LIFE
jumper over fences, but the prizes are rich-
er and the injuries much less frequent. As
a result, and with better nutritional advice
enabling others to keep a check on their
weight, we have been seeing more and more
former jump jockeys making the switch to
the Flat. One to do so this year was Dougie
Costello, memorably insisting of the sum-
mer sport: ‘It’s still just a green field with a
white rail and some horses.’ He has already
won two Group One races on the filly Quiet
Reflection for Karl Burke. Other switch-
ers have included veteran Timmy Murphy
and young Willy Twiston-Davies, son of the
duffel-coated trainer Nigel Twiston-Davies
who is the very embodiment of National
Hunt racing. Willy, too, scored a first Royal
Ascot winner this year.
The role model for many of them has
been Graham Lee, who was top jockey at
the Cheltenham Festival in 2005 and who
won the Grand National on Amberleigh
House. Lee used to tell friends that he was
reluctant to make the switch to the Flat
despite being able to manage the lower
weights because he feared that people
would say that he had ‘lost his bottle’. That
from a man who rode more than 1,000 win-
ners over jumps. When Lee did finally fol-
low Sir Anthony McCoy’s advice to make
the move, it paid off spectacularly: he rode
more than 100 winners on the Flat for each
of the next four years, including a victory in
the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot in 2015.
Recently, Graham Lee has demonstrat-
ed a different kind of courage in a ‘coming
out’ for which many of his riding colleagues
will bless him in times to come. He revealed
to the Racing Post that his absence from the
racetracks for a few weeks this summer was
due not to the ‘mystery virus’ suggested at
the time but to depression. We often for-
get that being a jockey over jumps or on
the Flat requires mental as well as physical
resilience: confidence is crucial but by defi-
nition you will ride more losers than win-
ners and at the higher levels you will face a
relentless media focus on your success rate
even if it is the horse rather than the rider
that has failed on the day. Graham Lee is
not the only rider to have battled depres-
sion: it can torment riders at every level and
at its severest it was the affliction that this
year finally ended the remarkable career of
six times champion jockey Kieren Fallon.
Certainly the public admission of his suf-
fering hasn’t affected Graham Lee’s riding:
his handling of Mick Channon’s filly Kassia
at Newmarket’s recent Future Champions
meeting was an object lesson in keeping cool
under pressure and properly positioning a
horse. The Professional Jockeys Association
now runs a 24-hour confidential helpline for
riders who fear they may be suffering from
depression and nearly 20 riders have been
referred for face-to-face support. Graham
Lee’s honesty about his problem can only
help more to find a solution.The turf
The switchers
Robin Oakley
‘He’s such a good competitor. He works so
hard and he deserves it,’ said his predeces-
sor Lewis Hamilton after Nico Rosberg won
this season’s Formula One drivers’ champi-
onship. Replied Rosberg,the new champion:
‘He’s a top man and a top driver. He’s like
Robocop. I thought I could pull clear of him
but he kept coming back.’
Well, actually, no. The quotes are real
but the words were not uttered by Ros-
berg and Hamilton, whose championship
is yet to be decided. Substituting only the
word ‘rider’ for ‘driver’, the tributes were
actually those recorded by Jim Crowley,
Britain’s new champion Flat jockey, and
Silvestre de Sousa, the previous title-hold-
er, after the pair had spent five months this
summer driving 50,000 miles between Brit-
ain’s racetracks and riding more than 700
horses around them in a frantic tussle for
the top title in their sport. The point of my
transposition is that you simply could not
imagine the title contestants in Formula
One, or almost any other sport, saying, and
meaning, such complimentary things about
each other.
The Crowley-de Sousa exchanges
reminded me of a conversation at Warwick
races in the spring with the champion jump
jockey Richard Johnson about rivalry in rac-
ing. This is an age in which many sports are
blighted by ‘sledging’ and professional fouls,
by bitter spats and financial jealousy even
between supposed teammates, but Johnson
insisted that hate was never part of his inspi-
ration: ‘I don’t need anger against someone
to compete with him.’ The constant threat of
injury and of their wives or partners receiv-
ing the dreaded afternoon phone call from
a hospital contributes to the camaraderie at
the jumping end of the sport and perhaps
Jim Crowley’s generosity in victory owes
something to the fact that he was for many
years a jump jockey himself, with 300 jumps
winners to his credit before he switched to
the Flat ten years ago.
He admits that there is nothing in Flat
racing to replace the buzz of riding a good
Bridge^
Janet de Botton
The Gold Cup Finals were played in Lon-
don this year and proved to be very exciting
but ultimately unsuccessful for my team. We
played David Mossop’s squad on Friday in the
quarter-finals and had a rather magical match
where everything went our way and we won
easily. Next day we played Simon Gillis’s band
of international superstars and we certain-
ly had our chances — but the gold dust had
evaporated.
Norwegian World Champion Boye Bro-
geland, the hero who exposed all the cheats
last year, and his equally brilliant partner
Espen Lindqvist, played for Simon. One of
the basic building blocks in bridge is to take
tricks, but sometimes it’s hard to recognise
when a trick is a trick. Boye recognised it all
right on this deal from the semifinal:Boye was in the East seat, defending 3NT
after South had used the Lebensohl conven-
tion to show a weak hand. West led the z10.
Due to the blockage in Diamonds, declar-
er has to give the defence a trick in the suit in
order to enjoy them, even if they break 2–2.
The way home, on this occasion, is to duck the
Spade lead in both hands, cutting communi-
cation between the defenders, and lose a Dia-
mond trick to East.
The actual declarer had another idea, how-
ever; he put up dummy’s King and casually
asked for the X9 from dummy, hoping to be
able to run it to West. This would have worked
against most defenders, but Boye is not most
defenders — he took a look at the situation,
and majestically stepped in with the XQ!!
Declarer was now doomed; he was forced
to let it hold, and five Spade tricks quickly fol-
lowed. Many congratulations to Team Gillis,
who went on to win Sunday’s final.z A 10 9 8 5 2
y J 9 8
X J
w 10 8 3West North East South
Pass Pass
2 z X Pass 2NT
Pass 3NT All passz Q 6 4
y 10 3
X K 7 6 5 4 2
w 9 5N
W E
Sz J 7
y K 7 6 4
X Q 8 3
w Q 7 4 2z K 3
y A Q 5 2
X A 10 9
w A K J 6Dealer East N/S vulnerableBritain. To want to debate how to ensure
the best outcome of the coming negotia-
tions isn’t a rejection of Brexit; it’s just in
the national interest. ‘Brexit means Brexit,’
as the Prime Minister says. There will be no
new second referendum, no successful legal
challenges of the first one. We will eventu-
ally leave the EU. I am sorry about that, but
I haven’t been moaning about it. I accept
the democratic decision of the majority.
But why can’t the victors accept that they
have won, and that they are the elite now?