“I just go from year to year,” Franny Norton says, “but I feel this is my time now. I’m enjoying it and getting nice rides and competing in the big races. It’s things I haven’t done in the previous 20 years, when I’ve chipped in here and chipped in there. I’ve got a few years left in me but this is my time now and I’m going to take it.”
It is quite a statement of intent from a rider whose 28 years in the saddle have yet to yield a Group Two victory in Britain, never mind a Group One, but the confidence in Norton’s voice is unmistakable.
He is firmly on course for his best season yet in terms of both winners and prize money earned, his strike-rate is at an all-time high and on Saturdaytoday he will have his best chance yet — the best, perhaps, that he will ever have — to win one of the season’s most prestigious events.
The 46-year-old will ride Dancing Star, one of the market-leaders, in the Group One 32Red Sprint Cup at Haydock Park, replacing the injured David Probert, the filly’s jockey when successful in the Stewards’ Cup at Goodwood last time out. That was her fourth win from five starts this season, a sequence that has seen Dancing Star’s official handicap mark improve by more than two stone, from 75 to 108.
“This would have been David Probert’s ride but unfortunately he’s broken his wrist,” says Norton, who was confirmed as Probert’s replacement only on Wednesday. “There’s not many rides like this come up in Group One races because they’ve all got their jockeys already. It’s my bit of luck. Let’s hope I can carry it through.”
Andrew Balding’s three-year-old has the right pedigree for the step up from handicaps to the highest level, as she is from the family of Lochsong, who won both the Stewards’ Cup and Ayr Gold Cup in 1992 before taking the Nunthorpe at York the following year. She is also one of the few relatively unknown quantities in a race that, like most Group-class sprints, includes plenty of familiar names.
“She has to bridge that gap between handicap form and Group form but a lot of these that are in there, we know exactly where they are,” Norton says. “Half of them are not getting any younger but we’re on the up and up and coming in with a good profile.
“She hasn’t proved it yet but she’s won a top handicap in good fashion. She was drawn on the right side but the second horse [Orion’s Bow] is no mug. She’s not ground-dependent and she’s won in big fields and small fields. They haven’t supplemented her for no reason and it’s a terrific ride for me. If I finish my career and I haven’t won a Group One, I won’t lose any sleep over it but, if I could win one, it would be an added bonus, especially at my local track as well. I’ll have a lot of support there tomorrow.”
Horse racing, as Norton admits, was “the last thing on my mind” when he was growing up in Liverpool and showing considerable promise as a lightweight boxer.
“It was all boxing and judo for me in those days,” he says. “But I was small and that’s all it was. They don’t make people like me any more. You don’t just look at someone and say, ‘You’d make a jockey.’
“I went to some stables, one thing led to another and the rest is history. It’s almost 30 years since my first ride and I can remember it to this day. It was Chepstow and a horse called Chateau Perigord for Charlie Nelson and it finished third. Ask me what I rode last week and I wouldn’t be able to tell you but I remember that one.”
Tireless graft and impressive consistency have been the hallmarks of Norton’s long career since but recent seasons have seen the quality of his rides improving steadily too. He sees it as the consequence of a seven-year association with sport scientists at Liverpool’s John Moores University and, like many members of Team GB at the Rio Olympics, passes much of the credit for his success on to his support team.
“I’m in a good place right now,” Norton says. “I always get asked, ‘Why are you riding better?’ and I’m so lucky that I’ve got a great team behind me at John Moores University.
“I’ve got Dr James Morton, who’s with [cycling’s] Team Sky, I’ve got Professor Graeme Close, who’s with the University and also the England rugby team, and the great man Dr George Wilson, who does my nutrition. This is what jockeys need, a network of support, and I’ve got it.
“I’m much better prepared now and I’m more focused and dedicated. I’m enjoying life and, more importantly, I’ve got a great boss in Mark Johnston, who sends me to the races for good rides. So you might have to get me a Zimmer frame before I retire.”
