The turf
He's got the bottle
Robin Oakley
Sharpical's victory in the Newbury Tote Gold Trophy was yet another testament to the skills of Nicky Henderson, who beamed afterwards, 'He's always looked as though he deserved to win a decent race.' But it was a tribute, too, to the temperament of stable jockey Mick Fitzgerald. They went no kind of pace in the early stages, yet he still had the courage to drop Sharpical out at the back of the field and bring him with his accustomed late run after the last.
Enjoying a glass of champagne after- wards with the excited Thurloe Thorough- breds team, I heard that when Sharpical won a novice hurdle at Huntingdon as a four-year-old, quickening on the bit to lead on the run-in and win cheekily, Mark Prescott observed of the jockey, 'He made one mistake: he should have jumped the last and counted to ten, not let him go after only eight!' Fitzgerald had clearly taken the advice. He could not have ridden him bet- ter, though if he had been mine I would have probably missed ten heartbeats on the way.
Before the day's other big race, the Mit- subishi Shogun Game Spirit Chase, Robin Dickin had been criticised for sending out his novice Kadastrof to take on the crack two milers Viking Spirit and Ask Toni. In the event it was Viking Spirit who cracked and Kadastrof gave Ask Torn the fright of his life, staying with him all the way to the last and making a real race of it. Dickin revealed afterwards that jockey Andy Thornton had begged him all week to run the horse: 'He's a very good judge of a horse, isn't he?'
Few things in racing have given greater pleasure this season than Thornton's emer- gence in the top flight of jump jockeys with successes like his King George VI victory on See More Business. He's become a bit of a Saturday specialist and nothing does a rider as much good as a televised victory on a Saturday. 'It's worth five winners during the week,' he told me at Newbury. 'It gets you associated with better horses and shows you've got the bottle.' There is no doubt about the bottle of this most likable of jockeys. In the days when he was struggling to make his name, there was nobody readier to ride those animals whose form line read FFOPRF. And he says, and means it: 'There's nothing I like more than riding an iffy novice chaser and getting it to run.' Which may be why he has had only three rides fewer in chases this season than the champion A.P. McCoy. Andrew Thornton began his racing life with the late, great Arthur Stephenson, who made him wait six months between his first ride and his second. 'W.A.' wouldn't let him ride in point to points: 'Owners keep the best ones to ride themselves' and didn't like him riding for other trainers. Especially, perhaps, because he clocked up ten winners from his first 30 rides. Stephenson was his much respected men- tor: 'For him you'd never ridden the per- fect race.' But when W.A. died in December 1992, Thornton, amateur cham- pion in 1992-93, had had only 85 public rides.
He moved south to be Kim Bailey's con- ditional but with four or five broken collar- bones making it a stop-start season, things didn't click. The next year he'd had only four winners by Christmas. He was falling off horses too often and Bailey suggested he move on. But that was when the charac- ter showed. The young rider insisted on staying put and said, 'Give me the rides only when I prove myself.' He listened to the advice of girlfriend Gill Richardson who told him he was riding far too short for his 5ft llin frame. He dropped down a couple of holes, sought the guidance of Jumping maestro Yogi Breisner and went to Edinburgh and rode a double for Jim Barclay. He rode a nice winner too for Mick Channon and by March Kim Bailey was putting him up again. He had 26 winners by the end of that season and has built his success since on sheer hard work, clocking some 55,000 miles a year, not counting lifts. No south- ern-based jockey rides more often in the north. Now he rides regularly for Bailey, Channon, Tim Forster, Paul Webber and Robert Alner, whose penchant for out and out chasing types earns him the Thornton accolade that 'It's like working for W.A.'
Andy Thornton is a regular in the Lam- bourn football team The Commitments, starring such as John Francome and trainer Richard Phillips. Blind as a bat without his specs or contact lenses, he earned the nick- name Lensio from them and it has stuck in southern weighing-rooms. Uniquely, he has a separate nickname in the north where, for similar reasons, he is known as 'Ed' after the equally myopic Eddie The Eagle. If he brings home Kadastrof, Cool Dawn or French Holly at the Cheltenham Festival there will be few more popular victories in the weighing-room, whatever they call him. And, from what his friends say, there'll be a few good parties to follow.
Robin Oakley is political editor of the BBC.
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