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You don't want to wait for that aged jockey role.

A good jockey has to be physically well balanced. They have to possess a strong upper body and a strong lower body. You've gotta have quick reflexes, and you've got to be incredibly coordinated. But it's you're instincts that have to be perfect. You can't be an exceptional rider without instincts.

At first I wanted to be a jockey. I rode horses in Cleveland but I kept falling off and I was afraid of horses. So there wasn't much of a future in it.

Sir Gordon Richards was the most successful jockey - flat or jumps - there's ever been: champion jockey for 26 years. He set a record of 269 winners in the season 55 years before I broke it. That was my greatest achievement.

I bought a racehorse, Tropical Saint, that belonged to the Queen Mother. I used to go down to Banbury and watch him train, but during a televised race, his jockey pulled up and said there was something wrong. They put him in the grass to try and settle him but found him dead in the field.

I was too heavy to be a jockey and too honest to be a producer, so I became a writer.

The horse I bet on was so slow, the jockey kept a diary of the trip.

My first winner was on Legal Steps, in Ireland, at Thurles, in March 1992. I rode for Jim Bolger, and his stable jockey was Christy Roche.

I've had a passion for horses since I was very young - I used to sit on the floor in front of the races on television and pretend to be a jockey - and I first began reading the racing form on the set of 'The Partridge Family.'

There are many tough sides to being a jockey. Injury is something we all dread, but spending lengthy periods in the bath or the sauna just to shed a few pounds can be an exhausting and draining experience.