You don’t bounce so easily at 40 and last Thursday, after 25 years, it was one fall too many. Without fanfare or fuss, a fit Tom Scudamore quit the saddle. There will be days when he will miss the adrenaline-charge of driving a horse to victory in the shadow of the post, the thrill of making up a horse’s mind in the right split second before a jump, the quiet satisfaction of having clicked and pushed a crusty old handicapper for three miles to gain a young trainer an unexpected victory. So when we met on the parade-ring steps at Ascot on Saturday my dilemma was: congratulations or commiserations?
Two minutes before, Thomas Mor, from the David Pipe yard where Tom has spent his working life, had won the Bracknell Handicap Hurdle. Had Scudamore been his jockey as previously planned, it would have been his 1,500th winner over jumps. But there were still no regrets, only a chuckle that the successful rider Tom O’Brien, Scudamore’s neighbour, would be paying for dinner.
I remember dashing to Ascot in April 1993 to see Tom’s Dad Peter Scudamore bring home a winner on what we knew would be his last ride in public, and the crowd would have loved to pay a similar tribute to his son.
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