Watching whip-thin jockey George Baker, just short of six feet, greeting his mounts used to make me think of the weight-reducing regime described by the 1920s rider Jack Leach. The elegant Leach always dined well. Next day he would go jogging in three sets of underwear, four sweaters and a rubber suit before taking a Turkish bath. He took off extra weight so that at the track he could have a sandwich and a glass of champagne. ‘This made me feel like a new man, and if I had a few ounces to spare the new man got a glass too.’ Not quite how modern riders do it in these breath-testing days.
George Baker suffered a growth spurt and in a matter of months moved from riding comfortably at 8st 1lb to ‘having to waste my arse off to do 8st 9lb’. Sadly, he is no longer riding. In September 2016 he was in his prime, having partnered Harbour Law to win the St Leger. In February last year, substituting for another rider, he went to ride on the snow in St Moritz. His horse broke a leg and in a hideous fall George suffered massive bleeds on the brain. Having post-traumatic amnesia for 24 hours is serious; he endured it for four weeks. But when I met him at Newbury last month you would scarcely have known he had been ill apart from a certain stiffness in his walk. His autobiography Taking My Time (Racing Post, £20) is therefore not just the usual jockey’s tale of tough contests on the track, favourite horses ridden (like the game Premio Loco), and nights out with the boys. It is also a hugely encouraging story of how a man and his wife have coped with life-changing trauma at the age of just 34.
Wife Nicola takes over a section of the book to describe the period in hospital that remains nothing more than a blur to George when he was belting out Adele’s ‘Hello’ at the top of his voice, crouching like a dog on the bed because he had watched Crufts on his iPad and mixing steak, mashed potato, orange juice and ice cream into a single gooey mass to eat.
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