Racing: Listener provides Jacob's ladder to top

When the local hunt met at Robert Alner's stables last year, the hounds never even noticed when a fox darted through the kitchen garden. Yesterday, after the same meet, Alner returned to find another one brazenly taking the winter sunshine in the adjacent field. Since all that awkward legislation, the arrival of scarlet coats is obviously the cue for Andrew Thornton to feel persecuted instead.

Last year, the yard's senior jockey had just been "jocked off" Kingscliff in favour of Robert Walford, and now he finds himself replaced on The Listener by Daryl Jacob. In neither case did Alner himself point the gun. But whereas Kingscliff's owner made a quixotic choice in Walford, who has ridden 62 winners in five seasons, Jacob's promotion to ride The Listener in the Lexus Chase at Leopardstown next Thursday represents a natural next step for a young rider going places.

Though Tom O'Brien remains a runaway leader, Jacob is second in the conditionals' table with 25 winners and last month advertised his gifts with a joyous ride on I Hear Thunder - trained by another valued Dorset patron in Bob Buckler - over the Grand National fences. Yet only last summer he was so dejected by an unproductive season away with Paul Keane that he could see little future. "I wasn't enjoying it any more, and was half-thinking of giving up," Jacob admitted yesterday. "But I had a long talk with Robert and he was good enough to take me back, and since then I've had a new lease of life."

Loquacious and engaging, Jacob evidently had some growing up to do when he arrived from Co Wexford but at 23 is unmistakably blossoming. "Whatever he might be off a horse, on a horse he has a brilliant racing brain," Alner said. "He's on his way to the top, no question, he has so much natural ability. His father is a fisherman, his family had nothing at all to do with horses, but apparently he got on to a pony when he was about seven and something just clicked."

The adolescent Jacob was spotted hunting by Jack Murphy, a trainer of eventers, who sent him to the apprentice school at the Curragh. After some early rides for Dessie Hughes, he started in England with Richard Hannon. But it was on the big chasers trained by Alner and his wife, Sally, that Jacob found his milieu.

With its random ditches and hedges, the hunt is Nature's steeplechase. Across the lost valleys of Dorset, Jacob was in his element yesterday - as might well be imagined from the way he rode Aintree. "Looking at the best of the experienced riders, and talking with them, you learn that it's not about asking for extravagant leaps all the time," he said. "It's about getting into a rhythm. A horse saves a lot of energy that way. And with Robert being such a horseman himself, I am learning every day I ride here."

A few mornings ago Jacob schooled The Listener, who gave weight and a beating to some of the best novices around at Cheltenham on New Year's Day but fell on both subsequent starts. He might well have beaten Star De Mohaison on his reappearance at Sandown, had Thornton not yielded the initiative to Ruby Walsh, but Alner was delighted that his priority had been met. The horse was back on an upward curve. "The run brought him on a lot," Alner said. "Andrew gave him a lovely ride. The most important thing was a clear round. And Star De Mohaison was obviously very fit."

Either way, all is fair in love and racing and Jacob cannot wait to tackle War Of Attrition and Beef Or Salmon. "I'm so grateful to the Alners, and especially to the owner for giving me this chance," he said. "They could have had any jockey they wanted. There would have been a queue a mile long. The Listener is one of the nicest horses in England. Things have been going well, but this really is the icing on the cake."

* Graham Lee is on standby to ride Racing Demon in the Stan James King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day. Timmy Murphy, already booked by Henrietta Knight, may yet be claimed for Commercial Flyer, who unexpectedly remained among the dozen acceptors yesterday.