‘It is my midlife crisis. I am addicted, really’
Amateur jockey David Maxwell tells Alan Tyers what appearing at the Festival means to him
We all have our dreams of a shot at the big time. But the Sunday League footballer is never getting a chance to run out at Wembley alongside his heroes. The am-dram performer most likely shall never play the Dane. The no-hoper who could not organise a booze-up in a brewery cannot possibly end up running the country. Well, perhaps not the last one.
But the Cheltenham Festival certainly offers something that no other sport can match, and there is no better person to explain just what that is than David Maxwell.
Maxwell is an owner of 20-odd horses, nothing too remarkable there, but he is considerably more unusual in that he rides them himself. And with significant success: he leads this year’s amateur National Hunt jockeys’ championship with nine wins.
He has the mount on Shantou Flyer in the St James’ Place Foxhunter Challenge Cup at 4.10pm today and, whatever else happens, the owner will not be able to blame the jockey for Shantou’s final placing.
“I have no talent whatsoever, I just work incredibly hard at it,” said the 40-year-old. “I am addicted, really. As we get older, some men have a midlife crisis, some guys buy faster racing bikes or whatever. I have just bought more horses to ride.”
Shantou Flyer, according to his passenger-benefactor, is a Cheltenham specialist, who loves a spin around this most challenging of tracks.
He has good form from finishing second in the Ultima Handicap here last year, and Maxwell said that “if he runs anything close to that, it’ll be good enough”.
Be that as it may, one senses that for this Corinthian figure, being there is as much a part of it as the win.
“The amateur element is something that people really like about National Hunt racing,” said Maxwell. “There is an amateur riders’ race every day of the
Festival and the Foxhunters is the 13thbiggest betting heat of the entire year, across all races, the Derby, what have you.
“People like the amateur rider, they respond to that, it is part of our sport’s story. That is partly why, when you look at the stands at Cheltenham, they are completely packed.”
For Maxwell, who made his pile in property, the Festival’s amateur races mean a sense of possibility. “People love the underdog tale. There is a sense you could go and buy yourself a horse and you could do this. The barriers to entry are not that great.
“If you know how to ride and you have got a few thousand quid, give it a couple of years and you could be riding at Cheltenham. “There is no chance of you getting anywhere near the pitch at Old Trafford, or getting on a Derby horse at Epsom, but this gives the amateur a chance to get close to the sport.” Richard Hobson, who trains Shantou Flyer, laughed off suggestions that he might have a hard time reading the riot act to the man who is signing the cheques each month, and said: “He is an absolute gentleman, he just wants to learn, do the best by himself and the horse all the time. There are no problems at all for me to have an owner who is also a jockey.”
Amateur jockeys came in for something of a kicking this week after Tuesday’s National Hunt Challenge Cup, with lashings of suspensions all round.
“Four miles is a very unusual trip, amateurs, riding novice horses, and everybody keyed up for the Festival: it is a lively combination,” Maxwell said.
“You could take out one of those elements and the race would be entirely safe. Horse welfare is absolutely to the fore at the moment and rightly so, but it would be awful if they got rid of the amateur element. We don’t need any amateur races lost.”
While the opportunities are there, how far could this enthusiast go?
“The ultimate would be to ride the Grand National, so I need to find a horse for that. But winning the Foxhunter has always been my dream.
“I always think that when punters complain about my riding, well, they know that I am going to be riding my horses so they can lump it. I will keep on riding for as long as I can make the weight.”