Читать книгу Frankie: The Autobiography of Frankie Dettori - Frankie Dettori - Страница 11

I quickly came back down to earth at Newmarket. All those winners in Naples didn’t seem to count for much once I was back in the old routine mucking out on freezing cold mornings and bitter spring evenings. When I returned to my digs after evening stables I’d sit on top of the fire. No-one else could get near it.

Colin and I spent our spare time at the yard practising our whip actions. Once everyone else headed off for lunch we were left to sweep the yard and tidy up the feed-house. After that was done we rushed to the warmth of the tack room, armed ourselves with the nearest available whips, dipped the flaps in a bucket of disinfectant, then stood crouching at a jockey’s height on a small bench, and whacked the side of the ancient coal fire burning behind us for ages until our arms ached. The first mark left by the wet flap on the fire was our target for the day. Then we tried to hit the same spot over and over again.We wrecked the stitching on the flaps of lots of whips, none of them ours. After six months there wasn’t a whip in the place with the flap intact.

As I was sixteen, I was ready to start my career in England but had to wait so long for my first ride I thought it would never come. Opportunities were scarce and winners were a distant mirage. The new flat-racing season was well over a month old before I was booked for a 33-1 shot, Mustakbil, late in April. This was at Kempton’s bank holiday meeting, and the man who booked me was the Derby winning trainer Peter Walwyn—who is affectionately know in racing as Basil for his resemblance to the character played so memorably by John Cleese in Fawlty Towers. My claim should have reduced Mustakbil’s weight by 5 pounds, so Walwyn’s mood was probably not helped when instead I put up 4 pounds overweight. Even so we looked like winning until my horse tired in the final furlong through lack of fitness. My conversation with the trainer afterwards might have come straight from a scene in that TV comedy.

Perhaps he expected a polite thank you. Instead I managed to leave him almost as apoplectic as Basil Fawlty after a row with his head waiter Manuel. When Walwyn asked me what had happened in the race I pointed to the horse’s tummy and replied ‘Not fit’. It wasn’t the most diplomatic answer to a man who had been champion trainer, and I was hardly qualified to speak on the subject since at that stage I could scarcely tell the difference between a racehorse and an aeroplane.

At first Walwyn didn’t seem to understand what I’d said. Then the penny dropped. ‘What! Not fit! You cheeky little bugger. Not fit!’, he spluttered. It could have been Fawlty speaking.

‘That’s right’, I agreed, too stupid to realise I was moving into dangerous territory. ‘Not fit, too fat’, I added before heading for the safety of the jockey’s room to protect me from further explosions. The next morning Walwyn rang Luca to tell him he wouldn’t be using me for a year. When he finally relented more than twelve months later and gave me a chance at Folkestone, there was a further disaster. His horse played up so badly in the stalls that I was forced to take my feet out of the irons and rest them on the bars. At that very moment the starter let the field go and Splintering, my mount, shot out of the stalls without me and reached the winning post riderless well ahead of the field. This time I could hardly blame the trainer for being speechless.

My first winner in England finally arrived at Goodwood on 9 June, three days after my father broke his left leg in two places when his horse crashed into a concrete post in Milan. The filly who made the breakthrough for me was Lizzy Hare, named after Luca’s secretary who drove me to the course. She was led up that day by Colin Rate in a lurid new black suit, with pink seams, pink shirt, tie and socks. You could hardly call him shy and retiring then or now.

Lizzy Hare was a promising filly who would go on to much better things in America, but that day she was dismissed as a 12-1 shot in a hot little handicap featuring three champion jockeys—Steve Cauthen, Pat Eddery and Willie Carson. We travelled well behind the leader Betty Jane, partnered by Willie, and then Steve took over with a strong run on Interlacing. For a brief moment there were five fillies spread across the course, but Lizzy Hare was finding plenty for me and squeezed through a gap on the far rail to take the prize by one and a half lengths from Interlacing. I was thrilled to win and ever more pleased to beat my great hero Steve Cauthen into second place. I knew Colin had backed Lizzy Hare and the way he rushed out to greet us suggested that he’d landed a nice little touch.

In the car on the way home, I wrote on a box of tissues Frankie Goes to Hollywood. At last I was on my way, but if I was expecting a rash of winners it didn’t happen. The reality was that I was an Italian learning in a foreign country, so just to be getting a few rides was good. I didn’t panic—far from it because I had this inner belief that I was going to make it. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind. My father had been brainwashing me for so long during our weekly phone conversations I had begun to believe him.

I already had so much experience on good horses on the gallops that by the time I was sixteen I knew I could ride in apprentice races with my arms tied and my eyes blindfolded. Compared to the other kids starting out that year I felt I was at least a couple of years ahead. Though I didn’t know it at the time, Luca’s head lad Arthur Taylor shared my belief that I’d make a name for myself. The stirrup irons that I wore on Lizzy Hare hold pride of place on the mantelpiece of his home. Apparently he removed them the same night because he wanted a memento of my first success!

At the time everyone was talking about Dale Gibson as the next superstar apprentice. I had my doubts when I met him. He is skinny now but then he was about 5 stone, and so much of a skeleton he looked as though he was always on a hunger strike. I thought, if he’s my chief opposition, I can give him a run for his money. All I needed was the chance. You don’t want to be waiting forever but the days seemed to go so quickly.

Increasing weight was already a worry, probably because I was eating too many cakes and ice-creams. My feeble attempts at sweating then were sporadic and lacked any discipline. Sometimes at the end of the day I’d take a dustbin liner from Val’s kitchen, cut a hole for my head, put it on, then run round the streets of Newmarket to work up a sweat.

Although I’d had only one winner so far, I was riding at least twice a week, getting the odd 50-1 shot and a few for Luca in apprentice races. I felt my time would come. Another Newmarket trainer, Clive Brittain, had given my dad a few rides years before and now he booked me for Merle in the Royal Hunt Cup at Royal Ascot. To be riding on the greatest stage so soon was a big boost. I’d never experienced anything like it: the unique atmosphere, the dressing up, the tradition and four days of top-class racing in the presence of the Queen. Suddenly I was part of the best race meeting in the world. It was a bit like being at Wembley for the FA Cup Final.

Though Ascot would later turn out to be my luckiest course there was no fairytale start. The correct colours failed to turn up, so I wore a makeshift bib, which started to come open and flap around my shoulders as Merle moved into contention soon after half-way. I was tickled pink to finish a respectable sixth in the famous handicap race.

Chris Wall, one of Luca’s former assistants, provided my second winner, Crown Ridge, at Ripon on 24 June. Chris took me in his car and maintains to this day that I worked my way hungrily through a bag of sweets and Mars bars on the long drive to Yorkshire. The horse started long odds-on favourite and won easily. The next evening I was back at Goodwood for another success on Lizzy Hare. This time we made all the running.

Two winners in two days! Things were picking up at last. Early in July, Chris came up trumps again by booking me for another winner, Camallino Rose, who beat Rae Guest on Luca’s colt Fill My Glass in a photo finish at Carlisle. Although the winning distance was only a head, I won quite cheekily, and on the way back to unsaddle I made the mistake of giving Rae a bit of stick. Chris told me later that Ivan Allan, the owner of Camallino Rose, was furious with me for being so cocky in the finish. Ivan is a huge gambler, and when his money is down he likes them to win by twenty-five lengths. Apparently watching me playing jockeys had almost given him a heart attack.

Next time I really made a mess of things on Camallino Rose at Hamilton, and it was all down to the lip I’d given Rae Guest at Carlisle. I didn’t know that some of the other jockeys had taken exception to the way I spoke to Rae. They got their revenge at Hamilton where they managed to box me in on Camallino Rose in a four-horse race. I just had to sit and suffer, trapped in on the rails, and though she flew once we escaped it was all too late. That taught me a valuable lesson because we should have won by five minutes.

I was in trouble again two days later at Ascot after winning an apprentice race for Luca on Local Hero by a length and a half from Red River Boy. The rider of the second, Stephen Quane, who was also apprenticed to Luca, immediately objected to the stewards, claiming we had crossed in front of him. It was my first experience of an inquiry in England and I was immensely relieved when we kept the race, but that was not the end of the matter.

Ron Hodges, the trainer of Red River Boy, then appealed against the Ascot stewards’ decision, so we all had to go to the Jockey Club’s headquarters at Portman Square in London. Ron’s solicitor believed their case was watertight, but Ron wasn’t so confident when he arrived at the hearing to discover Luca having a cup of tea with the JC stewards! Luckily for me Luca and our solicitor did most of the talking during the hearing and the appeal was thrown out.

My sixth victory that year came at Brighton early in August. I travelled to the meeting with Steve Cauthen in his chauffeur-driven Jaguar. Steve was very good to me when I was young. Of all the senior jockeys he was the one who took time to speak to me. He quickly became a good friend, but in those days I used to irritate him like mad on long journeys. He would be trying to doze sprawled across the back seat, clutching a can of diet Coke, and listening to tapes of Fleetwood Mac, while I sat in the front next to his driver asking him a zillion questions, always trying to pick his brains. Steve was a cool dude, who seemed to have life well organised since his move from America in 1979. He was one of my first heroes in racing, a lovely guy who knew how to treat people properly—and he was the jockey Luca suggested I watch more than any other. I didn’t need a second invitation. He’d already been champion jockey twice, was a wonderful judge of pace, and the day he took me to Brighton he needed only two victories to reach the 1,000 mark in this country.

Voracity swiftly took Steve on to 999 early in the afternoon. Then, riding Know All for Luca, I ruined the script by pipping his mount In The Habit in a tight finish. It looked like being a long walk home from Sussex for me, but luckily Steve had one more ride in the last race on Picnicing, which won easily. The racecourse executive presented him with a bottle of champagne but he was more interested in devouring a huge ice-cream as we left the track. I was swiftly forgiven and we drove back to Newmarket in style.

When I could I always tried to ride John Francome’s horses in the hope that his gorgeous wife Miriam would be in charge at the races. The first time we met was at Salisbury. As I weighed out there she was, an absolute stunner. Still is. Anything in a skirt would excite me in those days, but Miriam was the real thing, a beautiful model with a lovely nature to go with it. I was overcome standing beside her in the paddock, letting my mind run wild. I was heartbroken when John gave up training shortly afterwards to concentrate on his TV career and his golf.

By now I was well into the swing of an English season which often involved long journeys to distant racecourses for one ride without any obvious chance. At least Our Krystle finished third for me at Newcastle on August bank holiday Monday, but she had hung so badly left in the closing stages that a stewards’ inquiry was a formality. She was disqualified and I picked up a three-day suspension for careless riding.

I was looking forward to a night in the pubs of Newcastle but managed only a couple of drinks before I was forced to change my plans. A drunk Geordie punter decided that he wanted to kill me because he’d backed my horse each-way and had done his money when it was disqualified. He was so aggressive that I rushed straight back to the lads’ hostel and, as usual in times of danger, locked myself in my room.

The next morning I caught the train to Chepstow. This involved a marathon trek across country involving several changes, and then a long walk on a boiling hot afternoon from Chepstow station to the racecourse with my bag on my shoulder, because I couldn’t afford a taxi. I was melting by the time I staggered into the weighing-room. I’d come for the one ride, a 20-1 chance, and you can imagine how I felt when the trainer told me the horse wasn’t fancied. Sure enough we finished in the rear before I managed to hitch a lift back to Newmarket.

I had much better fortune when I returned to Chepstow ten days later. William Haggas, in his first season as a trainer, booked me for a horse called Far Top in the second leg of the apprentice race, while Colin Rate was down to ride Girotondo in the first leg. Colin and I persuaded a friend to drive us down to Chepstow, but none of us was very experienced at finding our way to Wales and we became so lost that we arrived at Chepstow just in time to see Girotondo romp home ridden by a late substitute jockey. Far Top, who started hot favourite at 4-9, then scrambled home with me by a neck.

So far I had managed only seven more winners in seven months in England. For someone who badly wanted to set the world on fire I was having trouble igniting the spark. Despite having plenty of confidence in my ability, I began to wonder if I would ever make the big breakthrough. My doubts grew in September during a lean spell at the same time that I was forced to move my digs after two happy years with Dennis and Val. The local council, it appeared, objected to tenants taking in paying guests. I didn’t want to be the cause of them losing the house and felt the only course was for me to pack my bags. Several years later I was delighted to hear that their daughter had bought the house for them from the council, so now they have a home for life. Finding somewhere to match the comfort of the last two years was always going to be an impossible task, but a friend, Bernice Emanuel, who was Ben Hanbury’s secretary at the time, had a room in her house and was prepared to put me up for a month until I sorted out something more permanent. I ended up staying two and a half years.

I’d been to her home before for supper with parties of Italians she hosted from time to time. Bernice made me more than welcome and proved to be a loyal friend, but straight away she made it clear she wouldn’t be cooking for me very much nor was she planning to wash and iron my shirts. Instead, she taught me how to use an iron.

Soon after moving in I spoke to my father about my lack of success in England. The next morning I told Bernice that I was determined to try my luck in France, which had been part of my dad’s original plan. Luca was having none of it. He rang my father and persuaded him that I should persevere in this country. A few days later I rode my final winner of the season on Luca’s filly Sumara in a maiden race at Haydock. She was owned by Sheikh Mohammed who would later play such a key role in my success as a jockey.

Most mornings I was allergic to climbing out of bed. I was working long hours and trying to keep my weight down, so I often slept straight through my alarm. I was late at least once a week, and many times Luca would ring Bernice to ask if I had shown any sign of life. Then I would make a mad dash to the yard, be given the inevitable lecture and try to catch the others up. To teach me a lesson when I was seriously late, Luca would take me off the horses that were working or galloping and put me instead on ones that were on the easy list, walking and trotting.

I had no difficulty waking up on the morning of the famous storm on 16 October 1987 which left a huge path of destruction as it swept through the town. The noise in the early hours would have woken the dead. The tempest was at its peak shortly before dawn and brought down power lines and even large trees. I set off for work on my scooter more in hope than expectation. The wind was so strong that several times I was nearly lifted bodily from the saddle. Eventually, I battled my way through without mishap but a huge tree had come down onto Luca’s covered ride, and others had fallen in the yard and paddocks, so there was little we could do except feed and muck out the horses.

As far as I am aware only one person in Newmarket slept through all the mayhem. That was my father who was over with Christine in his large camper van. They had come to dinner at Bernice’s house the night before and then returned to the van in a car park nearby. The wind was rocketing past his window, roofs were disappearing, slates were flying in all directions, rows of trees were falling over like skittles, and their van shook as if it was at sea in a force 9 gale—but Dad slept soundly through it all, before emerging later that morning to ask what all the fuss was about.

As the season drew towards its close I expected to be heading home for another winter in Naples, but this time Luca put his foot down and insisted that I shouldn’t be allowed to fritter away my claiming allowance in Italy. He and my dad debated long and hard before coming up with a plan to send me to California, where I would continue my education as a work rider at Santa Anita racecourse under the guidance of Richard Cross, one of Luca’s first assistants. It was a decision that had a profound effect on my career.

Santa Anita in December—against the stunning backdrop of the San Gabriel mountains—was a vast improvement on Newmarket but it was hardly a picnic. I stayed with Richard and his family that first year at their home in Pasadena, fifteen minutes from the racecourse. We started work at dawn and then rode up to ten horses each morning round the tight left-hand track.

With the rest of the day to myself I’d play cards in the track kitchen before watching racing in the afternoons and having a few little bets to keep myself entertained. Luca had told Richard to be tough on me and keep me under control, but I managed to escape his watchful eye most of the time—though there is a limit to the damage you can inflict on $100 a week.

This was the golden era of jockeys in California, with Bill Shoemaker, Chris McCarron, Eddie Delahoussaye, Angel Cordero, Fernando Toro, Laffit Pincay and the young star Gary Stevens in action most days. Shoemaker—who died in October 2003—was tiny but wonderfully effective, a legend who, by then at the age of 55, was as cute as an old fox and still difficult to beat in a finish. ‘The Shoe’, as he was knicknamed, retired three years later with a record of 8833 wins. Laffit Pincay eventually passed that total and had reached 9530 winners by the time he retired in 2003. Some day someone will overtake that record, but it is still an amazing total when you think I was still just short of 2,000 winners in England at the start of 2004.

Angel Cordero quickly became my favourite jockey in America, perhaps because we are quite similar. He was a crowdpleasing showman whose trademark was to produce a flying dismount after his big race victories. It was stunning to watch. Soon, in the privacy of Richard Cross’s barn in a quiet corner of Santa Anita, I was indulging my fantasies by practising my own flying dismounts in front of a baffled audience of a few Mexican horsewalkers and grooms.

Often my last task of the morning was to ride the tack horses, the ones that had just come back into training after injury or for some other reason were not ready for anything more strenuous than gentle exercise walking round and round Richard’s barn. Completing endless laps at such a slow pace for up to an hour was mind-numbing, so to keep myself awake I listened to tapes on my earphones and amused myself by trying to mimic the mannerisms and styles of the great riders of the day. Then I would invite Richard’s grooms to identify which jockey I was imitating.

I managed a passable Shoe, and a decent Chris McCarron, but the impression I enjoyed the most was always my Cordero flying dismount. Not that I would have a chance to unveil it in public for another nine years. When the hour was finished I used to launch myself as high as I could like Angel. That’s how it started. I just copied him. The trick is to use the irons as a springboard. Angel was an inspiration and had a massive influence on me. He was so strong he could lift a horse in a finish. Most of all I loved his personality, perhaps because I am naturally outgoing, too. Years later I heard that one of his flying dismounts had gone spectacularly wrong. As he jumped off, one of his feet remained trapped in the irons with the result that he fell head first under the horse. Luckily only his pride was hurt.

Somehow, probably without realising it, I was taking the best from each of these riders as I tried to improve my own style. The last thing I wanted was to stand out like Ned the Coachman among these great jockeys! So I worked hard to improve my riding and streamline my position in the saddle—though I wasn’t yet tempted to try the toe-in-the-iron style that is now the fashion on both sides of the Atlantic. That came a few years later.

All American jockeys ride with their right leg a fair bit shorter in the stirrups than the left one. It is a method known as ‘acey-deucey’ and gives them better balance on their tracks which are all left-handed (anticlockwise). Naturally I tried this by altering the length of my irons in the mornings, though long before I visited California for the first time I was already in the habit of riding with the leathers on my right leg a hole shorter than on my left. I’ve just done it from day one. Don’t ask me why.

There was a further bonus from my daily card sessions among our regular school in the track kitchen. It came from contact with a tiny little character who was one of the heroes of American racing. By the time I met Johnny Longden he was already in his eighties but he had a sparkle in his eyes to match the diamonds on the horseshoe rings he wore on his chubby fingers as he played cards each morning. He had short grey hair, wore glasses and remains the only man to have won the Kentucky Derby as a jockey and as a trainer.

Johnny’s story was a fascinating one. He was born in Yorkshire but emigrated to Canada with his family at the age of five. Later he worked in coalmines in Alberta. He rode in unofficial bareback races before moving on to seek fame and fortune in America. He retired in 1966 with a record 6032 wins, but was still drawn to the racecourse each morning. I regret that we never talked much about riding. More than anything I wish I could go back and chat to him again now.

I was lucky that I could play cards with people like Johnny, although they probably looked on me as another sucker to provide them with easy money. It was a strange time for me because there I was, just seventeen, living in a grown-up world which I found quite scary. One thing I did learn on that first visit to California was to ride against the clock until it became second nature. American horsemen rely heavily on the stopwatch to measure track work, and within a few months I could complete a gallop to order to within fractions of a second. It is a gift shared by every American jockey and explains why they are such brilliant judges of pace and so comfortable at making the running in races.

The hardest part of the job that winter was gaining entry to Santa Anita racecourse. The Americans have always been pretty strict about issuing track permits for visiting riders, and for some reason all I had was a tourist visa. So each morning I had to smuggle myself into the racecourse, either behind the back seat of a car or hidden in the boot. It helped that there were two entrance gates to the stable area.

On the occasions I was caught I usually managed to slip through unnoticed at the second gate. But eventually they became wise to me at both entrances, so then I had to slog all the way to another racecourse, Hollywood Park, which was at least a forty-five minutes drive from Santa Anita. That meant getting out of bed at the unearthly hour of 4 a.m! Without a track licence I was not insured to ride work at Santa Anita. In effect I was an illegal immigrant, but I enjoyed the challenge of trying to beat the system each morning. It made life more exciting.