BEN Hicks is preparing to welcome jockeys for another season at Bath Racecourse – his third since swapping life in the saddle for a role as clerk of the course.
The former jockey – who once rode at Aintree on Grand National day – is gearing up for the start of the Flat season at Lansdown, with the Season Opener on April 4.
For Ben, that means making sure everything is running smoothly on race day, the first of 19 meetings Bath will host in 2025.
“The one thing I try and ensure is that there are no unwanted surprises because that is something you don’t want as a jockey, or trainer, or owner on race day,” says Ben.
“You don’t want to arrive to go racing to find that something on the track is not as you expected, or maybe something is very different in the weighing room.
“It helps that I was a jockey so I can view things from their perspective. If you have something that is unexpected it is unnerving, so I see a big part of my job is flagging things up at an early stage.
“As a former jockey, I like to think I can build a rapport with people on race day and can approach them in the right way at the right time.”
The job of the clerk of the course is to manage a team of people to ensure race day requirements – sporting ones as well as regulations around safety – are all adhered to.
Clerks need to have a broad range of skills and expertise as they are responsible for overseeing the maintenance of the course in the lead up to meetings, deciding if the course is fit to race, confirming the official going on race day, and checking over paperwork with stables staff and stewards.
But clerks also need people skills so that any anxieties jockeys or trainers have on race day can be soothed before the horses go into the starting stalls.
Thirty-year-old Ben – who grew up in the New Forest – arrived in Bath as a trainee clerk of the course in 2021, having opted to make the switch from young jockey.
He had worked around horses initially in eventing, working for triple Olympic medalist William Fox-Pitt.
He then gained wide experience as a conditional jockey in both France and England, riding for leading trainers Warren Greatrex and Jamie Snowden, before also working at a bloodstock operation.
“I was doing okay, I had a few winners and won a couple of times on a horse called, Our Reward,” says Ben.
“At 26, you leave the conditional status to become a full professional jockey and for me that coincided with Covid happening and everything changed – as it did for lots of people.
“I just wasn’t getting enough rides to actually be a full-fledged professional jockey and rely on that as my income. That’s when I decided to stop and look at other options.”
The British Horseracing Authority oversee a development programme that offers a training route for those in racing to switch roles.
For Ben, the saddle and jockey silks were packed away and on went the fleecy gilet as he entered the world of the clerks of the course.
“I applied for a job as a trainee clerk of the course at Bath and got it,” adds Ben, who went on to serve a year’s training.
“You spend time with everyone who has a role on race day – the stewards, starters, judges, vets, doctors, everyone. That’s vital because as a clerk you need to know what everyone’s responsibility is.”
But the role of the clerk of the course is certainly not just restricted to race day meetings themselves.
With spring just around the corner, Bath Racecourse is being prepared for the new season which starts in April. The grass across the one-mile-three-furlongs track may have been in winter hibernation, but Ben and the rest of the staff have certainly not been.
From the moment the Bath Flat season comes to a close at the end of October, preparations take place around the course to get everything up to scratch for the new campaign.
After the Season Opener, the next race meeting is on April 20 when big crowds are expected for the Easter Sunday Raceday.
Before then, Bath also hosts two indoor “racing experiences” – big screen coverage inside the Royal Crescent restaurant of Cheltenham Gold Cup day on March 14, followed by Grand National Day from Aintree on April 5.
Aintree was where, as a young jockey, Ben rode before his biggest crowd, a race over hurdles for conditional jockeys held immediately after the Grand National.
That was in 2018, when Tiger Roll achieved the first of his famous back-to-back National victories.
“It was certainly a different atmosphere to any race I ever rode in,” says Ben.
“There was still such a buzz around the place, it was amazing - the biggest occasion I’d ever been involved with.”
Almost 60,000 people pack in for the sport’s most famous race and although there won’t be quite that many for the Bath Season Opener, Ben says it’s the crowds that make every venue special.
“We have been really busy at Bath, getting things ready and making improvements you don’t really have time for when the season starts.
“But everyone loves it when the crowds are back for the first race day. That’s when the adrenaline really starts to flow.”
Bath Racecourse Season Opener is on Friday, April 4.
