Josephine Gordon opens up on Palmer split

Josephine Gordon has opened up to Adam McNamara on the latest Jockeys: The Podcastabout the challenges she faced when taking on her first big role in Newmarket with Hugo Palmer and how she dealt with the fallout from the end of that riding arrangement.

Gordon became only the third female jockey to win the Champion Apprentice title when guiding home five more winners than the previous year’s victor Tom Marquand in 2016 - ‘It was a great feeling – something I probably haven't experienced since’ - and that earned her a high-profile move to Palmer’s then-Kremlin Cottage Stables.

She told McNamara: “I was coming up to Newmarket once or twice a week to ride out for Hugo [Palmer] and I had to make the move; it was my chance to be riding listed horses and group horses. 

“So, it was something that I didn't take lightly, but I had to do it. I spoke to Stan Moore about it and a few other people and they said that it's something that you've got to do.”

However, whilst Gordon was enjoying plenty of success in the saddle in the first few seasons in Newmarket, she felt unsettled under an increased spotlight in the bubble of racing's headquarters.

She explained: “For the first year and a half, it was brilliant. And I was given a lot of chances - Hugo's horses were flying and it was a good team.

“I loved the job, but Newmarket itself, I wasn't a fan of it. I didn't have any friends up here and my family were only two hours away from Lambourn. I just didn't feel at home. 

“I think it's difficult in racing. A lot of people don't like to see other people doing well and I think rumours can get created and it can get back to the boss or owners. 

“And especially when I was doing well - I wouldn't hear anything about myself now - but I think probably when I was younger, it would get to me. 

“Now, as I've got older, I've realised there's nothing you can do.”

Gordon’s relationship with Palmer became more distant after she fractured her left hand in a stalls incident in July 2018 and in early 2019 she decided to ride as a freelance after relinquishing her role as stable jockey. She recalled: “I had an accident up at Ayr and I ended up breaking my hand and I was off maybe three weeks. 

“I just really struggled to get going after that and I felt like the horses that Hugo was giving me weren't particularly in with a chance and the rides were just slowing down. And then I realised, ‘oh, I'm getting jocked off horses I've won on here before’.

“I probably was riding badly - just knackered, exhausted - but I was a kid, and you've got to keep going when you're doing well.

“I knew probably on the quiet I was getting the sack so before he could say anything I said ‘I think something's got to change because I know you don't want to use me - whatever's gone wrong, it's not working’. 

“I think Hugo was probably in the same boat as me. I probably should have gone to him and said, ‘what's going on?’ but I never did. Or he could have come to me and said it.

“There was no falling out - there was no disagreement, and I have ridden for him since - and I wouldn't have a bad word to say against him.

“I just wish back then that someone would have spoken to me and said something needs to change, maybe two weeks off as a break or I just needed a little bit of help.

“But it hasn't ended badly and it was a brilliant, brilliant few years.”

Gordon credits trainer Shaun Keightley with taking time to help build her confidence back up and getting her career back on track following the split, and is in a good place as she looks to kick on in the second half of her riding career.

She remembered: “He said 'You need to find your confidence’, and the more I was riding for him, instead of him telling me off, he was helping me.

"I probably rode terribly for a good six months but Shaun pushed me and I think it was a confidence thing.

"I think the best people to talk to are jockeys because you can't really talk to someone that's out of it - they can't really understand what you're going through. It's your career. It's winners.

“Do us jockeys talk to each other? Probably not, no. Something probably should change to help jockeys in that situation, but I think we're very old school and we stick to what we know. We don't like change. 

“We are physically built to be tough. You fall off a horse, you dust yourself off, you get back up.

“And I think that's the same when you're having a bad time of it and you haven't got a clear head; you have to just chuck it to one side and move on. It's wrong.

"But I'm in a really good place now. And, although it [riding as a freelancer] is difficult, I'd say I'm a lot happier now.”