1st May 2003.

I don't know about you but I don't think Josh Gifford retiring is going to change things much at the stables.  He's still going to be there most of the time. But hopefully he can take thing at bit easier.  I can't see the training regime changing much. The family are all Horsemen and women.  Care and welfare of the horses is the paramount concern.

Every horse that Josh Gifford runs is worthy of winning the Best Turned Out award.

The horses are always fit and trying to do their best but his horses are never knocked about and hit frequently with the whip.  Some may term him "Old School" because winning is not the be all and end all, which has become more evident in the sport in the last few years.

He has never employed and wouldn't tolerate a whip happy jockey.  A perfect example of this is Philip Hide. Perhaps if Philip used his whip to the extreme he might have finished slightly closer in the odd race but at what cost.   A horse goes sour and instead of racing for a number of seasons, they don't want to know after one season. 

The horses are schooled to jump properly, to jump from off their hocks. 

A jockey such as Philip Hide is a horseman, first.  Anybody who watches him during a race will see present the horse correctly at a fence.  There's no " flinging" the horse at a fence and hope you get to the other side still in the saddle  

The horse that won for Josh on Saturday, Skycab (ridden by Leighton Aspell) speaks for itself.   At eleven years of age he is having his best season as a chaser.   Skycab has been in training most of his life but with the patience that Mr Gifford, his stable staff and the owners have the horse is still going strong.  That horse might have been discarded in another stable when things weren't going well.

Without doubt my most lasting memory of Mr Gifford was after his long wait for his first success at the Cheltenham Festival meeting.  Emotional after having his first winners.  When being interviewed the  joy and  tears in his eyes were not because of any financial gain but because he knew that it is one of the highlights of any trainer's career to have a winner at the Festival meeting. 

For a man who has spent fifty years in the sport, had a successful career as an apprentice on the flat, had been champion National Hunt jockey, stable jockey and friend to arguably the most astute and gifted trainer of the 2Oth century, Ryan Price, he might have felt some sort of failure, after trying for so many years and not having a winner.

Like the Captain, Josh Gifford's first priority I feel was the welfare of the horses. To me that's how it should be.  

 

Valerie - Sorry if I've rambled on a bit.

 

John 

John Goodwin, London.