It is like starring with Cameron Diaz

DAVID YATES says Richard Quinn has landed a dream job with trainer Henry Cecil at the grand 'old' age of 38

UNLIKE most of us, Richard Quinn doesn't hide under the bedclothes at sunrise, pressing and repressing the snooze button in a futile attempt to avoid the working day.

Ask him what his new job as stable jockey to Henry Cecil means to him and the Scot's economical reply tells all.

"I don't need an alarm clock to be up in the mornings," he grins.

In truth, it's a fair bet Quinn did not have to set up the belt- and-braces modes of rouser employed up and down the land, despite having to get up a couple of hours earlier.

During his 17 campaigns with Whatcombe trainer Paul Cole and one season as a freelance last year, Quinn consistently met the highest benchmarks of professionalism.

Passed over in favour of lesser talents for some of the prestige posts which should have come his way in the past decade, he has now made the wait worthwhile by securing what is arguably the best job a rider based in this country can have.

After tabloid claims last July of an alleged affair between Cecil's estranged wife Natalie and a 'top jockey', the Warren Place trainer sacked Kieren Fallon and immediately looked to Quinn.

He recalls: "I got a telephone call from Henry Cecil, offering me the job for next year."

Like being asked to play for centre-forward for Manchester United or perform a love scene with Cameron Diaz, it's not the sort of invitation that provokes much in the way of head scratching.

The 38-year-old said: "My reaction was quite immediate. I had to say, yes.

It was a great opportunity for me.

"It is the job everybody wants as a young jockey, and I never entertained it becoming available. I am very fortunate that I have ended up getting there."

By the end of next week, after Cecil's horses have run in the spring trials at Newbury and Newmarket, Quinn - before this year a stranger to the gallops in the Suffolk town - will be better equipped to measure how just "fortunate" he has been.

Although he partnered some of the stable's string at home in the autumn, and rode a handful on course, Quinn took up his Warren Place role in earnest at the start of February - and there are no complaints from the boss so far.

Cecil says: "I'm delighted with him and I know we will work very well together. He's very dedicated, rides out four times a week and is getting to know the horses.

"I would love to see him become champion jockey and I'm sure he has got a good chance."

Naturally, considering that Cecil combines training Classic horses - he won three last year with Wince (Sagitta 1,000 Guineas), Ramruma (Vodafone Oaks) and Oath (Vodafone Derby) to take him to a 20th century record of 22 and saddled the runner-up in the other two - with bucketfuls of maiden, conditions stakes and Pattern winners means that Quinn, second to Fallon in the 1999 table, has made a potentially decisive stride towards the two trophies cherished by every rider - those for a jockeys' title and an Epsom Derby.

Four times a Derby winner, Cecil has also retained the majority of champion jockeys over the past two decades.

Quinn, who has horses such as 1,000 Guineas hope High Walden and potential Derby colt Beat Hollow to look forward to, said: "For me, it brings the chance to ride really good horses.

"The way it is now, this is the best opportunity I will have to ride Classic winners and quality horses and it will be the best chance I will ever have of aspiring to be champion jockey. I can't envisage improving on the amount of rides as I was getting quite a lot anyway.

It is just a question of improving the winners-to-runners ratio."

Cecil himself is no stranger to championships. Not by accident, he has won the title for trainers on no fewer than 10 occasions.

"It is a combination of a lot of things," revealed Quinn when asked to point out the new gaffer's strengths.

He added: "Obviously he has got a good eye for a horse, he is good with horse management - he has a feel for his animals - and people management, and he is patient.

"He waits for the horses to tell him they are ready to do a bit more rather than just running them and seeing where they end up."

Quinn's new association will bring with it more media attention - some welcome, some not - and by the end of the year he may well be a household name.

But the Flat weighing room's Alan Shearer - nothing flash, get the work done - has been around too long to fool himself into a film star change of image with ice cream suits and fancy shades.

Quinn went on: "I am comfortable just going along and doing the job. I don't see the need to attract undue attention to myself - it is not in my character and I have never been hungry for that kind of thing.

"But each morning cannot come soon enough."

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