The Jockey and the Janitor

I’ll never forget the first time the jockey Alastair Woodthorpe spoke to me: it was the morning after the 2010 United Kingdom Steeplechase Trophy.

In some ways there was nothing unusual in our having a conversation; as a janitor at the racecourse it was only natural that subsequent to a race meeting I would be cleaning out the jockeys’ weighing room. Having competed in the race itself it was not altogether unusual for a jockey to return to the course the following day, either to pick up some forgotten personal item or merely to reflect in quiet solitude upon the events of the previous afternoon.

What was certainly out of the ordinary was the fact Alastair Woodthorpe spoke to me at all. Whenever our paths had crossed in the past he had looked upon me with ill-disguised disdain; he was the superstar sportsmen while I was the merest cog in the machine that existed to support his meteoric career.

‘Hello Sam,’ he said.

For a second I was too shocked to respond. Not only had “his highness” spoken to me, he also knew and used my name.

‘H-hi Mr Woodthorpe,’ I stammered weakly in reply.

‘Please,’ he insisted. ‘Call me Alastair’.

‘Hello Alastair,’ I said simply.

‘You look shocked,’ he observed.

There were, I thought, myriad reasons why I should be. What I offered up in response to his remark was merely:

‘You’ve never spoken to me before is all.’

‘And for that I apologise,’ he responded. ‘To be honest I thought myself above you; I was the main attraction while you were just a minion. After yesterday such distinctions are….irrelevant.’

I was in no doubt that by “after yesterday” he meant the race, a race he had been leading until the very last hurdle. Just when it seemed he would win the most coveted of titles for the first time in his career, his horse had tripped on landing, leaving him at the mercy of the maelstrom of churning hooves following close behind.

‘It’s funny,’ he went on. ‘Up until that point my entire existence was centred on getting my name engraved on that damned trophy. I knew I could never be happy, that I could never move on in life, until that one dream, that one obsession, was realised. I didn’t care who I upset along the way, who I trampled on. Unfortunately I included you in that Sam. Can you forgive me?’

‘Of course,’ I replied in earnest. For a moment there was silence between us. ‘I’m truly sorry about what happened.’ I said finally.

‘Me too,’ he returned, a bittersweet smile on his face.

******

Over the next twelve months we, the jockey and the janitor, conversed together frequently. On race days, surrounded by a scrum of fellow riders, he would quietly and respectfully acknowledge me, but on the day after we would sit in the otherwise deserted weighing room and talk, often for hours at a time.

A year on from that initial breaking of the ice I watched as he stood in the winner’s enclosure, the race for the 2011 United Kingdom Steeplechase Trophy only just completed, the leading horses still sweating and breathing heavily. The sponsors’ managing director picked up the magnificent golden trophy, painstakingly engraved with the names of previous winners, and readied himself to present it to this year’s successful combatant.

‘This time twelve month’s ago,’ he began, ‘Alastair Woodthorpe was leading this illustrious race of ours when he was thrown from his horse at the final fence. It is, therefore, with immeasurable pride that I present this freshly renamed and rededicated trophy to our latest champion. Ladies and gentleman, I give you the “Alastair Woodthorpe Memorial Trophy”.’

******

I’ll never forget the last time the jockey Alastair Woodthorpe spoke to me: it was the day after the 2011 United Kingdom Steeplechase Trophy, the anniversary of his tragic death during the previous year’s race.

With the happy smile on his spectral face contrasting markedly with the tears of sadness that glistened on his ethereal cheeks, he spoke just two words, disappearing before my eyes the moment they left his ghostly lips.

‘Goodbye Sam,’ he said.

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copyright dm pamment 16th July 2011