My dad was a Cheltenham Festival legend who famously got slapped by a female jockey – now I’m a record-breaking rider
HE famously rode five winners at the Cheltenham Festival in 1992, cementing his name in folklore.
While she created history of her own by becoming the first woman jockey to ride a winner at Meydan racecourse in Dubai.
They are the Osbornes, not to be confused with Sharon and Ozzy, but dad Jamie and daughter Saffie.
Famously, two years before his win rush at the Olympics of jump racing, Osborne Snr was slapped by rival jockey at the time Jenny Pitman at Ayr on Scottish Grand National day.
Worse still, he would lose a tooth after he was headbutted by jockey Billy Morris.
Since taking a trainer’s licence out in 1999, Jamie, 56, has scored success at Royal Ascot and was a nose from winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic with Toast of New York.
Glam Saffie became a professional jockey in 2023, and has at the tender age of 21 already achieved some success.
The pretty blonde was victorious in the Chester Cup on Metier, while Random Harvest provided her with her first British Group race success in the Group 2 Valiant Stakes.
Saffie was also a member of the winning “Girls” team in the 2023 Shergar Cup, the first time she had participated in the event.
Success
But unlike her father, she seems to be staying out of trouble.
The Yorkshireman had a few nicknames on the circuit, from being called the Pompous Pilot to the Corduroy Cavalier.
Unlike many jockeys, he came from a background similar to the stable owners who employed him.
He grew up in posh Wetherby on an estate with a farm. His family would take him out hunting, while riding a horse was a normal part of life.
Riding horses soon became his living, and when he was still at school he rode in the amateurs.
By 20 he was professional, and well on his way to success.
His good looks earned him praise from Horse & Hound magazine, who described him as “drop-dead gorgeous”.
His first major win came with Arctic Call in the 1990 Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury.
However, it was in 1992 when he would become a Cheltenham Festival legend.
He would equal a record at the time – riding five winners, including three in one day.
Over the course of his career, he would have 12 winners at Cheltenham and nearly 1,000 in all races.
1996-1997 was Jamie’s most successful season, when he finished second in the British jump racing Champion Jockey table, behind Tony McCoy, with 131 winners.
Controversy
But despite all that success, Jamie wasn’t shy of getting into trouble. Just ask Jenny Pitman.
At the novices’ hurdle at Ayr in 1990, she famously gave him an almighty slap in the face after he deliberately hampered her horse, Run To Form, in what she thought was dangerous riding.
She was fined £200 for her action, but she didn’t have any regrets.
Pitman, who became a successful trainer after her riding days, told The Independent in 1999: “No, he deserved it and knows he did.
“I regret being fined for bringing the game into disrepute, but at the end of the day, it’s not as if I did it in the public enclosure, or socked him as he got off his horse.”
Billy Morris took his actions further, throwing his head towards Osborne and knocking out a tooth in 1992.
However, bigger scandal would come in 2002 when Osborne, who began operating as a trainer from The Old Malthouse stables in 1999, was fined £4,000 by the Jockey Club after he was caught in a BBC sting.
Undercover reporter Paul Kenyon approached Osborne as a would-be owner and punter looking to buy a horse for betting purposes.
Osborne appeared to admit he would be prepared to “cheat” in order to reduce a horse’s handicap mark.
He also claimed an “in-house jockey” would be able to do this for him.
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Osborne, for his part, said his comments had been taken out of context.
He later said in a statement: “I would like to place on record my most sincere apologies to the industry,” Osborne said, “for the part that I have unwittingly played in the recent detrimental publicity that racing has suffered.”
Passing the baton
Although Osborne is, no doubt, an icon of the sport – it’s his daughter Saffie who is now earning the plaudits as a Flat rider.
In February, the ambitious youngster became the first female jockey to ride a winner in Meydan, when she produced a spectacular ride on Ouzo, trained by her dad, in the 1m1f Lord Glitters Handicap.
“It’s a dream come true to have ridden a winner there and hopefully it’s the first of many,” she said.
“I didn’t really think about the historic part of it. It’s always somewhere I’ve wanted to ride winners because I’ve grown up watching Dad train plenty of good horses who have won there.
“I’ve been really lucky to have had more high-profile winners in the last year or so of my career, so to get a big one like that for Dad was really special.”
Away from the track, she lives a charmed life. Designer dresses, Cartier parties and Dubai breaks away as she mingles with the elite are the norm.
She’s a fan of London DJ Fred Again, who she saw three times in one week, at Alexandra Palace.
While, Saffie, who dates fellow jockey David Egan, is also a self-admitted shopping addict.
She told The Telegraph: “I do it online because I don’t have much time to go to shops.
“Luckily my mum goes to the Post Office for me if I need to return anything. It’s all clothes. Everyone jokes that I walk into work in a nice dress, then put breeches and a helmet on.”