When describing the dangers of being a jockey, the line “the only job where an ambulance follows you around at work” is often trotted out.
But race falls aren’t the only occupational hazard inherent in race riding – is there any other type of athlete who competes when they are physically at their worst?
Sure, boxers might crash diet a couple of days before their fight for a weigh-in, but have the relative luxury of loading up on carbohydrates and fluids for 24 hours before a bout so they end up bouncing into the ring looking and feeling like Popeye.
Jockeys head on to their field of play, often not having eaten for a day or more, and having already pushed the limits of human endurance to get down to the required weight.
On Saturday, Gerald Mosse was fined HK$5,000 for weighing in two pounds over the allotted 120 pounds on Chancellor, who won by the narrowest of margins and saved the Frenchman a much larger penalty and possible suspension had he been beaten.
A litre of water weighs less than two pounds and a quick sip of fluids was the likely culprit for Mosse – and it a thirst-quencher that is usually to blame for most jockeys who come in a pound or two over their allocated weight.
Sports scientist John O’Reilly is studying the affects of jockeys’ diets – part of a PhD with the Chinese University of Hong Kong focusing on the rehydration of athletes in extreme conditions. Jockeys will be fitted with heart-rate monitors and sweat patches to find out more about what happens to their bodies when competing.
What O’Reilly is studying is a group of elite athletes whose lifestyles are unique to elite sports people, but whose views on nutrition and pre-race preparation have rapidly changed in recent years.
Back in the old days the programme of “wasting” for raceday was simple and passed down through generations: 1 Don’t eat. 2 Smoke a copious amount of cigarettes. 3 Drink a strong black coffee in the morning. 4 Sit in a sauna for rest of day (and when you’re in the sauna, take a bucket of water so you can stick your head in it and stop from over-heating – then you can stay in the sweatbox longer).
And on top of all of that, gobbling a handful of diuretics – or “piss pills”, as they were so eloquently dubbed – was considered to be taking a more scientific approach to weight loss.
Oh, and when your body is screaming for food late at night – making it impossible to sleep – there’s only one solution: a sleeping pill washed down with half a glass of vodka, topped up with water, which is pretty much a cure for anything, really.
One of Australia’s greatest riders, Roy “The Professor” Higgins, obviously didn’t earn his nickname with a honorary doctorate in dietary science – his severe weigh-loss regime was a morning coffee with the consistency of break fluid at morning trackwork and an omnipresent cigar.
Things have changed over the years – for a start, the buzzy diuretics are gone, but modern jockeys’ diets still make the latest carb-free diet craze look like a carefree trip to the all-you-can-eat Christmas buffet.
Today’s jockeys can rattle off calorie counts as quick as any final sectional, while personal trainers and trips to the yoga studio are de rigueur.
Can you imagine some of the tough old-school jockeys like Higgins, stogie in mouth, heading down to the trendy yoga school in Soho for some downward dogs and sun salutations? For a start, you can’t smoke in those studios.
At a smidgen under six feet in the old scale, Hong Kong-based Aussie Tye Angland knows better than most about the difficulties of “making the weight”. He is part of the new school, armed with dietary knowledge and a healthy exercise programme.
The 23-year-old weighs around 125 pounds most of the time, and while not eating has been known to make jockeys as angry as a bag full of rattlesnakes, Angland is remarkably good-natured. His miserly food intake in the days before a race would have most men acting like Incredible Hulk if he just walked into a beehive.
“That part of it isn’t enjoyable, but it’s my job,” Angland says. “I always eat a steak and some salad the night before race day, obviously the portions are a bit smaller. You’ve got to eat, but just eat the right stuff.”
It’s still a three-day ordeal for Angland to get down to 120 pounds, as he did twice last week. Hot baths and intense workouts with “sweat gear” are his preferred method for losing the last few stubborn pounds.
This year Angland, Zac Purton and Tim Clark enlisted boxing conditioner Jason Cortis to guide their pre-season preparation, providing a healthier way to strip unwanted fat off their already wiry frames, and add some much-need muscle tone for competition – and all three are on target for career-best seasons.
“I can lose four pounds in an hour and 20-minute gym session,” Angland says.
Funnily enough, food isn’t what jockeys crave on raceday – it’s fluids and on a stifling summer day a bottle of spring water starts looking like an elixir of the Gods.
What all jockeys will tell you though is that once those gates open and the adrenaline starts pumping all thoughts of food and drink are banished.
Still, when you tuck into that extra helping of Christmas roast spare a thought for the sport’s hungriest competitors. They’ll be celebrating too, but there’ll be a price to pay when it's time to go back to work.
