At The British Racing School, we are now winding down to our "summer break" when the 62 horses here take a break from training and have a well deserved 4 weeks out at grass. This seems an ideal time to look at our jockey courses and training that took place in the first half of 2009.

The year kicked off with an Apprentice Licence course at the end of January. As always this course was full and the week's instruction was led by resident Jockey Coach Richard Perham. Jon Pitts (Sports Scientist), Julia Scott-Douglas (Sports Nutritionist), Tony McGlone (Stipendiary Steward) amongst others joined him to educate and help guide the hopefuls in the right direction. One of these trainees's stands out in particular, trainer's daughter Amy Ryan. Since leaving the course in January, which Amy admits was "an excellent learning curve", the former Amateur Champion Jockey has already ridden out her 7lb claim, and certainly doesn't look like stopping any time soon.

The next group to be welcomed to the BRS were the Apprentice Advanced course at the beginning of March. This course is aimed at apprentices who have recently lost their 7lb claim and is designed to give them training which will enhance and develop skills needed in their professional careers. This course included Micheal Geran (Mick Channon), Andrea Atzeni (Marco Botti), William Carson (Stuart Williams), Jack Dean (Bill Turner), Richard Evans (David Evans), Dean Heslop (TD Barron) and Martin Lane (Karl Burke) all of which are starting to make a name for themselves. Again outside speakers were welcomed in to cover topics such as psychology, professionalism, finance and media training, which they all found "relevant and helpful" and "an eye opener" to areas they wouldn't normally focus on.

Yogi Instructs Cond. Course

Towards the end of March the BRS welcomed potential Conditional and Category B jockeys. Again this was another full course and the highlight of the week for most was welcoming Yogi Breisner (Olympic Coach) in for a schooling session.

Yogi is a regular on all of our jump licence courses and provides invaluable tuition for the course delegates but he is also happy for the resident foundation students to listen to his sessions. These can prove very beneficial to those students wishing to pursue a career in National Hunt racing.

FMA Students watch Yogi

The final course in March was an Apprentice Licence Course with a twist - the BBC were in filming the future jockeys for some short broadcasts between races during their coverage of Royal Ascot. At present there is just 1 winner to report from this course and they are beginning to clock up their rides. The winner has come from course delegate Noel Garbutt, who has his licence out with Newmarket based trainer Rae Guest. Noel is a regular at the BRS for simulator training, so watch this space for more winners!

April was a quiet month for jockey courses, with just a Category A Amateur Assessment for the UK based jockeys. However, we do run an annual Overseas Apprentice course and this year we were able to welcome 3 Swedish and 5 Danish jockeys.

Overseas Apprentice Pic

The all female delegate list all hold a licence in their respective countries and visit us for additional training and the chance to experience what racing is like in the UK. It was a very well received course with the level of coaching described as "excellent" and the only wish for next year being "that it lasts 2 weeks"!

UK based Apprentices and Conditionals are offered continuation training once a year until they ride out the 7lb claim, and the first Continuation training of the year fell for the Conditionals, who were at the BRS for 4 days in May.

Peter Hatton Schooling

 

Again, Yogi Breisner was in for a morning schooling session with the jockeys, which Peter Hatton, conditional to Alan King feels "could not be better".

The jockeys also had the opportunity for one on one diet and nutrition sessions with Julia Scott-Douglas, which some found to be "invaluable". The course concluded with Kevin Darley, of the PJA, giving his experiences and advice on what life as a jockey really involves.

To complete the month of May we moved on from current Conditionals to potential Conditionals and Category B Licence holders, when we welcomed the second course of the year. Once again this course was deemed a success, and with the best fitness scores of the year. Each jockey course has a fitness assessment and review with Frank Gallagher, he assesses how fit they are now and what they can do to improve that. However, Adam Wedge, who is hoping to gain his Category B Licence doesn't have much to improve on with an impressive score of 99%.

Alongside all these week long courses there have also been a number of Category A Seminars and Assessments, Pony Racing Training Days and Riding Work and Horse Assessment courses, all of which were very popular and well received,.

That concludes the first half of the year as far as jockey courses are concerned, but we jump off again in the first week of August with a Conditional/Category B Licence Course and then it's non-stop until Christmas.