You tend to like a jockey who has just ridden you a 16-1 winner, as Callum Shepherd did last Saturday at Ascot, bringing home Isle of Jura with a perfect ride as the three-length victor of the Hardwicke Stakes. But it wasn’t that which has elevated him to my top ten favourite riders: it was the maturity of his words afterwards.
Just a month previously, after riding Ambiente Friendly to victory in the Lingfield Derby Trial, Callum had been ‘jocked off’ by the owners, who gave the ride to Rab Havlin for the real thing at Epsom. He was not the first jockey to be so snubbed, nor will he be the last. Some become embittered by the experience or lose their confidence. Leaning on the winner’s enclosure rail, Callum told us instead how he had looked up at the stands after Isle of Jura’s win to soak up and remember the feeling: ‘I’m lucky to be doing what I’m doing. You can’t dwell in the pit of despair. You’re either going to get beat up by this sport or you’re going to have the resolve to go out and put a brave face on. People don’t want to see you sulking and moaning.’ He couldn’t disguise the tremor to his voice as he added: ‘We give our life and soul to get everything we can out of this sport. My friend Stefano Cherchi [who died in April following a racing fall in Australia] quite literally gave his life. How silly would it be if I was moaning about losing rides with what his family have had to go through?’
When I first started writing about racing, many trainer/jockey relationships involved a fair amount of forelock-tugging.
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