Tinkler calls it a day to focus on proper job
After getting the taste for horse trading, jockey decided time was right to hang up his boots
Normally, when jockeys hang up their boots they take a deep breath and, however confident, have some doubts about the future. In the worst case scenarios, without the buzz of race-riding, they can find it hard to adjust to a new life.
Not Andrew Tinkler. Since he retired at Fontwell Park last week, he has been nothing but positive about his next step and one of the reasons he quit was that he was so busy that riding was costing him a lot of time for less reward.
There have not been many years in the past half-century when there has not been a Tinkler in the jumping weighing room – there may be a slight hiatus now as his daughter, Ottilie, is only 5½ months old – and, although he concedes that bringing on young horses is not something you can set your watch by, Tinklers have rarely come unstuck in the real world.
While there is nothing quite like the Irish point-to-point scene as a production line for chasers, its British counterpart is picking up, and it is with Charlie and Francesca Poste that Tinkler has shares in store horses. Switch Hitter, who cost £26,000, was bought by Paul Nicholls for the Aga – Hills of Ledbury (Aga) – for six figures last spring after winning a point-to-point at Maisemore Park, and that gave him a taste of what is possible.
Tinkler, 34, rode more than 400 winners, including the 2013 Bet365 Gold Cup on Quentin Collonges, a result that rescued a bad year. He rode two Cheltenham Festival winners – Greenhope (Grand Annual) and Call The Cops (Pertemps) – and also finished third on Zaynar in the Champion Hurdle.
He rode in a few Grand Nationals, memorably on Fleet Street for Nicky Henderson. So convinced was he that he would do what the vast majority of Henderson’s horses seem to do in this race – namely fall at the first – that instead of following the old steeplechasing maxim “ride long, live long” he took a counter-intuitive approach; pull your stirrups up a couple of holes shorter than normal so you get fired clear of the half a tonne of tumbling horse following you over the fence.
Much to his surprise, Fleet
Street was still standing as they set out for the second lap, albeit not going like a winner. But having gone two miles riding shorter than usual, Tinkler’s legs had passed through lactic hell and had already turned to jelly. But his pain did not last long as Fleet Street did come down at the first fence, but on the second circuit.
Tinkler was also witness to the occasion when the then green 7lb claimer Nick Scholfield cut up senior jockey Warren Marston at a hurdle down the back at Newbury. When admonishing Scholfield mid-race, Marston’s false teeth came flying out.
On their return to the weighing room Marston duly delivered the rest of the rollicking and instructed Scholfield to go and find his dentures. The young jockey dutifully obeyed and an hour later they were in a glass beside Marston’s suit.
At Doncaster one day, there was a dyslexic doorman standing at the entrance to the changing room. When trainers would come into the weighing room and ask for the saddle, the doorman would look at his racecard, note the jockey’s name and relay the message by loudhailer to the jockeys. It caused some mirth when he asked for Tom Jellamy (Bellamy) and Andrew Sinkler (Tinkler) but, at the time Robin Dickin had a jockey called Joe Palmowski riding for him, and that proved too much.
“Could Joe, could Joe … “he stuttered. “Oh blimey … could the rider of number three in race four weigh out please?”
Retiring jump jockeys have been like London buses lately. Yesterday, Swindon’s finest, Wayne Hutchinson, who had been attached to Alan King’s yard for 17 years, announced he too is hanging up his boots with immediate effect, citing that, aged 38, there is no better time to quit than after your best season (88 winners). He also won two races at Cheltenham and the Bet365 last season on Talk is cheap.
Magical, the headline horse and best chance for Europe at Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup, has been retired after spiking a temperature yesterday before she was due to get on the plane to Los Angeles with the rest of the Aidan O’brien team.