Jamie Spencer: 'It would have been like going to jail for something you hadn't done'

This interview by Julian Muscat was originally published in July exclusively for Racing Post Members' Club subscribers and has been made free to read for users of the Racing Post app as our Sunday Read. Julian spoke to the leading jockey after a highly successful Royal Ascot about topics including his retirement U-turn, the whip rules and more.

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After a four-year drought, it was a case of London Bus Syndrome for Jamie Spencer. Having been absent from the Group 1 rollcall since riding Danceteria to victory in Germany in 2019, he bagged two championship prizes inside a week.

These headline acts propelled the jockey back into the spotlight, not least because they were gained with Spencer’s signature late flourish.

Last weekend he galvanised Via Sistina to victory from a share of last place in the Pretty Polly Stakes – although connections of the runner-up have appealed the outcome. That triumph was gained seven days after a typically audacious ride aboard Khaadem, an 80-1 rag in the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes.

Khaadem’s victory also completed a Royal Ascot double for Spencer, who had won the Buckingham Palace Stakes aboard another rank outsider, 50-1 chance Witch Hunter, two days previously. It was his first strike at the royal meeting for five years.

Such deeds would have been expected of Spencer 20 years ago, when he was acclaimed as the heir apparent. He was the wunderkind, the young man for whom riding horses came more easily than breathing. Having just turned 24, he rode a Royal Ascot treble in 2004, which marked his first year as stable jockey to Aidan O’Brien. The world was his oyster.

In the event, the oyster never quite bequeathed its treasure. When it duly opened up the pearl inside didn’t glisten with the radiance expected of it. Sure, Spencer has achieved more than most jockeys dare dream about. Yet most jockeys are not born with the gifts bestowed on the only son of George Spencer, who trained Winning Fair to win the 1963 Champion Hurdle.

However, that’s where Spencer’s story diverts from stereotype. There has been no descent into darkness, no raging against the spotlight that placed Spencer in an invidious position all those years ago. What has emerged instead is a man at ease with life, comfortable in his skin, wholly unenvious of the likes of Frankie Dettori and Ryan Moore, on whom the wunderkind tag sat lightly.

Jamie Spencer: "If I look at the whole picture, whether I'm having a good or bad year, I have been very lucky"Credit: Edward Whitaker

To visit Spencer at his tastefully appointed home, on the northern fringe of Newmarket, is to understand why. An old rectory, it comes with land Spencer is busy developing. It emits a tranquillity evident in its owner, who has long recognised the virtue of contentment above those of fame and fortune.

“If I look at the whole picture, whether I’m having a good or bad year, I have been very lucky,” the 43-year-old reflects from his kitchen with a back garden vista that would sit comfortably in the pages of Country Life. “I never lose sight of that fact. I was no genius at school, so I am fortunate to have fallen upon horses.”

The image of a contented Spencer comes in stark contrast to the fraught, troubled expression he wore at Lingfield in February 2005. On that bitter winter’s afternoon he took his first ride back in Britain after his year-long tenure at Ballydoyle came to an abrupt end.

It was a huge story at the time. A combination of factors had undermined him, in particular his inexperience for a riding contract of such magnitude. Yet while he said all the right things to the media at Lingfield, you couldn’t help but wonder what the future held for the kid who, one year earlier, was being compared to Lester Piggott.

In the event, the thoughts Spencer offered that day were prescient. “Peace of mind means a lot in life, no matter how much money you have,” he said back then. “If you don’t have peace of mind, or go to bed content at night, then you’re doing the wrong thing.”

Spencer responded to that adversity by winning the first of his two British champion jockey titles that year. While it demonstrated his mettle, he also learned a valuable lesson from what had been a difficult time at Ballydoyle.

Indeed, his appreciation of life’s less excessive pleasures was evident at his post-Ascot holiday in Ibiza, where he was among Dettori’s house guests. His double at the royal meeting gave him licence to let his hair down, yet halfway through the week-long festivities he made his way home – just as he knew he would when he had boarded the outward flight.

Evidently, Dettori’s successful Royal Ascot has not prompted him to outwardly reconsider his impending retirement. “Frankie still wants to get out at the top,” Spencer says. “There are so many other things he can do anyway.”

Except that Spencer knows precisely what the spectre of retirement means. Having announced his own in 2014 after two seasons as retained rider to Sheikh Fahad Al Thani’s Qatar Racing, he returned to the saddle four months later. He smiles now when asked to reflect on the episode.

“I came back because I felt I had more to give, I guess,” he says. “For jockeys, when the horses are not running well or are no good, it’s like a game of musical chairs. Suddenly the music stops and you’ve got no chair. That’s what happened and I got the blame, but that’s the way it is in racing. Then I took a deep breath and realised I was far better off back in the saddle.”

He has stayed there ever since, counting his blessings on bad days, always reminding himself of the debt he owes Newmarket trainer David Simcock, with whom he has been aligned for the last decade. But the key to Spencer’s state of fulfilment is his acceptance of the fact that jockeys will always be fall guys in hard times. It goes with the territory.

Rather than stubbornly stand his corner in a dispute over the way he has ridden a particular horse, he has learned to shrug his shoulders and move on.

“As a jockey, if you don’t perform for whatever reason, you get taken off. It can be a lonely existence when the ball’s not rolling your way. I've had hard times but you have to go along with it. It’s also true that some of the greatest jockeys think they have never ridden a bad race.”

Jamie Spencer recorded a memorable brace at Royal Ascot, including victory on Khaadem (pictured) in the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee StakesCredit: Edward Whitaker

In the wishful thinking of a perfect world, Spencer would ride every horse on feel. He is frequently seen weaving his way through tightly packed fields, trusting to instinct. But his free-spirited approach is being inhibited by whip regulations which permit no leniency in the many grey areas of riding a finish. It is one of the few topics that animates Spencer, who rarely drops his guard even though he maintains he holds strong opinions on a range of subjects.

“It’s not an exact science,” he says, “but the technical side of the whip rules are unfair. People can count to six [strikes]; that’s fine. But the last thing a jockey needs to be thinking about coming to the two-furlong pole is technicalities. There is already too much going on, especially in sprints.

“Sometimes it’s correctional – say, when a horse is hanging and you need to straighten it out. Sometimes you can get summoned when you’ve finished 20 lengths last for the way you have educated the horse on the way round. You can get a four-day ban for something that 99 people out of 100 on the street wouldn’t find offensive.”

Indeed, it was only by sheer good fortune that Spencer escaped a punitive whip ban after winning aboard Witch Hunter at Royal Ascot.

“My horse was hanging right close home, so I wanted to use the whip down the neck to correct him,” he relates. “Having raised the whip, I realised I’d used up my six [strikes] so I diverted the strike away from the horse. I didn’t hit him at all.

“I then heard from the BHA that I’d hit the horse seven times, when I hadn’t. So I rang a friend who works for ITV Racing and asked him to send me every angle they had of the finish. Luckily he was able to find an angle which clearly showed that I diverted the [seventh] strike away from the horse.

“I’d already had two previous suspensions, totalling 16 days. Without that evidence I would have been referred and faced a ban of more than 20 days. It would have been like going to jail for something you hadn’t done.”

Jamie Spencer, at his home near Newmarket, gives his views on the controversial new whip rules Credit: Edward Whitaker

Spencer’s exasperation is plain, although his tranquil demeanour returns when he reflects on the way he has rebounded from the broken hip and femur he sustained in a freak fall three years ago. The rehab was tough for a jockey who had been fortunate to escape the ravages inflicted on most in his profession. The repercussions were harder still as the injury impaired his sense of balance.

“I was like Del Boy and Rodney’s car,” he reflects, referencing the clapped-out, three-wheeled Reliant Robin used by the principal characters in Only Fools and Horses.

“The way I ride horses is to put my hands on their neck and trust them. But one month after coming back I went up the Al Bahathri [gallop in Newmarket] and at the end I just flew off the horse. You do something all your life without thinking about it, then suddenly you feel unsteady on a horse and you’re doubting yourself. I had to learn how to walk properly again.”

Long since fully recovered, and back in the headlines once more, retirement is far from Spencer’s mind. He will continue to ride sparingly and remains up for travelling far and wide in search of big-race successes, which he enjoyed in abundance in 2011 when he landed four Grade 1 races in the US.

Three of those were gained by Cape Blanco who, like Fame And Glory, raced for a partnership between Coolmore and Khaadem’s owners, Jim and Fitri Hay. Spencer’s riding contract with the Hays at the time paved the way for him to renew links with Aidan O’Brien, who was without a stable jockey that year.

Spencer maintains it was no big deal. He points out that he had already ridden Excellent Art to win the St James’s Palace Stakes for Ballydoyle four years earlier. Either way, what he learned from the wheel turning full circle is a lesson he frequently relays to his three children.

“I always tell them it’s easier to get on with people than not,” he says. “The smartest way is to fall out with as few people as possible. It’s also why I prefer to keep many thoughts to myself. When you put your head above the parapet you’re there to be shot down, so what’s the point? It’s just a waste of energy.”

There has always been more to life than racing for Spencer. This particular wunderkind may not have achieved everything predicted of him when, aged just 17, he won his first Classic aboard Tarascon in the Irish 1,000 Guineas. Against that, few jockeys approach their mid-40s so comfortable in themselves.

“I guess it’s a natural aspiration that everybody wants to have achieved more,” he reflects. “But when I started riding at 15, if somebody told me what I would go on to achieve, I think I’d take my lot.

“I can’t think of any part of the world I haven’t seen and owners have picked up the tab – how lucky is that? Of course there are regrets, races you’d like to have won, but I wouldn’t be sitting on a swing thinking about that. I think about what I could do tomorrow.”

'Charlie's words have never left me'

Of all the rides reflecting his saddle daring, Jamie Spencer’s last-to-first swoop aboard Con Te Partiro in the 2017 Sandringham Stakes at Royal Ascot holds the greatest resonance.

Still detached in last place with three furlongs left to run, Spencer initially probed for an opening through the middle of the 24-runner field. But congestion up ahead prompted him to shift left instead, whereupon he got pinned down between two horses. So he sat and waited. Then he waited some more as the field thundered down towards the final furlong.

Up in the grandstand, Con Te Partiro’s American trainer Wesley Ward could scarcely believe his eyes. Every second word he muttered to himself was an expletive. He had long since put down his binoculars when Spencer found the opening he sought.

He still had eight horses ahead of him inside the furlong pole, but Con Te Partiro sprouted wings. She arrived so late that the commentator mentioned the filly’s name for the first time with only 100 yards left to run, yet she flew home to win by a length and a quarter. It was Spencer at his mercurial best.

Jamie Spencer was at his brilliant best in riding Con Te Partiro to victory in the 2017 Sandringham Stakes at Royal AscotCredit: Alan Crowhurst

There were overtures of Con Te Partiro in the Royal Ascot brace Spencer posted last month aboard Witch Hunter (Buckingham Palace) and Khaadem (Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee). Always in demand among trainers with hold-up horses down the straight track, he attributes his prowess to having walked the course with Charlie Swan back in 2007.

“When I was a kid growing up, Charlie was somebody I really looked up to,” Spencer recalls. “As a jump jockey he won so many races he shouldn’t have because he was the greatest tactician. So we were walking, and when we reached the junction where the round course meets the straight, Charlie looked up the hill and said it was so unforgiving – especially at the royal meeting.

“He told me that when you thought it was time to go, you had to count to ten to fill your horse up. Then you could go. It was a great insight; his words have never left me.”

Just hours later, Spencer vaulted aboard Excellent Art and won the St James’s Palace Stakes. He would never look back.

“The straight track at Ascot is very wide,” Spencer elaborates, “so trigger-happy riders can go for home any time they want to. It is all too easy to go early, maybe two and a half furlongs out. It’s a long way home from there.”

Riding in races over the straight mile at Ascot demands a different skill-set to riding over the round course. Nobody does it better than Spencer.

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Oisin Murphy: 'I made mistakes and now I've worked hard to get back to where I want to be' 

Epsom: a world-famous racing town, an inspiring place to train - but where are all the horses? 

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