Now I know the agony of riding in the Derby!
40mph, screaming pain, clinging on for dear life ...
At teatime today, the starting stalls will crash open on the 238th Epsom Derby. the crowd will roar, bookies and punters will take a deep breath, and from the Queen’s Stand, Her Majesty will peer through binoculars as 19 of the sport’s most valuable young thoroughbreds take on the greatest and most gruelling of Flat races.
Astride their steeds, yelling, shouting and urging, with their bottoms high in the air, backs flat, muscles hard and taut, arms pumping and thighs burning with every stride, are the fearless and supremely fit jockeys.
Have you ever imagined what it must be like to tear around the world-famous tattenham Corner at over 35mph,with the finishing line in sight, on one of these magnificent beasts?
I hadn’t, but now I know after a terrifying encounter with a simulator at the British Racing School in Newmarket. And my verdict? I would never want to join the jockeys in a million years.
First came the humiliation of trying to squeeze into a tiny and rather musty-smelling set of racing silks belonging to former professional top jockey-turned tV racing presenter, Hayley turner.
On Hayley — a neat, petite, very twinkly slip of a thing — they look baggy. On me — and I’m not massive by any measure — they show every lump, bump, wibble and wobble.
to begin with, I had to abandon the undershirt because I couldn’t get it over my head. then I had to push and pull Hayley’s slim-fit boots to get them over my chubby calves.
Next — oh the indignity — I had to wrap a pair of her old tights underneath the helmet to keep my hair out of my eyes.
Only then was I ready to test my inner strength and endurance over all 2,423 metres (in racing speak, 12 furlongs and 10 yards) of the Epsom Derby — the flagship event of the Flat racing calendar and, with £1.6million prize-money this year, the richest race ever staged in Britain.
My ride was on a £40,000 Equicizer, a state-of-the-art mechanical horse. It not only simulates galloping speeds of up to 45mph but, thanks to a head camera and tV screen in front, it allows its rider to simulate as realistically as possible the actual Epsom course.
‘Are you nervous?’ asks Hayley, my tutor for the day and one of only two women to have ridden the Derby.
At that stage, I’m quite relaxed. I weigh in at just over nine-and-ahalf stone. Most jockeys would be at least a stone lighter — the weight limit for the Derby is nine stone, which includes jockey, saddle, girth and weight blanket.
to keep their weight down, many jockeys live on espressos and cigarettes — and, close up, look like death.
they spend hours on rowing machines, bikes, wobble-boards and Equicizers, developing their calves, thighs, glutes, core and vital trapezius muscles in neck and shoulders in order to have the strength and extraordinary balance required to control excitable, half- ton horses at breakneck speeds.
Richard Perham, senior coach at the British Racing School, tells me that a Derby jockey will be up to their maximum heart-rate for 90 per cent of the race and produce the same amount of lactic acid in their muscles — the by-product of strenuous exercise and the cause of cramps — as a top 400m hurdler. ‘A jockey’s core strength and physical cardiovascular fitness is extreme,’ he says. ‘If I rode six furlongs at full tilt now, I’d physically throw up.’
I cycle to work, swim regularly and consider myself fairly fit. I learned to ride as a teenager but have barely been on a horse since.
No matter. Hayley looks at me and giggles: ‘All the gear and no idea!’ She then gives me a leg up, adjusts my stirrups, shows me how to hold the reins in what’s called a ‘bridge’. then she turns on the machine with a great clattery roar.
WHEN she demonstrated earlier, it looked easy. She bobbed about, twirling her whip overhead and whacking it down on the rear right rump — one of two places the jockey is allowed to hit a horse during the race — pumping her arms forward twice a second and shouting and yelling as the tV monitor in front of her shows she is approaching the finishing post.
In contrast, I find the stirrups are so short that my legs are bent double. trying to keep my back flat and my head lifted up makes my neck feel as if it is supporting a giant watermelon.
Hayley warns me that she’s increasing the speed and I am reminded of the time that Prince Philip was shown an Equicizer on a royal visit. He jokingly asked for the speed to be turned up and the jockey was nearly ejected into the air.
Now, as the galloping motion gets going — 30mph, 35, 40 — and Hayley yells, ‘Heels down! Heels down!’, I find my body is lurching dangerously, my thighs and bottom are throbbing and my calves are screaming.
this, apparently, is just as it should be but it takes all my effort to stay onboard. Hayley helps with a running commentary. ‘Don’t force it too early. that’s it — easy. You’ve got the whole hill to climb.’
At the five-furlong marker, she shouts: ‘Look, you’re going past the party tent now. You can smell the barbecue!’
the race is barely a mile-and-ahalf, but the Epsom course is decidedly hilly and bumpy in all the wrong places. It also slopes down to the rails, so horses gallop at an uncomfortable angle. And that’s before you even begin to think about the other runners crowding around you.
‘Imagine all that at 40mph, and then every so often someone comes along and shoves you,’ says Hayley.
the Derby has been run every year without a break since 1780, when the 12th Earl of Derby and Sir Charles Bunbury decided to stage a race, tossed a coin to decide who it should be named after and Lord Derby won (even though his horse lost).
As a race specifically for threeyear-old colts and fillies (though only six fillies have ever won as they are rarely tough enough), most of the horses are pretty inexperienced and have run few races.
Undoubtedly, they would sense my lack of skill in half a second and bolt like the clappers to get rid of me. Hayley agrees: ‘the horses certainly wouldn’t look after you. Not a chance!’
thankfully then, my steed is made of wood, metal and leather. It is one of five in the British Racing School’s training room (or ‘torture chamber’ as it’s known by jockeys) but the only one that sways from side to side, like a real horse.
ALL the top jockeys practise on Equicizers. Olympic gold medallist Victoria Pendleton trained on one when she switched from cycling to horse racing.
Back in my own Derby hell and two-and-a-half minutes has never seemed longer.
Hayley keeps shouting encouragement. ‘ You’re going full pelt now! You’re halfway . . . you’ve got another five furlongs to go. GO ON!’
Suddenly, I’m galloping down the hill into the infamous tattenham Corner where many a rider has come unstuck. But not me. I survive and it’s into the home straight — with all its weird undulating camber.
the physical agony of just hanging on increases and then, finally, I pass the finish line.
Hayley seems genuinely shocked I made it round. But not as shocked as me.
Buoyed up by my success, I ask: ‘How about letting me on a real racehorse?’
‘Er, well,’ she says. ‘ Maybe a training horse but definitely not a Derby contender.’
Huge praise indeed, but I think I might give it a miss. For days after I dismount and squeeze back out of Hayley’s unforgiving kit, my muscles throb and my neck feels as if I’ve suffered severe whiplash.
And I know I will never watch a horse race again without feeling the jockeys’ pain.