Winning silks

he modelling business can get pretty tough. For every Claudia and Naomi there are about 100,000 wannabes. It's almost as tough in the racing world - especially if you want to become a successful jockey in the jumping department. High-profile figures such as Richard Dunwoody are few and far between. The majority's dreams are shattered while still mucking out the local trainer's stables.

For someone to contemplate reaching the top as both model and jump jockey suggests the initial stages of insanity or an incredibly large amount of ambition and drive. In the case of Vicky Haigh, it is the latter.

Women jockeys do not earn big money or a high profile, while successful models prefer not to break their noses or neck vertebrae, as Vicky has in her time. It doesn't seem to bother her, though, as our fashion shoot down at the stables with racing legend Desert Orchid shows.

"Nobody has given me a convincing reason why I can't succeed as a jockey," she says. "As for the modelling, things are really beginning to happen, and it should provide me with the means to start riding decent horses."

Through her modelling, which has included both catwalk and fashion shoots at the very highest level, she intends to earn enough cash to buy her own, top-quality horses.

"The point is, whether it's in racing or modelling, I want to come over as a professional. I've wanted to be a jockey since I was nine," the 25-year-old from Doncaster explains. "I dreamt of winning the Grand National or the Cheltenham Gold Cup . . . and still do.

"Even when I started growing too tall in my teens, and everyone told me I wouldn't be able to make it, the ambition still burned. That's why I quit being a stable girl, and took out an amateur licence when I was 21.

"Over the past four years I've been up at 4am, driven hundreds of miles, ridden for trainers in the mornings in the hope they'll give me a ride and made millions of phone calls. I've had maybe 50 races in this time, which isn't bad, but I'm looking to race each week and beat top jockeys."

When given a chance, Vicky stuffs the preconceptions of the largely chauvinist racing world down its throat. Two years ago, on a 50-1 outsider at Sandown, she won her first race - in front of Channel 4 cameras. "Nobody knew who I was, but it's my intention that they will," she adds.

She does not accept that men make naturally better jockeys. "The best jockey will not win a race unless he's on the best horse. Otherwise, why don't people like Richard Dunwoody win every time they ride? It's because the best horse wins, unless the jockey makes a major cock up. Trainers think women aren't strong enough, but if you stick me on the best horse in a race, the chances are I'll win it."

Vicky's other problem, in this sense, is her model looks. This invariably results in blatant come-ons. "I ignore them," she says, rather resignedly. She has a distant boyfriend in America. "I get a lot of suggestions, but I change the subject. If they don't like it, that's their problem."

Could you imagine Christy Turlington on a horse, battling with rival jockeys and horses, mud flying into her face at a petrifying 35mph?

"There's a lot of bumping into each other during a race, but the speed, danger and the whole atmosphere provides an enormous thrill because you're fighting to survive.

"If the worst came to the worst, and I broke my nose badly, I may have to look for a different way, but right now it's going very well and, let's face it, I'm the only one in either business doing it."

Indeed she is. Having just signed up with model agency, CSI, which combines sports and modelling, and boasts clients such as Lennox Lewis and Martin Offiah, Vicky is a step closer to fulfilling her dreams.

RACY SILKS

Clockwise from top left: blue satin shirt, pounds 34.99, from Oasis. Enq: 0171 377 5335. White satin pyjama pants, pounds 74.99, from Hobbs. Enq: 0171 586 5550. Orange satin shirt dress, pounds 44.99, from Oasis, as before. Leather trousers, Vicky's own. Green sleeveless shirt, pounds 49.99, from Hobbs, as before. Cream shantung silk trousers, pounds 45, from Next. Catalogue enq: 0345 100 500. Branches: 01162 849 424. Cream snakeskin loafers, pounds 90, from French Connection. Enq: 0171 580 2507. Lilac shantung silk dress, pounds 50, from branches of Dorothy Perkins. Enq: 0171 291 2604. Necklace, from pounds 350, by Tateossian. Enq: 0171 351 5651. Hair and make-up by Julia Bolino.

Thanks to Frogpool Manor Stables, Chislehurst. Tel: 0181 300 0716.

Copyright 1996 MGN LTD
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