Band of brothers pay sombre tribute to a family member lost

Far from the grandstands, on a racecourse still free of horses, they stood in a circle, all heads bowed, and they thought of him.

Drizzle fell steadily from a grey sky that so matched the mood. One day earlier the sport said a horribly premature goodbye to Stephen Yarborough. For half his 60 years he had worked as a stalls handler, doing a job few could do or few would dare to do. The 13 men who formed the majority of the circle down by Newbury's seven-furlong start would soon be doing that job. First, though, they needed a moment together.

They were joined by BHA starters Simon McNeill and Will Jordan, who himself had been operating at Haydock on Friday when something truly awful happened. Yarborough, the poor soul it happened to, may have spent most of his time in the north, unlike the men in black armbands on duty at Newbury, but even those in the circle who did not know him well will still have felt the anguish.

Arnie Jones, the Newbury team leader, knew Yarborough better than any of them. It was he who instigated the creation of the circle. It was he who then delivered a prayer-like expression of grief for a lost friend and hope for the family that friend has left behind.

Sombre mood: Arnie Jones, team leader of the RaceTech stalls handlers at the track, stands subduedCredit: Edward Whitaker

"We needed to take a minute to think about Stephen, his family and his adopted family," said Jones. "The lads he worked with up north are his family. They travel around together all the time and share accommodation. They are like brothers."

The afternoon's Newbury brothers then awaited the eight horses and jockeys who would contest the handicap that opened the card.

The first sound in the distance was that of Frankie Dettori's voice. Yet once he and his colleagues had arrived there was little to be heard, save for numbers being shouted and Jordan calling for the removal of blinds before pressing the button.

The horses and humans had been loaded into the stalls, quickly, efficiently and without fuss. Soon enough they were mere dots in the distance.

"I wouldn't say we're taken for granted but I would say we are just expected to get on with things," said Jones, the first of seven starts completed. "We don't want any recognition, though. It's our job and we just get on with it."

Getting on with it on a day like this could not have been easy.

"It's devastating," he agreed. "I would have worked with him only about a dozen times but he was a great lad, always outgoing, always happy. He was a lovely lad who would do anything for you.

"When someone goes to work you expect them to come home. We're in shock. It's tragic. You expect the horses to be the risk, not the starting stalls.

"It's usually all laughing and joking down at the start. You're always taking the mick out of the lads, having banter. Not today."

Not this day, indeed, not down at the seven-furlong start, nor back in the weighing room, to which champion jockey Jim Crowley had returned after winning that first race.

"We couldn't do our job without the stalls handlers," said Crowley. "They look after us. They do a fantastic job. When something terrible happens it's awful for everybody. We're all so sad. Steve was a top guy."

Stephen Yarborough had been a stalls handler for 30 years

Of all the jockeys at Newbury, nobody could testify to that with more memories, or more emotion, than Paul Hanagan, once again a northern-based rider having become champion himself by ruling courses on which he had seen Yarborough so often.

"When I first started out as an apprentice he was there," said Hanagan. "He's been there since day one. He didn't change from day one, either. He would acknowledge me with a smile and then ask me how I was doing. It's so sad.

"I'm gutted, absolutely gutted. The whole weighing room is in shock."

The shock had been obvious on Friday evening at Hamilton, when it first became known that Yarborough had not survived his injuries.

"That's another northern stalls team up there, so it was a very sombre place," said Hanagan, who then summed up quite beautifully the bond between jockeys and handlers.

"People don't realise how close we are to these lads," he explained.

"Everyone knows how dangerous it is. We've been in some pretty scary situations in those stalls. The lads have always got your back. They're always there to drag you off a horse or to get the horse's head up.

"We have so much respect for them. For a lot of the lads who have known him for so long, this is so hard."

The manner in which he spoke made it obvious this was particularly hard for a visibly upset Hanagan. The stalls handlers awaiting the runners in the next race, those on duty at Ripon and Newmarket, and those who would later work at Lingfield and Haydock, the sorriest of places on this sorry Saturday, will all have felt the same.

"It's incredibly sad," said Hanagan. "I'm speaking for everyone when I say Steve was a pleasure to deal with at all times. He was an absolute gentleman."