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The memory of that win will always be imperishably happy
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The memory of that win will always be imperishably happy

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Brodie hampson and father

Brodie Hampson with her father Mark and Jennys Surprise

Alastair Down meets a rider who made her dying father’s dream come true

ONE OF the most telling passages from the Old Testament reminds us there is “a time to weep and a time to laugh”.

Those moments do not as a rule come together but at Sandown eight days ago they walked hand in hand when Brodie Hampson turned the water of certain defeat into the wine of celebration and elation when landing the Royal Artillery Gold Cup on Jennys Surprise, carrying the colours of Brodie’s dying father Mark.

On that Friday the racing press and wider media were in Norfolk watching a cyclist fall off a horse. But Surrey was the place to be if you like your emotion undiluted because Brodie Hampson’s triumph was raw, real, uplifting and stirring stuff by any measure.

She is sitting in the kitchen of her boss Sally Randell, who has taken over the licence at Andy Turnell’s Broad Hinton yard. Hampson lives over the hill at Barbury Castle and a couple of miles down the road towards Swindon her father is doing the most difficult thing of all in the Prospect Hospice in Wroughton, where Jennys Surprise paid him a visit on Thursday.

Dad was in the Royal Artillery for 22 years leaving as a highly respected sergeant. Around 12 months ago cancer returned to his oesophagus and in December he was told he had 30 days to live.

Given we are almost in March you wouldn’t want that particular medic’s views on today’s Placepot at Kempton but the inevitable is only ever postponed.

Brodie says: “Dad and I are very close – he’s my best friend. When I was first told he had cancer I got down but it was Dad who picked me up.

“He has highs and lows physically. A week before Sandown he needed two blood transfusions and because a hole means fluids can go straight into his lungs he is on a drip for nourishment. But two days before the race he suddenly picked up and he made it there.”

Bravery is stock-in-trade for any jump jockey and this one, despite just five years in the game, has needed plenty although she got off to a flying start in the saddle.

She says: “Dad knew Sally Randell from their army days together and when I was 16 Sally went off to train point-to-pointers in Wales and I went too. In lived in a caravan and one morning I remember it was -15C. I wasn’t paid, I was working for rides. After three months I had my first go in a novice riders’ race weighing eight stone and carrying three stone of lead.

“It was mental because I was absolutely clueless. I lost my stirrup four out but eventually managed to get it back and then the saddle slipped and I was hanging off the side of him at the last but somehow we got up and won by a short head. Looking back I didn’t know a thing about racing – I’d only been in it for five minutes.”

But there have been flip sides to the coin and she says: “I broke my back at the second fence in a maiden at Howick. I was knocked unconscious and broke my T7, 8 and 9 vertebra. I crushed 10 and also broke my nose and thumb. I couldn’t ride for six months and promised my mum Jan I would only ride on the Flat. She got very cross when she found out I was schooling horses in secret. You’ll never find a stronger person than my mum – she’s had cancer twice.

“Her only weakness is watching me ride in races. The first time I rode she cried from start to finish.”

At Sandown the other day people started crying at the finish, and with good reason.

Brodie Hampson with Fort George

Brodie Hampson with her Aintree Fox Hunters’ hope Fort George

  PICTURE: Matthew Webb  

It had long been the cherished ambition of father and daughter for Brodie to ride a winner in Mark Hampson’s colours. There had been plenty of attempts to no avail and, without being melodramatic, one of the races involved was against time.

Our old acquaintance the Grim Reaper hadn’t made himself a member for the day at Sandown but the clock was ticking.

The Royal Artillery Gold Cup is the gunners’ race and Mark was a sergeant with them. Jennys Surprise had been an intended runner at abandoned Bangor a week earlier so the Yes, No, Wait Sorries leased her out for the day.

Hampson says: “In many ways the race was won before we got there as when Dad was given that 30 days I said ‘you will see me ride a winner in your colours – it’s going to happen.’

“The Sunday before I had ridden in a point at Barbury Castle in his colours and we whipped around at the start and lost 20 lengths so I just schooled round. As I pulled up past the line I saw him in the car park and went over. He’d just popped up the road to watch the race and said “Okay I’m just going to shoot back to the hospice now.’

“He went and it was cold and I’d failed yet again to win in his colours and I was running out of time. I just burst into tears, which is not like me.

“Some people say they can’t get into my head and that I’m not a people person. I don’t show my emotions to be honest but that day at Barbury made me all the more determined. I love this game and given the opportunity I can be more determined than anyone.”

Hampson’s boss Randell is Fergal O’Brien’s partner and it is Randall who not only taught the 21-year-old all she knows but has given her the thing no jockey can live without – confidence, something she displayed in abundance in the race last week.

Hampson says: “Jennys Surprise is slow but she never stops trying. I’d talked to Paddy Brennan about her and he said she’d schooled superbly. But my God, did we miss the first. I went to give her a squeeze and she put down on me.

“Then we made a big hash of the downhill fence going out into the country for the final time and lost position. But she winged the Railway fences – loved them – and what a fantastic sight that line of fences is down the back straight.

“But after the Railway fences it looked hopeless as the front two had got away and there was nothing underneath me and my only hope is they would somehow come back.

“We were very slow over the Pond fence and had no chance at all – I thought it would take a miracle to get anywhere near. But she has such a heart because most horses that far back would give up.

“She jumped two out very well and I thought ‘Jesus we could get into this’ and just kept slapping her down the neck. We jumped the last and the two in front are walking – they are literally walking – the one on the left hangs and I just run straight. I had to switch my stick and it wasn’t my greatest finish but she did it.

“Sally and Fergal ran up – Sally in tears and Fergal almost dragging me off cuddling me. Fergal wouldn’t let me go into the winner’s enclosure until Dad was there. He could not really talk for crying but he said ‘We’ve done it’ and we had this massive cuddle.

“He was crying alongside mum and my brother Callum. Everyone praises my dad so much and they are right to – a lot of his army mates were there and lots of them were in tears too. All those tough soldiers. I was determined to hold it together and somehow I managed to.”

Jennys Suprise

Jennys Surprise and Brodie Hampson in the Royal Artillery Gold Cup

  PICTURE: Mark Cranham (racingpost.com/photos)  

THIS is more than your correspondent is doing listening to Hampson tell the tale. She is enchanting but with a streak of wistfulness that comes from the knowledge that less than ten minutes away her favourite man in the world is engaged in a fight that is fixed.

But there will be no defeat. The Royal Artillery Gold cup was a victory – one of a sergeant’s finest hours delivered against all odds and under magnificent circumstances by a daughter with the inherited courage and determination of a soldier.

Sandown was indeed “a time to weep and a time to laugh”. The harder part is ahead and the Old Testament sage goes on to write that there is “a time to mourn and a time to dance”.

And yes they will mourn Mark Hampson. But was a father’s passage ever eased in more timely or fitting fashion than by his daughter at Sandown?

The memory of that win will always be imperishably happy – it cannot be corrupted. There was something pure about its symmetry and the sentiments it aroused.

So after the mourning – perhaps as part of that process – strike up the band. It will be time to dance once more.

 

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