“People keep telling me how well I look, almost surprised,” he said “But they shouldn’t be I’m not overweight, I’m fit and trim. She has had so many problems, and the owners have been so good, so patient. She finally had her first run in September, and then won at Pontefract on Monday. And we all just felt so good about it.”Despite being in the happy position of taking over a thriving establishment, Swinburn is under no illusions about his imminent new career. “Everyone has told me how tough it will be and that is is hard work all the way,” he said.

“But that’s rather implying that being a jockey wasn’t.”Retirement from the saddle was rather forced upon Swinburn, but the writing had been on the wall after he suffered a horrific fall in Hong Kong in 1996 and took a year’s sabbatical 12 months later. His former job involved only the end product; although his former boss Sir Michael Stoute appraised him of the difficulties of getting it as far as the shop window, he is only now beginning to appreciate them fully.”When I first decided to give this a go,” he said, “Sir Michael told me that the feat is not so much to win a race, but to get the horse on the track But when you do, you feel it is a real achievement. Like the other day with a three-year-old filly from our yard, Miss Polaris. He has spent the past three seasons there riding out and learning the ropes.”If you asked me why Flat jockeys can’t do training I’d have to say I just don’t know,” he said. “But I will say that the last few years have been really important.

Oxford-born of good Irish stock, he gave up the saddle four years ago because of weight problems and has been around horses all his life. He is due to see the Jockey Club’s licensing committee in 13 days’ time, ahead of taking over the 125-box yard at Tring, Hertfordshire, of his father-in-law, Peter Harris. But it makes you think, doesn’t it?”
It does seem to be a fact that Flat jockeys tend to make less of a success of their second careers than their jumping counterparts. He was a proper man, one of a kind.”FitzGerald was instrumental in guiding the fledgling career of the current Flat champion jockey, Kieren Fallon, when he came over from Ireland. David Nicholls is one exception and in the past Doug Smith made a fair fist of the job, but the likes of Lester Piggott, Sir Gordon Richards and Scobie Breasley made little impact.Perhaps it is the old-dogs-new-tricks syndrome; Flat riders tend to retire later in life than jump jockeys, or maybe more of the latter have a deep-seated horseman’s background If that is the case, Swinburn, 43, should be OK. “He looked at me and said ‘But jockeys don’t make good trainers’, and he wasn’t the first one to say it to me, in fact,” said Swinburn “And later he did tell me that he’d been joking.

“He was a great friend and I admired him a lot,” Fallon said “The game won’t seem the same without him. He was like a father figure to me and his death is a great shock to racing as a whole.”He was always there for me, especially when I went off the rails a bit, and I wouldn’t be where I am today but for him.”. Sheikh Mohammed’s reaction, albeit a tongue-in-cheek one, to the news that Walter Swinburn was to take up training was perhaps not exactly what the man who rode the Maktoum family-owned colt Lammtarra to victory in the Derby was hoping to hear. But it makes you think, doesn’t it?”

Sheikh Mohammed’s reaction, albeit a tongue-in-cheek one, to the news that Walter Swinburn was to take up training was perhaps not exactly what the man who rode the Maktoum family-owned colt Lammtarra to victory in the Derby was hoping to hear.