To still a Cheltenham crowd just 10 minutes before the start of the feature race is not an honour accorded to many in racing, but the sudden death of the trainer Richard Woollacott prompted a rare bout of introspection at the home of jump racing yesterday.
The jockeys filed out of the weighing room to observe the minute’s silence and the paddock — owners, trainers and punters — fell into line. For a moment, racing shed its raucous, relentless, ebullient image and turned in on itself to pay tribute to a talented rider and trainer who took his own life at the age of 40 last week.
Woollacott, an unsung and unassuming West Countryman, would have been as surprised as anyone by the scene, though probably not by the aftermath. Everyone inside Cheltenham wanted Beer Goggles, the horse who had lifted his small stable to prominence, to pay proper tribute to the man by winning the Grade Two Cleeve Hurdle and keeping alive the dream of a return to the Cheltenham Festival in March.
Under Richard Johnson, the champion jockey, the seven-year-old did his mighty best to fulfil his duty. Having led from the start he jumped superbly and was still in contention two furlongs from home. But Johnson was soon having to work hard and when Agrapart and Wholestone swept away on the run to the final flight of hurdles, not even the combined will of 20,000 racegoers could sustain the belief.
“It was a very hard day for all the connections and Richard’s family,” said the champion jockey. “It’s very sad to see a young man like that not at the races anymore and a man who was doing well for himself. The horse has run another bold race but most importantly we should remember Richard in the spirit we used to see him in at the races.”
Advertisement
Beer Goggles was saddled by Woollacott’s wife, Kayley, who was quite understandably overwhelmed by the emotions of the day and had to be ushered away from a post-race interview in tears. It was left then to Lizzie Kelly, the winning jockey, who knew Woollacott both as a point-to-point rider and a trainer, to voice the sentiments of a sport that spends too much time in the relentless search for the next winner and far too little in looking after its own.
“We are responsible for one another,” said Kelly. “We always say: ‘that’ll be grand, that’ll be grand’ when it’s not grand, it’s a nightmare. Racing is one day good, one day bad and we can get lost in the middle of it. Richard would have been very happy to see us win this race, but this sport can be very kind and very cruel and we can’t just say: ‘it’s racing’.”
Kelly competed against Woollacott as a young point-to-point rider in the West Country and rode her only winner outside her own stable for him as a trainer. “I can remember my first ride,” said Kelly. “I must have been about 16 and I was on a good horse, travelling really well, when I heard this voice behind me: ‘Lizzie, Lizzie, slow down a bit, you’re going too fast.’ I didn’t listen to him and won the race, but that always makes me smile.
“To think that you’re not going to see such a familiar face anymore, to see someone leave this life and not do the things they could have done, it’s very harrowing.”
Kelly, who rode a perfectly timed race on Agrapart, the 9-1 shot trained by her stepfather Nick Williams, was joined by the irrepressible Bryony Frost on the day’s roll of honour. Not for the first time this season, Frost lifted the spirits, defying flu and top weight to take the Grade Three Crest Nicholson Handicap Chase on board Froden — by 17 lengths.
Advertisement
Frost is enjoying the time of her young life as conditional jockey to Paul Nicholls and she has a rare ability to carry pretty well everyone along with her on the ride. “The racing world is just getting behind me,” she said. “You’re just the little girl from Devon and for them to be cheering my name, it feels like they’re riding winners with you.”
The West Country burr would have brought a broad smile to the face of Woollacott, a Devonian. It is racing’s duty now to protect the charm and innocence of Frost, a rising star, and to make sure that the silence which fell over Cheltenham yesterday lasts rather longer than a minute.