23 April 2008 Pilots in Profile - Ryan Bliss
Somerset based Ryan Bliss has eleven winners on the board so far this season, and is the third busiest rider in the country with 94 rides to his name. A self-confessed 'muso', scribe, and cricket lover, he is the thinking man's rider with a chilled out viewpoint on life.
AGE 25.
MARITAL STATUS Unmarried, though with girlfriend, Louise.
PROFESSION Stable employee, not a bad one some say, others will dispute!
ARE YOU FROM A RACING BACKGROUND? Only partially, my father and the majority of his family were in the Navy, though I hate water and everything involved with it, especially getting wet. My mother became involved with horseracing when Elite Registrations, where she worked, diversified into Elite Racing in the early nineties. I went racing with her from an early age, idolising Adrian Maguire, John Reid and Pat Eddery. It blossomed from there. My school friends told me I was too fat to ride when I was as an adolescent, so that spurred me into a school diet of a can of diet coke and an apple, hence I'm quite short now and not the heaviest!
FIRST RIDE - WHEN, FOR WHOM, HORSE, COURSE, FATE? Barbury Castle, January 2000, Dante's Gold, unseated after hampered by my good friend Mike Green four out in a novice riders' race. I had two rides in those dreadful races, both were horrible. This was for a great supporter of mine, Michael Blake, who has helped me so much for a very long time, and gave this fat kid the belief he could do it.
WHO ARE THE MAIN TRAINERS THAT YOU RIDE FOR? Very gratefully, John Dufosee and Keith & Janet Cumings.
WHERE ARE YOU BASED/LIVE? Castle Cary, Somerset, the best county with the best (recently promoted) cricket team in the world.
WHAT CAR DO YOU DRIVE? A £380 Peugeot 406 with an equally cheap dented door. She goes well and does more than an average amount of miles. She used to be blue, but tends to sport a familiar shade of brown in these winter months.
DESCRIBE YOUR PERFECT NIGHT IN & PERFECT NIGHT OUT Both with my girlfriend, who cooks beautifully, with a great steak, wine and DVD, oh and ice-cream and éclairs, and the night out in Covent Garden or Paris eating French food, drinking too much followed by a superbly long lie in and everything that entails. I like to be quite indulgent.
IF YOU WERE SUSPENDED - WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH YOURSELF? I tried to get suspended at school once, but never managed it. I try to avoid Stewards' intervention, but fail from time to time. I love European holidays, however.
WHO WOULD BE YOUR PERFECT TRAVELLING COMPANIONS TO THE RACES? Definitely Tigga Barnes, my regular companion, in so many ways, with a bit of Ian Brown and Babyshambles on the stereo, and, of course, Louise, who makes fabulous picnics!
WHAT CD'S ARE YOU PLAYING IN YOUR CAR AT PRESENT? I'm a massive music fan, as big as I am a racing fan. Loving Ian Brown and Jarvis, my actual icons, Libertines/Babyshambles, Bloc Party, though I love new bands the best, and they are Joe Lean and the Jong Jang Jong, who will be the biggest band in the country soon, I've seen them twice already and they're amazing. You heard it here first. Richard Hawley to chill out.
WHO ARE YOUR BIGGEST HEROES - IN AND OUT OF RACING? Lennon and McCartney, Ian Brown, Jarvis Cocker, Pete Doherty (misunderstood), Pete Townsend, Michael Vaughan, and I suppose in racing........ Sir Mark Prescott and Martin Pipe.
WHAT TURNS YOU ON/OFF - IN RACING & LIFE IN GENERAL? Off - Negativity, liars, straightness, people lacking in any interest whatsoever. On - kindness, honesty, integrity, lunacy, consistency.
WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR FUNNIEST INCIDENT AT THE RACES? I have seldom laughed so much than when winning on Black Bandit at Hackwood last year. It was a three runner race, a very rare spare for me, I was giving him a rubbish ride after he had jumped poorly for two circuits, when the favourite unseated three out, left a novice rider in front, whose horse started running about and stopping, so I waited before reducing the thirty-odd length gap, then drove on to lead over the last and won going away! He got me out of jail; his owner was seething from the sidelines as I was giving him no ride! In my defence, the poor horse's jumping did eventually cost him his life last season.
IF YOU COULD CHANGE ONE THING IN RACING - WHAT WOULD IT BE? One thing - tricky. I am a great thinker and would change a few things in pointing. I would possibly reduce the inequality in Open races, with 7lb penalties for Men's races for multiple/rules winners, and introduce them across the board in Ladies' races. It is wrong that I should have won five races and come up through the grades on Machrihanish and then lose out as he is pushed, sensibly, into Ladies' races, as he is 15.2hh and probably unable to carry 12st7lbs after winning three Opens.
IF YOU HADN'T TAKEN UP RIDING - WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE? Definitely, definitely, a poet. I love to write, keep extensive diaries and would like to grow up in the near future and actually pursue a proper career involving using my intelligence, which occasionally I possess. I love to write.
WHAT IS THE DAFTEST THING A FELLOW RIDER, AN OWNER, OR TRAINER, HAS EVER SAID TO YOU? I was told to ride a maiden with very limited ability to make the running, but don't make too much use of him, and take a lead a few years ago at Larkhill. He did not win and neither did he run again after finishing third! And that was trained by one of the best riders the sport had ever seen.
WHAT HAVE BEEN THE BEST AND WORST RIDES YOU HAVE GIVEN A HORSE? Worst - innumerable, though falling off Maxou des Brosses as he slipped at WSV at Cothelstone last year reverberates in my head like one of Keith Moon's cymbals, as I could have won easily if I had not pursued an inside route as if it was detrimental to my mere existence. Shocking. Best would be difficult. I find riding winners a very momentary 'hit', so the best changes every year. They usually involve Machrihanish, and the SWW meeting at Larkhill when he turned tables on Trade Off on 4lbs worse terms was special, as was any win on Sue Woodhouse's Rio Pops, who was a really tricky ride.
DO YOU HAVE ANY REGRETS IN YOUR RIDING CAREER? Very, very few. Only bad rides, especially the one I've detailed. We all make mistakes, you've got to get over them and move on as best possible. Temperament is very important to me; I hate to see any violence or aggression from fellow riders after bad experiences.
NEXT WEEK: JACQUELINE COWARD
