FROM STUD AND STABLE Sir Gordon Richards On The Jockey’s Art

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29998, 6 December 1962, Page 4

FROM STUD AND STABLE Sir Gordon Richards On The Jockey’s Art

[From the London Correeportlent of “The Prtts“} When Sir Gordon Richards, one of the greatest jockeys the world has known, takes you to lunch at the Dorchester Hotel, waiters and wine stewards, the glint of recognition in their eyes, descend on him.

He deliberates. He say’s: “We’ll start with turtle soup, with a little sherry in it to warm us up.” It is then that happy realisation comes to you that you are completely in his hands, hands absurdly tiny, you think, to have exercised over horses control sufficient to have earned him the jockey’s premiership in Britain 27 times.

Sir Gordon Richards in his six or seven years now as a trainer has shown clear evidence of comparable skill.

I suggested that in those hands there must be unsuspected strength. “No,” said Sir Gordon Richards “Strength really hasn’t very much to do with it. You could have put Joe Louis or Max Baer on a small pony, and if he liked the touch on the reins he’d say to himself: ‘l’ll go along with these fellas.* Put a dainty young grrl on a bigger horse . . . if she hasn't the right touch, then she wont get a aunilar response.”

Sir Gordon Richards emphasised the importance of this touch. Horses, he said,

responded m different ways to different riders. Scobie Breasiey, top jockey in the United Kingdom again this year and a man who rides for Sir Gordon Richards, was a splendid example of a horseman whose infinite artistry and judgment were reflected both during and after a race in an animal's behaviour. ‘‘Scobie soothes them, he doesn’t knock them about. His timing and judgment are splendid. He brings them back to me sometimes in even better shape than when they went out They are contented; they eat up their food—a beautiful rider, the perfect stable horseman." But Breasley’s skill is not eo apparent in another sporting sphere—shooting. Two Birds • ‘ Shooting—pheasant and partridge—is a particular interest of mine,” said Sir Gordon Richards. •‘Not long ago we took Scobie with us, but he is the worst shot I’ve seen in my life. He got a bird at 1030 in the morning and another at 2.30 p.m. ‘‘Scobie ■was tickled pink, but . . .’" Breealey's accomplishments on the English turf reminded Sir Gordon Richards of the recent successes of Australian horsemen generally in racing at Home. He has sensed some jealousy at these Commonwealth achievements. ■ jealousy which be deplores. ‘‘Let us profit from their performances,” be Mid “If they've something to teach us —and obviously they havethen let's not waste time resenting the fact, but absorb what knowledge we can.” To what does be attribute Australian riding success? 'They are top riders anyway. Their behaviour from the moment they leave the weighing-room provides an object lesson in concentration and dedication to the matter in hand. They are always very weH turned out They have their minds fixed on one thing; they allow nothing to distract them. There is nothing about them even remotely lacksdsiwiral “Sometimes, I fear, there is a sign or two of a toricadwisical outlook on the part of some others.” Staff Of 60 Sir Gordon Richards has a Staff of 60 in his training stables, situated in one of the most beautiful parts of Wiltshire. He trains 70 horses (“from babies upwards") for 20 owners. Moreover, he has 20 apprentices of his own. four of whom in the flat season recently closed rode almost every day of the week.

To these youngsters he imparts his own immense knowledge, some of which he acquired from his boyhood hero and mentor, Steve Donoghue.

Sir Gordon Richards will be 59 in May. He could pass for 40. for the grey hairs in his mop of dark hair are few. and there is in his tread the sprightliness of a man who loves the out-of-doors. He rode in his closing years about Bst; he doubts that he would be more than a pound or two above that today. “I could make my old riding weight without any trouble at all,” he said. But he won’t, because his race riding days are over. He doesn't even ride work at his training establishment, for his time is fully occupied in attending to the needs of his 70 horses. Anyway, he has no nostalgic yearning to ride again. He had had his fill of riding from the age of five, when he cantere about on pit ponies in Shropshire (his father was a coalminer) until he was 50 and the termination of his career as a jockey through severe injuries after a fall “I felt I had had enough," he said. "To get to the top is nothing. To stay there is an entirely different matter . . . and there's nothing as fickle as a race crowd.” Biggest Thrill His biggest thrill in a lifetime of thrills? Winning the Derby (on Pinza) for the first time in his last year of race riding, after trying for 33 seasons, finishing second five ‘jmes, and “six times choosing the wrong horse." Only a short time before beating the Queen’s horse in his successful Derby Gordon Richards had been knighted. King George Vs Sun Chariot (by Hyperion) was the greatest racehorse he ever rode, he said, "a beautiful machir - which won three classics and was beaten only once and then, I think, through my fault" But Tudor Minstrel, on w'tich he won the Guineas by eight lengths, was the finest miler he ever mounted.

It was at Beckhampton, in Wiltshire, under Fred Darling, "a genuis who trained

eight Derby winners, owned one, and bred another," that Sir Gordon Richards developed the attributes which, in his own view, took him to the top and kept him there—loyalty and team spirit with everybody—owner, trainer, and jockey—contributing. "You have also to be quick at the starting-gate,” he added. “You’ve got to get position, you must have a good finish, and you must have a little bit of guts.” Soccer, golf (he loves to take a pound off Breasiey), and curling in Switzerland are Sir Gordon Richards’s main sporting interests. His eldest son. Jack (35), who, at the age of seven “sat a horse better than any other person I know and suddenly gave up riding never to mount a horse again,” is in the retail motor industry in the heart of London. His younger son, Peter, is training horses in Toronto for the internationally-cele-brated brewer, E, P. (Eddie) Taylor, and his only daughter, Marjorie, is a companionhelp in Melbourne, where Sir Gordon Richards has so many friends.

Incidentally, Sir Gordon Richards is half expecting Norman von Nida to visit his establishment one day. The Australian professional golfer, he said, was evincing interest in horse training; von Nida had told him he might visit him to “pick up a few tips.”