Clerk who oversaw my first winner retires
Charles Stebbing must have been bemused at Plumpton when I told him why I was objecting
Very few of the main players surrounding my first winner as a jockey – Brown Jock at Plumpton on Easter Saturday 1982 – are still around; the trainer, the lorry driver, the owner and the valet all now operate out of the celestial racecourse and, on Saturday, Charles Stebbing, the British Horseracing Authority’s senior clerk of the scales and just about the last living link to that memorable day, retired.
Unlike one of his predecessors, who told every racecourse he went to that it was his last visit before retirement, replenished his cellar with a bottle of champagne from each and then pitched up at the next meeting as a clerk of the scales operating on a casual basis, that is it as far as the popular Stebbing is concerned. The 64-year-old’s BHA email has already been deleted.
He has gone quietly. Indeed, even in the history of understated retirements, his stepping down after a working lifetime in racing administration was low key.
When he should have been weighing in a victorious Jim Crowley after last Saturday’s Sky Bet Ebor he was, in fact, under the knife in a Leeds hospital having an infection removed from his hand, which was the result of a gardening injury.
Yesterday, he was waiting for a second operation to tidy it up, but 15 patients were going for 10 slots in the operating theatre so let us hope they were not determining who got what by rock, paper, scissors.
At Plumpton, I did not actually win. I was narrowly beaten and was instructed to object to the winner, which brought Stebbing into the equation.
A bit like buying a house, to prove you were serious about objecting you had to put a deposit down, so I plonked £30 on the desk in front him.
“On what grounds are you objecting?” he inquired, expecting an answer along the lines of “bumping” or “taking my ground” at the last. “Because my mum told me to,” I replied, innocently. Happily, the stewards agreed and we got the race.
Between 1977 and 1989, when he clerked on high days and holidays, he also ran point-to-pointing. He liked to visit as many courses as possible and one day he and his wife, Sarah, left home in glorious spring sunshine to go to Bratton Down, on Exmoor, and were dressed accordingly.
When they arrived the mist and rain came in and, without so much as a headscarf between them, let alone a waterproof, they proceeded to get soaked to the skin.
It was just as well he was not stopped for speeding on the way home as he drove in his boxers while Sarah, sitting somewhat lower in the passenger seat, wore just bra and knickers.
Of course, the main attribute a clerk of the scales needs to be good at his job is attention to detail, in which respect Stebbing is OCD; he is always the first to pick up any spelling mistakes in this column.
He weighed Lester Piggott, Frankie Dettori and saw Sir Anthony Mccoy through his whole career. Apart from point-to-points he also worked on the committee that recommended all-weather racing in 1989, so we partially have him to blame for that, but he took his profession from quill pen and Victorian balances to electric scales. He weighed in 15 Grand National and Derby winners.
When he started, the relationship between the clerk of the scales and jockeys was like that of gamekeeper and poacher as a succession of heavy jockeys tried to hoodwink them with a variety of tricks of the trade. Nowadays, it is almost impossible to cheat the system on electric scales and the relationship is more symbiotic – the jockeys will miss his banter as much as he will miss theirs.
This is almost two months away but I am giving you the heads up on it because it is sure to sell out – and be more entertaining than anything at the Edinburgh Fringe. Desert Island Discs with John Francome at the Queen’s Arms in East Garston on Oct 24 is the event.
Trainer Richard Phillips will play the Kirsty Young role, asking Francome for six tunes, a book, a luxury and, in a twist, a jet to arrive one day every year to take him anywhere in the world, doing anything he wants, with whoever he wants. Tickets can be purchased by calling 01488 648757.