‘In all sorts of ways, and I seem to be the only one who can see it. That’s why they torched my stables. To make me toe the line, but I’m not having it. That’s why you need to sort it out before they bump me off altogether. You will, won’t you?’ He was almost begging, and he again looked over his shoulder as if checking that no one was in the back seat listening. He was clearly very frightened.

‘Come on, Gary,’ I said. ‘You’ll need to give me more than that. For a start you need to tell me who burned your stables and what else they’re doing to make a mockery of racing.’

‘I don’t know who did it.’

‘But you must have some idea.’

He shook his head.

I was slightly exasperated and beginning to think that my journey north had been a total waste of time.

‘So who are we hiding from, meeting out here in the wilds of Yorkshire? And who are the bastards you spoke about yesterday?’

He looked at me. ‘Agents,’ he said finally.

I almost laughed.

‘What sort of agents? Estate agents? Secret agents? Was it James Bond who set fire to your stables?’

Now I was laughing, but Gary wasn’t.

‘Bloody jockeys’ agents,’ he said seriously and with venom.

In my racing days, jockeys who had agents were a rarity, with most of us booking our own rides or relying on ‘our’ individual trainer to book them for us. Most of the best riders of the day were ‘retained’ as a one-stable jockey, as I was. My primary job was to ride the horses from that stable. Only if there were none of ‘mine’ running would I be free to accept rides from other trainers, perhaps when they had two runners in the same contest, or horses running at more than one racecourse on the same day.

The system might have been thought of as haphazard and disorderly, but it worked, not least because, back in those days, the jockey only had to be declared to ride just an hour before the race started. Hence, it was not unusual to pick up a ‘chance’ ride by arriving at a racecourse early and looking out for a trainer in need.

However, since the advent of computerisation and the introduction of rider declaration for jump races at least one day beforehand, such chance rides were now rare and usually only happened because of an on-the-day injury to the declared jockey.

With there being about ninety thousand runners in more than ten thousand races each year in Great Britain, each of which needs a jockey declared at least one day in advance, and often two, it is no wonder that a better system of matching horses with their riders had to be developed. And it was basically invented by the jockeys’ agents.