Why waifs like kate moss should worry

by Niamh Walsh

In our ever expanding, weight conscious society, we frequently forget to reflect on how our actions today will affect our tomorrows. Extreme Diets grace the pages of all glossy magazines, Atkins is the quick fix option and the ‘Cigarette and Caffeine’ craze is another popular option thanks to TV shows like ‘The Hills’ and ‘Gossip Girl’.

But what are the repercussions of these faddy weight loss treatments. One man who spent a considerable amount of his youth battling his weight is Mullingar man, Mr. Cecil Ross. While his name may not ring many bells in fashion circles, his name surely sounds familiar in the horse-racing circuit. Cecil Ross was a very well known and respected jockey in the sixties and seventies. He was also a prize winning breeder and trainer.

So what does a sportsman have to do with extreme weight loss? Believe it or not, before the original waif Kate Moss was even a twinkle in her mother’s eye, jockeys like Mr. Cecil Ross were championing the extreme weight loss tricks. But all to his detriment, he will readily admit.

Ross is now a painfully thin and fragile man but his frame hints at the slim and agile jockey he once was. At almost six foot tall, Ross was always at a disadvantage compared to other jockeys. His weight was always that bit more of an issue for him.

Ross is now paying the ultimate price for the career he gave himself wholly to. He is plagued with a weak immune system from constantly starving himself of food and his stomach is ravaged with stomach ulcers. He looks to have a form of osteoporosis with his brittle boned legs and arms. Steam used in certain weight reducing methods has attacked his skin leaving it broken and tired looking. But most of all, there is the hint of regret in his voice. Regret that maybe it wasn’t all worth it.

“Size was always against me, I was so tall and breakable. I broke my left leg twice, punctured both my lungs and broke all my ribs.” His breathing is short and he has to take small breaks to sip at a glass of water to prevent coughing fits. “You’ll have to excuse me; I’m recovering from winter flu,” adding “it takes me much longer to recover now because of what I did to myself when I was younger.”

Clearly, Ross was not a man afraid of pain. Yet he blames none of these horrific incidents on his current health problems; it was something else which caused him to have “a chest like a matchbox.”

Suddenly, Ross takes a violent coughing fit. It is five minutes before he has recovered enough to continue. “Is it any wonder my chest and stomach are like this? What with everything I put them through in the past.”

As a young man, Ross had plenty of ambition. He went over to England to learn his trade as a jockey and raced many fine point to point winners. But as a small Irish farmer, National Hunt was always where his heart lay. He has bought and trained great horses like The Inventor which raced in the 1968 Aintree Grand National and The Pooka which Ross himself rode in the 1972 Aintree Grand National and which ran extremely well until he fell at the fourth last fence.

His father, Mr. Cecil Ross Snr, held the license to train horses while Cecil Jr. helped in all other aspects. Talented a jockey as he was, he always remained amateur. He explains that he never had the required discipline to go professional. It was this discipline which has left him in the state he is today.

“Jockeys nowadays; Ruby Walsh, Tony McCoy; big men. But they have discipline…and dieticians.” He explains how the old methods were a bit more primitive than the scientific diets and strict exercise regimes they use these days. Jockeys would have a hot bath every morning; “a bath you wouldn’t stand the heat off,” just to keep their weight down. Just to lose maybe two pounds.

“I often did it back then,” said Ross, “filled a bath with Epsom salts and boiling water just to lose a couple of pound.” Epsom salts was frequently used by jockeys for its anti-inflammatory qualities and its ability to draw toxins from the system, which aids weight loss.

And it wasn’t like Cecil Ross was a big man. He was tall and gangly; “but I did it because it needed to be done. It was expected of you as a jockey.”

Jockeys nowadays have great diets which go a long way in keeping them in great shape Ross explains. “They don’t eat the rubbish we used to eat; they’ve great diets and physiotherapists. They’ve saunas in the weigh-in rooms.”