A Peep Into The Jockey's Changing Room

Horse racing requires a lot of hard work and training from the jockeys: balanced diet, healthy lifestyle and hours worth of training themselves and their horses - but, it's all worth it. 

Just Beverley had a peep into the Beverley Racecourse changing room and was amazed at the amount of preparation that is put into a single race. The first thing you see is 100 clothes hooks in the changing room, each assigned to a jockey where they will keep their essentials prior to a race.

When Lester Piggott rode at Beverley, he had peg number 1, and Jo Mercer had peg number 2. Now, Jo Fanning has peg number 1, Franny Norton has peg number 2 and Danny Tudhope has peg number 3.

6 valets work in the changing room alongside the jockeys. Each valet looks after 10 jockeys to ensure they all have their silks, hard hats, breeches, body protectors, boots, girths and saddles. They can earn around £10 per race per jockey, which is nice if they have 10 jockeys and each is participating in 5 races, but it's also very hard work!

In the changing rooms there are washing machines, a lot of washing powder and dryers for the valets to wash the jockeys breeches clean.

The jockeys have well catered for diet needs produced by Yuff the cook. The meals consist of various meats: chicken, fish and sausages also provided there is chips, sweets, chocolates and drinks - but alcohol is strictly forbidden.