What difference did superagent Dave Roberts make?

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In Monday's email Chris reflects on super-agent Dave Roberts and his upcoming retirement – and subscribers can get more great insight, tips and racing chat from Chris every Monday to Friday.

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In case you were in any danger of missing the significance of last week's news, that superagent Dave Roberts is retiring, the Front Runner went to Tom Scudamore to get some insight. Young Scu reports that he has been working with Roberts for "20-odd years", essentially since the start of his career, which is a commendation in itself, bearing in mind how easy it is to swap agents and how readily some jockeys have done so over the years.

"Dave was one of the pioneers," Scudamore says, "and he changed jump racing. Before he came along, you had the odd agent, like Robert Kington used to look after Richard Dunwoody and a couple of other lads.

"My dad never had an agent. Dave came along, set the standard and now you can't do without an agent."

Before Roberts, we were back in the days of jockeys being expected to put up with what they were given, rather than going out looking for work. In a book I wrote with the Scudamore family, Michael, Tom's grandfather said: "The one thing you should not do if you didn't want to get into trouble was ring up a trainer and try and get a ride off another jockey. That was murder."

Peter, Tom's father, concurred: "Somebody who rang for somebody else's ride was really unpopular. At the time, there was an advert for making phone calls, with a little bird called Buzby. The jockey who was ringing up for rides was known as Buzby.

"I remember when Ronnie Beggan – he was the first jump jockey to have an agent – sent his card to Martin Pipe. I was really miffed."

So thank goodness for Roberts and his fellow agents, professionalising the system of seeking work, freeing up jockeys to think about being jockeys and taking most of the interpersonal heat out of such matters. But Tom Scu has always been closely associated with David Pipe, so was there much scope for Roberts to make a difference?

"He got me the ride on Thistlecrack," the jockey recalls, which amounts to an emphatic 'yes'. They won ten races together, four of them Grade 1s, including the easiest Stayers Hurdle success you could hope to see and a comfortable King George triumph over Cue Card and Silviniaco Conti. Winning the Boxing Day race 60 years after his granddad meant the world to Tom.

"Dave always said to me it was a toss-up between Rough Quest and Thistlecrack as to which was the best spare ride he ever got. I suppose you could put Native River in that bracket as well."

Roberts has been so dominant in the jumps weighing room, with 48 riders on his books at the moment of his retirement, that I have sometimes wondered whether each of them was certain it was a good idea to be part of such a big team. Scudamore is clear that it was.

"I never found there to be any conflict of interest and I know Richard Johnson didn't when he was competing with AP." Roberts was agent to both men, and therefore provided rides to the British champion in 24 consecutive seasons.

"Dave had a wonderful way of going about it. You never felt there was any favouritism or anything like that. I always felt that he wouldn't have been as successful if he wasn't fair.

"In the best part of 20 years that I've been with him, I never, ever thought that he'd prioritised one over another. He treated me the same way after I'd ridden a thousand winners as he did before I'd ridden a hundred.

"Everything has to come to an end at some point. I could tell in the last season that things that wouldn't frustrate him before, perhaps did. It was still a bolt out of the blue when he told me.

"It's not just a stressful job but time-consuming. You'd be going in to ride out somewhere and get a message off Dave at 6am, the plan had changed or something. He's a workaholic, permanently on call. He never missed a race, he'd see everything.

"I can even remember dealing with him when he went on his honeymoon. Everything revolved around declarations. He'd make sure he wasn't on a plane between the hours of 9am and 12.30pm.

"And more than that, you'd come back in after a ride to find a message from Dave asking if everyone had been okay because there'd been a fall or something like that. He was always very caring, always first in touch if anyone had hit the ground."

Roberts' departure could cause quite a shake-up in the standings, with his former stable presumably being splintered among several other agents. Scudamore says he has a clear idea who he now wants as his agent and hopes to agree terms soon. In the meantime, he is enjoying a few days in the sun before returning to ride at Punchestown on Friday.

What does the jockey make of the season he has just had? "I didn't ride as many winners as I'd like, but I never do.

"It was a frustrating season a lot of the way, David's horses didn't hit form until the later stages. But he had a fantastic end to the season and I reaped the benefits. If you'd asked me three months ago, I'd have said it was an absolute disaster but then the horses turned the corner and started running very well and they've got some bloody nice horses to look forward to."

Monday's picks

I wanted to be on Tadita Twitch when she reappeared in handicaps but the more I look at her small-field race at Ayr, the more I think Head Chef (4.00) is the value at 2-1 or so. Steadily progressive in three starts as a juvenile, he was fighting for the lead at the furlong pole of a good-quality maiden during the Leger meeting when last seen.

David O'Meara, who has been worth following in three-year-old handicaps over the past couple of seasons, gelded him three days later and put him away. He's a half brother to Chindit, rated 112 when he won a Listed the other day, and there's every chance that an initial rating of 75 is going to prove lenient.

Declan Carroll is having his best month for winners since 2019 and there's nothing wrong with 6-1 about his Asmund (8.05) in a big field at Thirsk. He scored off this rating in September on the most recent occasion he was allowed to tackle fast turf and he should be all the straighter for a reappearance fourth, three weeks ago.

Some more Monday tips are provided here by Dave Randall

Three things to look out for today . . .

1. Not the least significant accolade Catherine Deneuve has ever received is the first foal out of Actress being named after her. You might recall Actress running third to Sioux Nation in the Phoenix Stakes, or beating One Master in the Ballyogan four years ago. Anyway, Deneuve is her first foal and runs today in the opener at Naas, for which the market makes her an even-money shot at the time of writing. I don't know if there's anything about the sire being No Nay Never that suggested Deneuve. At any rate, there will be no end of possible names for Actress's future progeny. The same can also be said, by the way, of Swear, a Super Sprint entrant who starts out at Windsor.

2. Aidan O'Brien has an even better-related debutant later on the card when Champagne takes on 15 rivals in a fillies maiden for three-year-olds. She's the ninth foal out of Lockinge winner Red Evie and is therefore a sister to the Arc winner Found, to Best In The World (dam of Snowfall) and to Divinely, who chased home Snowfall in the Irish Oaks. Good luck living up to that family's standards! Champagne is entered in the Oaks and the Irish Oaks but she's a 6-1 shot here because the market prefers her experienced stablemate, Emily Dickinson. Hope is the thing with feathers, folks.

3.The 1m2f maiden at Windsor this evening has been influential in recent years, being won by Sinjaari, who won the following year's John Smith's Cup, and Aspetar, who later won a Group 1 in Germany. Tonight's renewal features Cosmic Desert, Charlie Appleby's only runner of the day, who made a promising debut at the Craven meeting. His rivals include the Gosdens-trained Aerospace, who was two lengths behind Emily Upjohn in November and still holds a Derby entry. Really weirdly, the card is topped by The Raven's Return, a nine-year-old handicap hurdler from Chris Gordon's yard, making his debut under Flat rules.

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The Front Runner is our latest email newsletter available exclusively to Members' Club Ultimate subscribers. Chris Cook, a four-time Racing Reporter of the Year award winner, provides his take on the day's biggest stories and tips for the upcoming racing every morning from Monday to Friday