To walk away from the greatest job a National Hunt jockey could have takes some doing, yet that’s exactly what David Bridgwater did.
Fed up with following the slavish Pond House stables of Martin Pipe around Britain, the laid-back jockey said: “That is not my thing – rushing around the country trying to get on anything with a chance. I won’t be burned out because I still want to be riding at 35. To be champion jockey like Scudamore, Dunwoody or McCoy you have to be a certain type of person, so obsessed that it hurts. I was never like that.”
The pleasure of winning had also long vanished. Pipe expected his horses to win so there was no enjoyment or praise when they did.
David recalled: “When I came back from riding a winner at the Festival, it felt like I'd just won a seller at Hereford.”
His decision to walk away, which shocked the racing world, came at the start of the 1996/97 season.
David said: “In my last six months with Mr Pipe I could have retired, just like that – packed up at the age of 25. I had got so low you wouldn’t believe it. I like to think that I'm a jolly sort of bloke but I just didn’t enjoy what I was doing. I asked myself what the difference was and there was only one thing – Martin Pipe.
“People tell me I’m crazy and that I could have been champion. I don’t think about that; it doesn't interest me at all. I have never considered being champion. Is it worth putting yourself through all that? But none of this means I am unambitious.”
David George Bridgwater’s love of horses had begun many years earlier back in Knowle, Solihull, where he had been born on 5 January, 1971, and where his father, Ken, trained horses.
David's elder brother, Kenny, acted as assistant trainer while his other brother, Gary, drove the horseboxes. Mum helped out as secretary.
Yet David cherished another ambition away from the world of horses. He was, like most other lads his age, crazy about football and wanted to become a professional footballer. The idea was not unrealistic: his great grandfather, Frank Perry, had been the captain of West Bromwich Albion while his father had, as a goalkeeper, passed a trial at Birmingham.
David had sat on horses almost before he could walk and it was this infinity with them that persuaded the youngster to choose a racing life instead.
Aged 12, he sat on his first racehorse, and, two years later, was riding work.
He wanted to leave school at 14, and, luckily for David, had an understanding headmaster, probably fed up with him bunking off all the time.
He said: “My one regret is not taking my education seriously. I shiver when I think what would have happened to me if I hadn’t made it as a jockey. When I see some of my old mates on the dole and stealing cars, I realise what a risk I took.”
That he did make the grade was due to the guidance from two illustrious masters, Lester Piggott and David Nicholson.
He joined the Newmarket stables of Lester Piggott when the ex-champion jockey was just starting out on a training career. Piggott made him a rider. “I learned the way you should conduct yourself at the races,” David recalled, “especially with owners, and how to school young horses.
“Lester didn't say a lot. You just had to watch what he did and try to learn from him. He’s a very nice man. A real good bloke.”
Then, as his young body fully developed, increasing weight put paid to David’s chances as a Flat race jockey. There followed an unproductive spell at David Nicholson’s, but, if Lester had made David a rider, Nicholson made him a man.
He had his first ride over hurdles had been on his father’s Deadly Going in a conditional jockeys’ race at Warwick on 7 January 1989, finishing ninth of the 23 runners. A year later he rode his first winner on Winnie The Witch, also trained by his father, in the Daniel Lambert Handicap Hurdle at Leicester, on 22 January, 1990.
The following season, David rode Winnie The Witch to victory at Warwick on New Year’s Eve and followed that by guiding her to a pair of big race triumphs in the 1991 County Hurdle and Haydock’s Swinton Insurance Hurdle.
Leaving Nicholson, he took the advice of Peter Scudamore and joined the stables of Nigel Twiston-Davies where, suddenly, the winners began to flow.
Riding Young Hustler that January, he captured the Great Yorkshire Chase. The next season, among his 58 winners, was Snitton Lane, who won the Grand Annual at Cheltenham for trainer Bill Clay.
Replacing Twiston-Davies’s injured stable jockey, Carl Llewellyn, David had his first Grand National ride on Young Hustler. He was brought down when the riderless Usher's Island fell in front of him at the eleventh.
He returned to Aintree in 1995. His mount, General Pershing, took off four strides too soon at the third, the biggest jump on the course.
Recalling the fall, David said: “I was fired so far forward it was unbelievable. I was covered in blood, my colours, boots and breeches were ripped to shreds. It looked like I had been in the ring with a lion.”
David was back at Liverpool in 1996, this time riding the 14/1 shot Encore Un Peu.
A French-bred chestnut, he was, in the words of David, “no Young Hustler”. Martin Pipe (for whom David was now riding) had typically imported the horse the previous season. He had then run second in the Kim Muir Challenge Cup, a run which suggested that a trip to Aintree could prove rewarding.
Encore Un Peu was absolutely cantering as he crossed the Melling Road for the last time.
“I thought I was going to win,” said David. “I jumped the last four lengths clear then looked behind me. Mick Fitzgerald, on Rough Quest, was coasting and the world dropped out of my pants.”
Mick passed David and immediately came across to the rails forcing David to pull on his reins and switch to the outside.
“Although it stopped my momentum, I wouldn’t have beaten him. His horse was much better than mine.”
David sportingly repeated these words to the stewards after an enquiry was called.
Rough Quest had been trained by the ill-fated Terry Casey, who died shortly after from cancer.
Speaking of this, David reflected: “Looking back at what happened to poor Terry Casey, I’d have gladly given him the race anyway. Life’s too short. At the end of the day it’s only a horse race.”
A week after his sterling effort in the National, David rode his 100th winner of the season for Martin Pipe (Balasani at Newton Abbot), eventually finishing with a total of 132, second only to Tony McCoy's 175.
It was then that he decided to leave the Pipe stable.
It was, indirectly, the beginning of the end for David’s time in the saddle.
With his winning total drastically reduced, though still respectable, he took a spare ride on Time Won’t Wait in the Martell Red Rum Chase at Aintree.
The horse crashed out at the fifth, smashing the jockey’s right arm at the elbow. His foot hung up in the iron, David was dragged across the turf with his broken arm under the horse which then did further damage.
Few people visited him in hospital, a fact that did not escape the invalid rider. “It didn’t bother me. When you’re up, you’ve got so many hangers-on and friends, but when you’re down and need a pat on the back, you get nothing.”
He was unable to resume riding until that October but suffered another heavy fall in January 1998 that aggravated his earlier injury.
David rode his final winner the following month on February 9 when getting novice hurdler Red Curate home at Fontwell for Graham McCourt.
Two days later, he damaged his elbow yet again when riding General Assembly at Ascot. He dismounted for the last time and announced his retirement. He had ridden 435 winners over jumps plus one on the Flat and two in an international jockeys’ challenge in Australia.
He then took the trainers' route and set up stables at Hill House in Lambourn and, miraculously, won with the first three horses he sent out.
In 2001, David moved to Slade Barn Stables on the outskirts of Ford Village in Gloucestershire before finally settling at Wyck Farm, near Stow-on-the-Wold, from where he now still trains. His best horse to date has been The Giant Bolster, who famously finished in the frame in three successive Cheltenham Gold Cups in 2012-2014
Biggest wins:
1991: County Hurdle – Winnie The Witch
1991: Swinton Insurance Trophy – Winnie The Witch
1992: Summit Juvenile Hurdle – Dare To Dream
1992: Finale Juvenile Hurdle – Dare to Dream
1993: Great Yorkshire Chase – Young Hustler
1994: Scottish Grand National – Earth Summit
1994: Grand Annual Chase – Snitton Lane
1995: Marston Moor Limited Handicap Chase – Gaelstrom
1996: Stayers’ Hurdle – Cyborgo
1996: Cathcart Chase – Challenger du Luc
1997: John Hughes Grand National Trial – Flyer’s Nap
1997: National Hunt Handicap Chase – Flyer’s Nap
