Betfair Official Blog

The Assistant's Last Column

The Assistant is not one for teary goodbyes, but even her stiff upper lip is aquiver as she bids farewell to us and canters off into the sunset, heading for a life more ordinary.

A Valediction Forbidding Mourning

So is entitled an erotic farewell penned by John Donne.

Were I poetic, or felt the need to be erotic, I'd like to write something similar to all those who have read these offerings over the last eight months. But I'm not, and I don't, so I'll put it another way: I'm off.

Yes, my relationship with betting.betfair has come to an end.

I was hauled in to Betfair HQ this week for what I thought was going to be a content-of-future-articles discussion with the Editor-In-Chief. However, all did not seem right when only a minion was there to greet me. And their welcome message? You're fired. Hand back your betting.betfair style guide and leave the premises.

Actually, that's not what happened.

A couple of weeks ago I stopped being an assistant trainer and, as my articles are supposed to offer a girls-eye-view of the realities of stable life, it didn't seem fair to keep writing when I no longer worked in a stable. So, it was with regret (at least on my part, they might well be delighted for the excuse) that betting.betfair and I decided to part.

Why am I no longer an assistant trainer, you may ask?

Well, it's not, as some of you may be thinking, because the boss read some of the articles on here. If he had, I'm sure he wouldn't have been thrilled with the constant owner-, trainer- and jockey-baiting, and would, had he been able to see through the thinly-veiled disguise of a woman working as an assistant trainer, worked out my identity and given me the boot. But you are crediting him with far too much intelligence. He would need to be able to read for a start.

The reason is far more boring. I have a boyfriend. Yes, despite years of fending off adolescent jockeys and wannabes who reacted to my serial rejections with a consistent, "She must be a lezza," I have eventually succumbed to the pleasures of male company. What's more, he's not in racing. Never even been to Royal Ascot, or Cheltenham, or even Plumpton. You could say that in racing terms, he doesn't know his Azarole from his Elbio. (I've been wanting to use that gag for years).

Going out with someone who isn't in racing alerts you to the stark simplicity of real life. It turns out most people don't work on weekends. When they get up at four in the morning it is to go for a pee, not to start mucking out. Neither do they spend their lives dodging the feet of 500kg behemoths. Nor do they work in places where Victorianism is viewed as a new-fangled social movement.

This normal life intrigues me, so I've decided to give it a go, and have left racing. I am currently unemployed (or "retired" as I prefer to spin it) and am not exactly thrilled at the circumstances I find myself in. I still get up at four, but after peeing, my work for the day is pretty much done, save for the interminable line-up of Breakfast, Jeremy Kyle, This Morning and a series of antique-cum-house-buying programmes to be watched. And I miss the horses, whose pleasures far outweighed the drawback of working with Neanderthal Man. In some moments I would give anything to ride that lead-horse once more, or wash down that filly that no one else wants to go near.

It's easy to romanticise stable life - and not many would accuse me of ever doing that - but horses are majestic characters and, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, there is something about them that does wonders for the soul. So I guess it's only natural that I miss them, and I hope the panging will pass.

As this is my last article, I want to raise one more issue, one more parting shot to be thinking about when I'm gone.

It's fashionable amongst racing's elite to occasionally exhibit a social conscience and comment on how badly paid stable staff are, but this view is entirely specious.

It's true that few in racing's lower echelons are driving Bugattis, but take a bunch of unskilled (in the sense that the wider world defines the term - knowing how to bandage a horse's leg isn't much use in Swindon town centre) people and see what the rest of the job market offers them, and it won't be much. In racing they get accommodation and, in a woefully under-manned industry, are pretty much guaranteed a job for life.

True, the hours can seem long, the job hard, and the environment unhealthily all-consuming, but if people don't like it, they can always leave and do something else. Although, as I'm finding to my cost, leaving isn't easy. It's them damn horses.