absolute brighton

ABSOLUTE PLACES
Material World winning at Cheltenham
Lewes is an historic and interesting town.
Radical, free thinking, the home of Tom
Paine. It is a place where battles were
won or lost and where Christian Martyrs were
burnt at the stake. Even now Lewes remembers
its turbulent past on Bonfi re Night. “It’s a lot
of old hat”, says a friend. But is it? Listen to the
drums and marching feet breasting the hill to
the Law Courts, and see the fl ares held by the
marchers dressed in different, but somehow
sinister, costumes. It makes the hairs stiffen on the
back of my neck. And another tradition remains,
albeit a gentler one. Lewes, a patch of yellow on
a sea of blue, still votes Liberal and a Mr Baker is
now a Government Minister.
This month I want to tell you about Lewes
resident Suzy Smith and her partner Sergio.
They train racehorses high on the hill, next
to the old Lewes racecourse, and above that
grim prison. The prison is overcrowded and the
majority re-offend on release. A social problem
that successive governments seem to ignore,
well apart from promising to build more prisons.
Perhaps Mr Baker will try and do something
about it. “Honourable members, I have a prison
66 ABSOLUTE
in my constituency… “For goodness sake, Parker”
I hear my old English Master say, “don’t ramble!”
So, back to Suzy, Sergio and their horses. I’m
sorry that I never had the good fortune to go to
the races on the old Lewes racecourse. It must
have been wonderful on a fi ne day, the course
a natural arena. But it needed a tough and welltrained
horse to win – uphill all the way to the
grandstand and a sharp bend before the fi nish.
Last Saturday, I took my friend Roger to meet
Suzy and Sergio at their establishment, ‘Suzy
Smith Racing at County Stables,’ to give it its full
name. They showed us their horses – those
which weren’t on holiday. The horses are kept in
a small, friendly yard, and the stables were part
of the Tote buildings for the old course. “We
take pride in keeping our horses happy,” said
Suzy, “they work better that way.” And indeed,
from their boxes many of them have a great
view of the rolling Downs and the magnifi cent
countryside.
Suzy is primarily a trainer for National Hunt
horses but recently she’s done particularly well
on National Hunt fl at races – Bumpers. These
races, over two miles, have become popular.
Material
WORLD
Tim Parker shows us
another side of Lewes,
when he pays a visit to
Suzy Smith Racing at
County Stables,
located next to
the old Lewes
Racecourse
“Our horses, whatever they’re doing, are welltrained
and fi t. Let them take the lead, I tell our
jockeys, and see if anyone can catch them.”
On my last visit to the yard, Material World, a
remarkable one-eyed fi lly, was in her box. Since
that visit she has won a number of really good
races on left-handed and right-handed tracks.
“It doesn’t seem to bother her,” said Suzy. “She
copes remarkably well. Now she’s having foals
and we hope that she will produce a son or a
daughter as good as she is.” After our inspection
of the stables, Sergio drove us round the course
and past some jumps, which he himself builds for
training purposes.
But it wasn’t only the course and the training
facilities which fascinated me. The Lewes
countryside is remarkable, full of life. We saw
skylarks, many varieties of birds, and some plump
pheasants which had survived the shooting
season. “And there’s much more,” Sergio told
me. “We have foxes, badgers, rabbits, hares
and a wide variety of wildlife, including deer.
Not so very long ago I saw a remarkable stag,
a fourteen-pointer, standing a few yards from
here.”