The turf
The buck stops here
Robin Oakley
Athe runners set off in this year's Scottish Grand National former jockey Jamie Osborne was not bounding off with half a ton of horse underneath him to negotiate the four miles. Instead, at that precise moment, he was engaged in push- ing a trolley round Mothercare, reflecting on changed times. Not only is his wife Katie about to present him with their first child but he is now responsible, too, as a first-year trainer, for the health and wellbe- ing of the 70 four-legged inmates of his sta- bles in Upper. Lambourn. No more can he jump off a horse at the end of three miles with a brief dismissive word to its handler and grab a quick cup of tea before weigh- ing out for the next one off somebody else's production line. Now the buck stops with him. But when I called in at Kingswood Stables last week I found him remarkably undaunted by the new respon- sibilities. The confidence which made him such a stylist in the saddle is still there beneath the huge caps he likes to perch above his toothy grin, making him look like a cross between Andy Capp and the Bisto Kid. And the jockey who was known as the sharpest brain in the weighing room has plenty of theories about his new trade.
Life has not been easy for Jamie lately. He was 11 months out of the saddle after a hideous wrist injury left his hand hanging On to his arm attached by little more than skin. At one stage it was reduced to a mere claw. While fighting his way back to race- riding fitness he had to endure not only the deaths of two of his closest friends, the budding trainer John Durkan and Lam- bourn artist Rose Nugent, but an arrest in the race-fixing inquiry, from which he was later dismissed with no charge. And then, While he was working all hours setting up his new training enterprise, there was the distraction of being the key witness in the three-week trial of a corrupt ex-policeman who had tried to extort money from him, a trial in which the man's defence sought to blacken Osborne's name with further unfounded allegations. Did all that hinder his prospects? His start-up with 70 horses, a bigger number than I can remember anybody attracting on launching a training career, is racing's answer to that. Faith in his integrity has been backed up with orders, although the ever candid Osborne is objective about that: 'A lot of people felt sympathy for me and wanted to show their solidarity. But a few probably thought I was bent and reck- oned they might like a bit of the action . . . '
Intriguingly, for a man who has spent 15 years as a jump jockey, Jamie has chosen to concentrate exclusively on training flat horses. He has done it the bold way, going out and buying a lot of them on spec, then spending virtually every night for nine months trekking up to London to wine and dine potential owners. There was for a while, he admits, something of a cash-flow problem. But the sales companies were understanding in not demanding payment the second the hammer fell.
Inappropriately, one of the first-day hors- es he ran in mid-January, who was beaten a neck, was called Jump. In fact it has not been a jump-start. The line 'Winner trained J.A. Osborne, Upper Lambourn' only appeared in the results column for the first time this week. He says, 'I am a not natural- ly patient person having to learn to be patient.' He admits to having made some early mistakes, saying that you have to learn to avoid the temptation to overwork some horses. And he says of the training game, It is a bit like driving on a skid-pan. You think you know the point at which you will lose it but you never do know until you have reached that point and spun the car. But you will know next time, you develop an internal memory of where that point is.' Jamie says he has been lucky. Mick Channon's move from Lambourn freed up what would always have been his first- choice stable. Kim Bailey's move and Peter Walwyn's retirement freed up more key staff, including Kim's secretary Jenny and Peter's head lad Ron Thomas. Relying on them gave him time to concentrate on buy- ing and selling, 'Otherwise we'd have gone out of business.'
Ron, he said, is head of personnel, Jenny is head of the office. 'I am head of commu- nications, head of marketing and head of the work programme. Any other business this size would have finance and marketing directors but, in racing, that's me, and I'm not trained for any of it.'
But Jamie does have an easy authority with his staff. He has an instinctive feel for the animals he has ridden so successfully for so long. And he has his own theories about how to tweak, though not to revolu- tionise, the system. A series of wire pens have gone up so the horses can be turned out as much of the time as possible to lessen their stress. And he is making Tues- day and Friday his main work days instead of the traditional Wednesday and Saturday. Doing just light work on Saturday will free him to keep open house for owners that day. And there is another advantage: 'If a horse picks up an injury working on Satur- day and spends Sunday in its box it can be hopping lame by Monday morning.' ► Does he miss the riding? A self-con- fessed tart for the big occasion, Jamie says, `I'd ride again if I could do it four days a year: three at Cheltenham and one at Ain- tree.' He cannot remember the detail of some of his big Cheltenham winners but he doesn't forget his comeback ride after injury on the ex-invalid Coome Hill when they took the John Durkan memorial race at Ascot. 'I can remember every blade of grass from that race. I went up the run-in in tears.'
Even with the irrepressible Jamie life isn't always a joke. He has not succeeded in turning out winners as quickly as he had hoped. But just watch for the Osborne two- year-olds to redress the balance. He is con- fident the end of season total will be respectable.
There is confidence. There is stacks of horse sense. And there is a Yorkshireman's business instinct too. When I watched the horses go past in their smart black rugs with gold trim I asked if he would be putting an extra letter into the JO emblem now racecards have him down as J.A. Osborne. 'Certainly not. Not at 50p a let- ter.'
Robin Oakley is political editor of the BBC.
Previous page
