A weekend to remember.

​To have been a fly on the wall of the weighing room at Sandown last Saturday as three cheers were proposed for Bryony Frost and loudly received. The weighing room is a sanctuary, I suggest, for prisoners of envy and wardens of social ignorance. The world has changed boys and girls, the days of putting your rivals through the wing are over. Employment Law is unequivocal; the workplace must be a safe environment for everyone and no jockey can discriminate, safe between the white running rails and safe when in the weighing room. Bullying is outlawed. Have you not seen the adverts, the anti-bullying campaign?
But the uglier side of racing sullied a wonderful weekend. Greaneteen giving Paul Nicholls a twelfth Tingle Creek aside, and yet another Grade 1 for Miss Frost; there was Bridget Andrews proving as worthy her position as second-jockey to her brother-in-law and not merely a case of nepotism by winning the Many Clouds at Aintree on Protekterate; Snow Leopardess skipping around the Grand National course as gaily as if on her way to meet a Prince who is want of a bride. And tight finishes here, there and everywhere, topped off by Gordon Elliott rewriting the trainer’s record books by winning seven of the eight races at Navan, followed by the first two the next day. Seven is a record for one-meeting, nine in a row was just Gordon showing what he could do if he had any sort of ego.
I have followed horse racing since I was seven or eight. As my racing library confirms, I admire and respect all jockeys, from the brave but unsteady, to the dedicated journeyman, to those who grace the winning enclosures of the races that are recorded for posterity. Or at least I did admire and respect them. The Dunne-Frost affair has caused me to look twice and to look again at the men who are privileged to find sanctuary in the weighing rooms of British and Irish weighing rooms.
Tom Scudamore, for instance, has always been one of my favourite jockeys but since hearing that he sides with the aggressor and has no sympathy for his victim he has become the lowest of the low in my eyes. Tom Scudamore, and his colleagues who will testify this week in favour of Robbie Dunne and against Miss Frost, is the sort of man who would have loaded the faggots on the fire that burnt Joan of Arc, believing he was ridding the world of a trouble-maker, not understanding that in the hearts of the people he was burning a heroine.
This distasteful tribunal will, I am sure, bring about much needed change to the weighing room. Already the B.H.A. has set about improving weighing rooms around the country, ensuring female jockeys have their own facilities to limit any necessity to entry the male quarters. But more is required. Senior jockeys cannot have the self-appointed privilege to take a young rider aside to point out his failings as a jockey. The code-of-conduct must be that any complaint a jockey has of another should be dealt with through a jockey coach, of which most young riders employ these days
I don’t know if Mick Fitzgerald remains Bryony’s jockey coach but he certainly was when Robbie Dunne behaved so appalling at Stratford, a charge he has admitted to, and when she won the Ryanair and he mocked her interview after the race on social media, where she memorably brought a tear to Francesca Cumani’s eye, if you remember. Why couldn’t Mick intercede then? If he had not seen fit to point out Bryony’s failings, couldn’t he have had a quiet word with Robbie Dunne, advised him to cool it and concentrate on his own riding?
Strangely, it was the Tyslicki/Gibbons court battle that gave the public the most insightful glimpse of life in the weighing room when Pat Cosgrave said that in stewards’ enquiries the ‘jockeys code of conduct’ kicks in, not wanting to get another jockey into trouble. This was Cosgrave’s excuse for changing his testimony from backing Gibbons in the initial enquiry to backing Tyslicki in his case for compensation.
I still have the utmost respect for the bravery and skill of jockeys. They are not, though, honourable and in saying that they have become sad, commonplace human beings. I would like to think the majority or many are honourable people, yet this ‘jockeys’ code of conduct’ and the mindset of ‘what goes on in the weighing room stays in the weighing room’ suggests they might be all tarred with the same brush.
Bryony Frost, might be the exception and if she is she is the Joan of Arc the weighing room has needed for many decades.
On a happier note, and here I find myself becoming paternal and grandfatherly, but it seems Bryony Frost is in a relationship with Patrick Mullins. I am happy for her. My favourite jockey arm-in-arm with my favourite racing writer. It may be a well-used Irish saying but recently Mullins wrote of Jack Kennedy ‘he only speaks if he thinks he can improve on silence’. Something he’ll never will be able to say to describe Bryony.