The Big Read: Bryony Frost takes everything in stride as she climbs towards top

Bryony Frost bids to become the first woman to ride the winner of the Ladbrokes Trophy at Newbury on Saturday [FocusOnRacing]

One of Bryony Frost’s favourite hobbies is surfing. It is appropriate because she will arrive at Newbury on Saturday to partner Present Man in the Ladbrokes Trophy riding a crest of a wave.

Life is a beach for the 22-year-old conditional jockey from Devon, who will have three nother high-profile rides at the meeting in the shape of Black Corton, Old Guard and Warriors Tale.

Saturday winners are the lifeblood of any successful jockey, and the 5lb claimer has managed to keep rolling this month. She guided Black Corton to a fifth success at Cheltenham a fortnight ago, having partnered Present Man to glory in the Badger Ales Trophy at Wincanton seven days earlier.

For Frost, a bubbly character who was visiting London for only the second time when I interviewed her, it is not a time to rest on her laurels.

Another of her other leisure activities away from racing is to climb tors on Dartmoor and, like any good young rider, she knows that the only way right now is up.

“Life as a jockey - you never know when to pull up,” she says. “I hope it won’t be for a very long time for me and I’m hoping to get the momentum behind me and improve my riding so I can really make a stand," she says. "But that’s uncontrollable, you can’t do anything about it, so let’s keep improving and whatever falls your way will fall your way.

“My metaphor in life is if you look to the top of a mountain it’s a long way up so take every stride as it comes.”

The stark truth is that whenever a female sportswoman starts to do well the traditional media and some sections of social media inevitably start mentioning the breaking of glass ceilings.

Last weekend Josephine Gordon, another Devon native, became only the second woman to smash through the 100 winners barrier in a calendar year after Hayley Turner. Hollie Doyle lost her claim on the same day, while Lizzie Kelly has twice won Grade One races over fences on Tea For Two.

On the one hand it can be patronising to ask a woman how they feel about their success in what continues to be a male-dominated sport, but, whatever your viewpoint on the matter, this is at the very least just a good time to be a female rider. Frost is not going to pick up any flags and embark on a crusade, however, and she makes it clear that she sees no divide between the sexes.

“I don’t see myself as different, people always talk about this boy-girl thing going on, of course National Hunt is enriched in history, it creates opinions and of course its going to create opinions on females," she says.

Bryony Frost with the Ladbrokes Trophy in the Landmark Hotel in London (Francesca Altoft)

“We are trying to break the mould, we are trying to break the perception of being weaker, of not being sharp or as strong.

“Since I was 15 I have been doing weight training, I’ve been stretching my body harder and harder so when I got to my age now I’m strong. Now I’m in the public eye I can stretch my body, you always have to be stepping up the ladder one step at a time.”

Frost is keenly aware of the rich history of the Jumps game. She is the daughter of Buckfastleigh-based trainer Jimmy Frost, who also won the Badger Ales Chase aboard Coome Hill, the horse that went on to win the Hennessy Gold Cup under Jamie Osborne in 1996.

Frost Sr's moment in the limelight came when he struck in the 1989 Grand National aboard Little Polvier and he also enjoyed a great association with Morley Street, the 1991 Champion Hurdle winner, before he took up his father’s training licence in March, 2002.

Bryony’s brother Hadden was also a successful jockey and partnered Buena Vista to victory in the Pertemps Final at the 2010 Cheltenham Festival and now sources and breaks in horses. He seems to share his sister’s natural ability to communicate and recently took up writing poetry.

Grand National-winning rider Jimmy Frost, his son, Hadden, and Bryony (Racingfotos)

Given her breeding, it was only natural she would end up in the saddle, although her father hardly encouraged it.

Frost started riding the yard’s donkey, Nosey, as soon as she could walk and was hunting at the age of four. A year later she asked her father if she could ride a racehorse and he dismissed the suggestion.

Mistakenly relying on the parental tactic of the long-game, he told her to wait until she was nine in the hope she would forget. She did not, and on that birthday at 5.30am she bounded into her father’s bedroom with a spring of expectation.

From there the pony racing circuit beckoned and she became an amateur jockey aged 16 and enjoyed tremendous success in point-to-points (more than 55 winners in that sphere), winning the National Novice title and the National Hunt Girls’ title.

It was here that she made friends with Megan Nicholls, Paul Nicholls's daughter, who often let her ride one of her pointers. From there, it was only a matter of time before she walked through the gates of Manor Farm in Ditcheat to eventually secure the ride aboard Pacha Du Polder and that momentous victory in the Foxhunter Chase in March.

Ten-times champion trainer Nicholls has nothing but praise for her, as does John Francome, who won the Hennessy Gold Cup twice as a jockey and knows a talent when he sees it.

“I thought she looked more like a pro than Richard Johnson the other day at Cheltenham!” Francome joked. “Her dad was a really good jockey and her brother was exceptional, too, he just didn’t make it. Sometimes people slip through the net, but she hasn’t.”

Present Man is a general 16-1 for the Ladbrokes Trophy and fits a lot of the usual statistical profiles. He is aged seven, like nine of the past 18 winners. He is a second-season chaser and with all ten winners in the last decade being rated over 145 her 5lb claim off the 10st 7lb he carries for his 146 handicap mark looks a fine piece of work from the trainer.

He has five wins from ten starts over fences, two of which were in the hands of Frost this season at Kempton and in the Badger Ales.

It is just a question of whether he is classy enough. Two years ago prominent owners Andy Stewart and Paul Barber sold Present Man to Mark Woodhouse with the expectation that, as Nicholls put it, “he would be lucky to win a small race around Wincanton”.

Since then, Present Man has undergone wind surgery and showed at Wincanton three weeks ago that 3m1f130y in soft ground held no fears for him. Stamina is clearly not an issue, and we definitely know now that he wears his heart on his sleeve.

“I’ve only sat on him twice,” Frost says. “Kempton was like when Formula One cars go round to warm up their tyres before a race. We didn’t know if it would be a walk in the park for him and it was.

“He’s not a hurdler, you’ve seen the size of him, his structure and his mechanics inside, he’s a chaser and that’s what he is. So Kempton was good and we went on to Wincanton and he got it done and it was just magical. I can’t get over it. I still have to pinch myself sometimes. I don’t think I’ll appreciate what kind of day it was until I have to do it again.

“He felt like a brave horse, he felt like the best horse in the race, as soon as he got his head in front he braved it out where it mattered which was on the line. I’ve never sat on a horse that’s performed over an obstacle like that. The adrenaline that he gave me that day was incredible and as a jockey that’s the kind of horse you want to be sat on

“Now he rolls on down to the Ladbrokes and it’s a big day for us all.”

Last week Frost showcased her versatility by riding the gentle giant Cyril to victory in the Clydesdale Race at Exeter, after which she channeled her inner Frankie Dettori by performing a flying dismount. Will she do it again if Present Man or Old Guard win on Saturday?

“No,” she says with a smile. “When I was asked to do a flying dismount, I looked at him and he was very wide. I thought 'if I jump off from here I am definitely going to catch my leg in this saddle and fall flat on my face'. So I got somebody to hold him and I stood up and jumped off and as I was coming down I wondered where the ground was. I would have been in a lot of trouble if I have twisted my ankle.

“To win was really cool – I think he was helped by his long whiskers.

“It was for a good cause as the Devon Air Ambulance is close to my heart, my oldest brother [Dan] broke his back on Dartmoor and without them he wouldn’t be here. That win meant a lot more to me than it looked on the front.”

You suspect becoming the first woman to win the Ladbrokes Trophy, a race first run 61 years ago, will mean much more to Frost than she lets on, too.