Clerk makes a splash as stable lad
A pony racing day at Market Rasen led to a double soaking for official Simon Claisse
Spare a thought for clerks of the course in this weather, trying to produce decent going. In the normal of run of things it is their decision to water a course and not – illogical though it sounds – vice versa, the course to water the clerk, although that may have to be reviewed in light of recent events.
A couple of Sundays ago, Simon Claisse, long-serving clerk of the course at Cheltenham, was leading up Elliot England, his longstanding partner Annabel’s son – so effectively his stepson – in a pony race at Market Rasen.
Like much of this summer it was a hot and clammy experience. The horse flies were out in force annoying both horses and humans and, though it finished fourth, the pony Maesteg Ruth, stable name Rudy, was a bit agitated, fed up with the flies, did not quite run up to expectation and everyone was a little bit flat in the winners’ enclosure afterwards.
At pony racing level, the jockey does not just dismount, give a short debrief to the owner/trainer and disappear into the weighing room to put his feet up for the rest of the day – he or she gets stuck in with the after-care.
And so it was that Elliot took it upon himself to help cool off his sweaty pony by throwing a bucket of cold water over her.
Unfortunately Rudy had the post-race fidgets and inconveniently moved as he threw the contents of the bucket which, as a consequence, scored a direct hit on the “stable lad” doing the leading up, Cheltenham’s esteemed clerk of the course.
This “carelessness” slightly annoyed Claisse, as well it might. But there is nothing more sensitive for feeling the mood of its handler than a pony or a horse and, already a little uptight, she started to become pushful.
Though only 13.2 hands, it is still an unfair fight – about 50st versus 10st, and she bowled her already wet handler over, knocking him clean into one of the dustbins of cold water strategically placed round the winners’ enclosure as a source of cool water for the placed horses rather than humans and he sank – wallet, phone, suede shoes (no self-respecting stable lad ever leads up in suede shoes) and all – to the bottom of the dustbin.
Fortunately, it being a pony race and not a proper race, no one saw, although on their next visit to a racecourse an elderly lady did ask Mrs England if Simon had got wet at Market Rasen. “My son saw him in a dustbin of water,” she pointed
‘She bowled her already wet handler over, knocking him into one of the bins of cold water’
out as if it were a totally normal daily occurrence.
Of course, though worried that “Simon Claisse in deep water” would be too good to be true for a headline writer, a fortnight on he is now beginning to see the funny side of it. “The best thing,” says his partner, “is that we now know he fits in a dustbin!”
Richard Hannon has an apprentice called Thore Hammer Hansen who is, quite simply, wasting his time as a jockey with a name as spectacular as that; he should be in Hollywood in action movies with Vin Diesel and Jean-claude Van Damme or, at the very least, on a reality television show.
Thore is, of course, a derivative of Thor, the hammer-wielding Norse god of thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees and Thursdays.
The apprentice’s father, Lennart, was a successful jockey in Scandinavia and is now a trainer in Germany. Thore rode his first winner at Krefeld in April 2017, the same racecourse at which his father rode his 1,000th winner – which, if we go along with Norse mythology, can only be a sign.
Jockey William Buick, whose father rode against Lennart and through his Scandinavian connection was sent a couple of videos of him, recommended him to Hannon. He has already ridden a couple of winners and although it might be a while before he lives up to his name, he has started the process.