony Grand National.

At the stables’ entrance, as F Man and I were being scanned in, I said to Vince McKevitt, who works for the British Horseracing Authority, that I’d been here for the jumps in ’05. He replied he’d ridden a winner here in 1981, to which we both chuckled.

Despite not having a winner, our horses ran into some good placings, including F Man who finished second. It was a little odd being there in the cold greyness, rather than warm summer sunshine, in the muddy winner’s enclosure that was usually a carpet of emerald, but it was good that jumping had made a successful return there.


Only one aspect was disappointing. The canteen was once  renowned for its filling hearty meals but the jacket spud I was served was only adequate. The baked beans that were tipped on top were cold. I ate it because I was hungry. On one hand, it’s hard to grumble when stable staff are now given a free meal voucher but a part of me hankers for the delicious meals we used to have (steaming hot cheesy beans, a boulder of a jacket potato with a crisp salad on the side), that nevertheless we did have to pay for.


A No Entry Zone

The male jockeys’ changing room is nowhere a girl groom wants to go. At the start of the day, it’s quiet to all but the busyness of the valets. It has the appearance of organised chaos, with shiny saddles and polished boots, towels and tights awaiting the jockeys and their kit, the rustle of the Racing Post like the scratching of a mouse. Later on, the room is gelatinous with the scents of sweat, rain, mud, shower gel, horse and bouncing with banter. The valets are always helpful and usually come out, but sometimes they are too hectic. So, in the past, I’ve found myself having to step in there, usually because the colour bag isn’t waiting to be picked up or something is missing out of it. The first time, as blinkered as a reluctant veteran chaser, I shot in, grabbed my colour bag from where it had tumbled off the bench, blissfully unnoticed.

Since, I have been less fortunate. Once at Sandown, I was waved through where washing machines were spinning and past the splash of showers, behind the flimsy filament of white shower curtains, two now-retired jump jockeys were discussing the day and someone called out, ‘Is this your lady shave in here, Dickie?’ Another jockey, wrapped in a towel from his midriff down, was a regular rider at work, asked if I was willy watching? ‘I’m definitely willy dodging!’ I retorted.

A few summers ago, I’d gone into the Southwell changing rooms to collect some sticky toffee pudding that had ended up there after a successful raid on Cartmel earlier in the week. I was again waved through and a skinny jockey was drying his hair, full frontal naked. I shielded my eyes, to which he said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m a grower, not a shower!’

It’s all harmless fun and sometimes the boot is on the other foot. At Hereford last season, when I went to collect our colours, trainer Henry Daly was hovering in the weighing room and asked me to get his colour bag from jockey Alice Stevens in the ladies’ changing room. It smelt of spray deodorant and perfume, and was quieter than that of their male counterparts.

 

January has had too many skies the colour of water in a jam jar that lots of paint brushes had been swirled in. The mud has been at its gloopiest and the horses and rugs muddied beyond belief. Yet, it’s nearly February and then it’ll be March, and that means only one thing: the golden glow of the Cheltenham Festival. It’s only faint now, but it’s getting brighter.

 

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