I came to Wetherby in 57 years ago to be an apprentice jockey. I came from a mining village. My dad packed me off with a carrier bag to Wetherby at 15 years old. I did five years apprenticeship because my dad didn't want me to work down the pit. He sent all his sons from a pit village into racing and we all became jockeys. None of us had ridden before.

I raced him Wetherby, working for four different trainers. I had my first ride as an apprentice jockey at 18 after training for three years and I finished fourth out of eighteen. That was an absolutely fantastic experience, the nerves and everything, that adrenaline, it were magic.

To be honest I didn't really learn to ride until I was in my 20s, to get the real control of a horse. I could ride anything, you could put me on any horse. And that experience, a horse knows when you have experienced, its in your hands