The turf
Most balanced of men
Robin Oakley
Asecond trip to Windsor within a week proved to me last Saturday that the only sure way to make money out of racing is to be in the dog-food business. It was one of those days. When they all run down the track you can live with it; five seconds in six races really hurts. But when the horses let you down, there are always the people. Jockeys, for example, come in every human form. There are jack-the-lad jockeys with slicked-down hair, shiny boots and the kind of look which strips a woman's clothes off at 20 paces. There are shy, tongue-tied, country-boy jockeys whose monosyllabic replies are a journalist's nightmare but whose silken hands can send almost any message they want through half a ton of horseflesh. And there are world weary, seen-it-all jockeys who've had one season too many sweating to do a weight that is a torture to their bodies and for whom victory is no longer an excitement and defeat no longer a desperation.
Of the current weighing-room crop, a
common verdict among his fellows is that one of the nicest, most straightforward and head-screwed-on riders is Steven Drowne, stable jockey to Mick Channon. He is already sitting there in the top ten in the table but many are hoping that, with the Channon horsepower behind him, this will prove to be the take-off season into the big time for a 30-year-old rider who has done most things just a little later than some of the others. When I talked to him on the Windsor weighing-room steps, Steve was wearing the green with pink cap and sash colours of Khalid Abdullah for Roger Charlton, one of the three leading trainers, along with Channon and Toby Balding, for whom he rides out twice a week.
Charlton is among those who pay tribute to the racing brain and good hands of someone he calls an 'uncomplicated' jockey. The son of a Devon farmer, Steve Drowne went through the Newmarket Racing School and had his early experience with Chuck Spares, Richard Holder and Ron Hodges, who has always been good with his old sprinters and for whom he won the Great St Wilfrid Handicap on Hard To Figure. 'I had my first winner at 19,' he told me, and I was 21 before I was into double figures. These days most lads have lost their claim before then.' A reputation for hard work, for civility and for giving everything a ride saw him progress with Balding and begin riding out for Roger Charlton. Then came the opportunity with Mick Channon. In July 2000 Steve Drowne rode his first Group winner, CD Europe, for Channon. But no sooner was he starting to ride good horses than tragedy struck. A week later, he was at Folkestone on a maiden filly who bolted on the way to the start and crashed through the running rail, smashing Steve's tibia and fibula on a metal stanchion. He was out for four months and lost at least 50 winners, as Australian Craig Williams took over on the key Channon rides.
It was a horrible injury. Did he ever think it could be all over for his riding career? 'No. I never thought that. But I thought there was every chance I wouldn't get back on the nice rides. It happened within a fortnight of me starting to get a proper name. I was worried that I could have missed my great opportunity. It wasn't going to he like Kieron or Frankie. I needed luck to get on the good ones.' At best, he had reckoned, it might take a couple of seasons, but by last July Steve was proving himself again at the top level, winning at Royal Ascot on Harmonic Way for Charlton and taking the Coventry on Channon's supremely talented Queen's Logic. Queen's Logic is something special. 'After Tobougg, I thought there would never be anything as good for someone like me, he says. But there she was.
Tragically, the exciting filly, who was flying at home, injured a foot just days before this year's 1,000 Guineas, for which she was favourite. Last week, going equally well at home, she coughed after exercise and had to be withdrawn from the Irish equivalent. 'Just one of those things,' says the equable Drowne. But you can feel the pain. There were 56 winners three seasons ago, 36 in the year he broke his leg and 80 last year. He wouldn't tempt his luck by saying that he was going for the century this year, but it would not be a huge surprise for a jockey who does 8 st 5Ib every day and 8 St 4Ib on the good ones. .1 don't push the diet too much,' says Steve, reckoning that the mental damage in doing so is as bad as the physical. Nor does he overdo the fitness training. 'With five or six races a day, you don't need to. You can bottom yourself if you do too much else. I just concentrate on trying to make the job as easy as I can,' says this most balanced of men. There is clearly a happy relationship between him and trainer Channon, whose discipline and determination to have everything done properly Drowne appreciates.
The trainer was absent last Saturday that day at a wedding but, had he been at Windsor, he would have seen Steve ride the perfect race in the first, bringing the filly Mail the Desert with a smooth run up the rail to make her racecourse debut a winning one without giving her a hard time. A nice scopey filly who wants six or seven furlongs, according to owner John Livock, Mail The Desert looks a good prospect. So, continually, does her rider.
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