nothing to hide.

​In Edward Hide’s excellent autobiography, written with the assistance of Mike Cattermole, in the chapter ‘Waterloo’, the filly on which he won the 1971 1,000 Guineas, he writes ‘I had no objection to allowing women to ride: I thought it was only fair that if boys were given the chance then so should girls. However, I always felt they were fighting an uphill battle. Even if some girls might be physically strong enough to compete on equal terms with men, and this I doubt, the prejudice of owners and trainers against female jockeys means that most would be extremely lucky ever to have enough experience of race-riding to be much good at it.’
Of course, it is rather unfair to quote someone writing in 1989 as so much of life has altered in the intervening years. And I doubt if Edward Hide was being in anyway sexist in his belief. But it does demonstrate how times change, and when I read that particular chapter on the evening after Hollie Doyle had ridden five winners at Windsor, I wondered if he had changed his opinion since his retirement. And she went on to ride a further 3 winners at Yarmouth the next day, as if to rub it in. If boyfriend Tom had ridden those eight winners the title race would have got rather more interesting.
And she is now retained to ride the horses of Imad Al Sagor, the owner/breeder of Authorize, Frankie Dettori’s first Derby winner. Something that would have been unthinkable in Hide’s day. As, no doubt, would Hayley Turner riding 2 Group I winners and Josephine Gordon being champion apprentice. And then there is Blackmore, Frost and Kelly, to name but three successful females.
‘Nothing To Hide’ is one of those books that catches the reader by surprise, at least it caught me by surprise as I had no expectations of it. I learnt from the book, it added to my reservoir (admittedly my rather leaky reservoir, these days) of racing knowledge. ‘Nothing To Hide’ is not simply a canter through the author’s big race wins.
In the first chapter, a pleasant escape from opening chapters that begin with date and place of birth (that comes in chapter 2 in this book) Hide starts with ‘To enter the doors of 42 Portman Square, London, the headquarters of the Jockey Club, can be a nerve-wracking experience’. My first thought was a disciplinary hearing that changed his life, not that I could remember any controversy during his highly successful riding career. I think he remains the ninth or tenth most successful flat jockey in British racing history.
But no, although the event he described was in some other way both life-defining and illuminating. He was being interviewed for the vacant position of Stewards’ Secretary. He passed the first interview and had three challengers when it came to the second interview. Oddly, though we are taking about The Jockey Club, known for little else but their ‘jobs for the boys’ policy, the advertisement Hide had read and said quite markedly ‘no racing experience necessary’, which should have given Hide a clue to how the Jockey Club were thinking.
Also interviewed that day for the position of Stewards Secretary were former trainer Tony Gillam, former National Hunt amateur rider Jeremy Speid-Soote and Terence Brennan, a former household cavalry officer. On the day all four applicants were unsuccessful, though the panel had second thoughts a few days later and gave the job to the former household cavalry officer, who if Ladbrokes had opened a market on the outcome, given The Jockey Club’s track record, would have been a warm-order favourite to be first passed the jam-stick.
If I have one complaint about this book, and this a general complaint not specific to ‘Nothing To Hide’, is that the narrative is not sequential, it jumps around, which for the night-time reader can be a little confusing. But overall, I can give it my wholehearted recommendation as Hide’s personality is on most of the pages and, as he demonstrated with his thoughts on female jockeys, he is not shy at giving forth with his views.
Edward Hide, I am sure he was ‘Eddie Hide’ during his career, and his generation of jockeys, he started in 1950, were the link between the ‘old era’, the era of Pathe Newsreels, of Gordon Richards, Joe Sime, Edgar Britt, Harry Carr, etc, and the new age of Steve Cauthen, Pat Eddery, Joe Mercer, Willie Carson, etc. The number of winners he rode 2,591, Cock of the North 17-times and flat jockey of the year in 1972, determines he was the equal of the very best who rode with and against him. He is now 83 and as far as I am aware still in the land of the living and I hope both of us live to see the day when a female is champion jockey. It’s only a matter of time, surely.