HOW ARE YOU GETTING ON?
Like many racing stables Sam's Stables were near to a racecourse. There were several races during the season and in a few weeks time there is due to be a big race. All the big names in the racing world will be there and tension was starting to rise even this early. I worked at Sam's Stables part-time, doing cleaning up and helping to keep the place tidy. It also entails making tea for the jockeys when they come back from the training runs. I am constantly amazed how small the jockeys are. I am not very big in stature but I feel enormous standing by the side of some of them. One jockey - Tony - seems to be child-size against the rest. He said that at school he was always the smallest and a teacher jokingly said that being a jockey would be ideal for him and the more be thought about if the more it appealled and so he joined Sam's Stables. Now, ten years later, he was one of the top class jockeys and horse owners were always after him to ride their horses. I likened him to Lester Piggott, being able to pick and choose which horse to ride. For this big race coming up he was riding a different horse each day so that he knew which one would be the best for this particular course. When he had chosen I was surprized how big the horse was. It seemed to be quite a bit bigger than the rest and it made Tony look smaller than ever. Without thinking I blurted out HOW ARE YOU GETTING ON? He just laughted and said "Don't worry about me- I will just have to get a bigger box to stand on"!!!
