Majic.iE

The saunas were one of the biggest culprits of the faddy weight loss programs jockeys put themselves through. Many jockeys spent days and weeks in the Turkish Baths in the run up to big races. Ross himself spoke of how he was asked to ride a horse called Bushwhacker in the Scottish Grand National. He was recovering from a hand injury at the time and had put on a bit of weight. He needed to weigh ten stone for the race and was weighing in at eleven stone four. He had ten days.

“I headed straight for the Turkish Baths in Gloucester; steam would come out through the wall, pure rotten stink steam with about eight people all crammed in.” he explained, “the longer you could stick it the first time the better…I lost eight pound the first night I went into it.” He made the ten stone required of him for the Scottish Grand National but “it nearly killed me but I made the ten stone.”

Ross used to visit the baths every second night to aid his weight loss but he remembered two jockeys who used to visit the baths every single night. They would go into the baths with a bottle of champagne and drink away at it. The alcohol helped them sweat.

Hinting at the uglier side of the racing world, Ross admitted the ulterior motives behind these obsessive steam room visits, “All these jockeys, they only went into the baths so they could eat something.” All these jockeys are now paying the price for these actions; their bodies are paying the tolls he says, glancing up and down at his own diminishing body.

Ross is still a young enough man; in his sixties or seventies, certainly not as old as he appears. His choice of career led him to what he is today. And while that career may have been successful, he constantly asks himself was it really worth all the effort. That is what the world of today must ask itself when striving to become a size zero. What you do to yourself today, really does affect your tomorrow. Just ask Mr. Cecil Ross, he’s living proof.