Maxine Filby first appeared on the pointing scene in the mid-2000s, riding the likes of multiple winner Chicuelo and useful mare Home By Midnight. After riding and training for a few years with a fair degree of success, she took a break from the sport and became an elite level mountain bike racer (!) but is now back with a bang – training two horses, recent Chaddesley Corbett winner Lift Me Up and Quickly Now Please for Red Bull Racing supremo (and husband of former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell) Christian Horner.
South Midlands PRO Jake Exelby caught-up with Maxine recently to discover how she originally got involved in the sport, what she did after stopping riding and how her comeback came about… and especially how she came to train for such high-profile owners.
Arriving at the yard near Banbury in Oxfordshire, I am immediately taken by the smartness – and cleanliness – of the surroundings. As well as eight boxes to house pointers, there are two foaling boxes and room for the Horner hacks, who currently number three. “Christian would like all the boxes filled,” Maxine tells me, “And the long-term plan is to breed. It’s not just a flash in the pan. Christian’s always been interested in horses and Geri learnt to ride in her 30s. Both their daughters ride and it’s a family thing - they enjoy going out in their downtime.”
Lift Me Up (near) and Quickly Now Please at home in their stable
Maxine proudly shows off the latest addition to her facilities – a solarium. “When it’s installed, the horses will go in every day,” she explains. “It can be used as a warm-up tool, and also to help them dry off quicker and aid muscle recovery. Horses are athletes too.” The reference to drying off relates to the water-based treadmill at the nearby Marston Stud – a first for Trainer Talk and the brainchild of stud owner Natasha Halliday – to which we take first Lift Me Up, then Quickly Now Please. “It builds muscle tone and gives the horses more strength,” continues Maxine. “It works them properly and they can’t cheat – you can see any weakness. It’s been invaluable, particularly for Lift Me Up, a big, rangy type, who was weak behind. We started giving the horses ten minutes on it, which we’ve built up to half an hour once a week. I don’t understand why more people don’t use one.”
Quickly Now Please on the treadmill
As we watch the horses work on the treadmill, Maxine gives me her story. “I’m from Cheshire and, though not from a horsey family – Dad raced motorbikes – Mum had horses and I’d always ridden, doing pony club, as well as modern pentathlon and tetrathlon. I did a degree in sports science at Bedford and came away not knowing what to do, so took a year out working with horses. My first job was with Jenny Pidgeon, and it was a good grounding. I remember leading up at my first point-to-point, walking round the paddock thinking, ‘I want to be up in the saddle’ and had my first race-rides for Jenny on Pride Of Kashmir.”
“After I left hers,” Maxine goes on, “I was riding out for Paul Webber and met the Loggins at nearby Mollington – they said, “Come and ride out for us, we might have found a horse for you.’” The horse in question was the ex-Nicky Henderson trained Chicuelo, who gave Maxine her first winner at Tweseldown in December 2006, the first of three victories the partnership enjoyed that season. “It was one of the best moments of my life,” she recalls. “We had an amazing time, and he gave me the springboard to ride others, including Home By Midnight. I was South Midlands Area Ladies champion that year.”
But, just twelve months after her coronation, Maxine had her final race-ride. She confirms why. “My Dad had been really influential in my riding, and he died. My partner had bought me a bike and I was beginning to enjoy that so was focusing less on the horses. Cycling appealed because the work I put in, I got out, and I could step away from horses as I had something else to move on to. I’ve always loved racing – horses, motorbikes, bicycles… I went on a mountain bike track, started racing and won my first event in 2009.”
And to say Maxine wasn’t bad at her new career would be an understatement. “I was third in the British national championships in 2016 and competed in the World Cup at cross-country mountain biking, which took me all over the world. I raced for top teams – like Trek and Cannondale – did a season on the road and raced against (multiple Olympic champion) Laura Kenny. I then got an Enduro bike – which has a longer back and full suspension and started racing downhill. Turning 40 took me into the Veterans category and I was British champion in that at downhill and cross-country – the first person to hold both titles at the same time – as well as being on the podium twice in the world series. I was still competing last year and was national champion again.”
Maxine in mountain bike action (photo: Ben Gerish)
I ask Maxine how the return to horses came about. “We moved to Fenny Compton (just north of Banbury) in 2015 and I was looking for things to do in the cycling off-season,” she confirms. “I started riding out for Ben Case and, though I hadn’t sat on a horse since I gave up race-riding, fitness wasn’t a problem, so I slotted back in. I then went to work for Jamie Lloyd, a bloodstock agent who pre-trains for flat yards. I learnt a lot from him – I’d had no experience with flat horses before – still use his gallops at Moreton Morrell and can phone him up if I have a question.”
“I’ve worked for Christian and Geri on-and-off for about three years, while I was working for Jamie,” continues Maxine. “Then last summer, Geri offered me a full-time job and said, ‘Make it your own.’ I replied, ‘I fancy training if you’ll take a punt on me’ and they said yes. I was still cycling at the time – in the afternoons – but horses get under your skin! I’ve definitely made the right decision – Christian and Geri are such lovely people, they’ve been so good to me and it’s definitely their fault I’m here! They’ve put so much faith in me.”
Maxine laughs when I pose the question of why she thinks she got the job. “My PowerPoint presentation! Seriously,” she adds, “Everyone thought they’d go under rules with Ben Case (whose wife Sarah trained Lift Me Up for pointing last season). My job would have been secure if the horses had been trained here or by Ben but, as time went on, I really wanted them to stay, so put together a presentation and a racing plan.”
The latter includes many elements that Maxine has learnt from her time in cycling. “I use an Equinity heart monitor for the horses,” she explains. “You can see their recovery rate and stress levels. British Cycling talks about marginal gains, but nobody applies it to horse racing. And I give them a similar training plan to my own – I treat them like athletes. I work them hard, with interval training once a week and vary their routine. If they just go up the gallop every day, they’ll get bored. That’s why I use the treadmill – it’s their gym work. And I get them to recover properly and actively. They don’t just go back in their box – I turn them out in ice boots just like, after I ride, I have an ice bath and put on compression tights, and they have a massage every night. They’re very pampered! Christian understands because he’s involved in a racing sport. He tells me, ‘Let’s do it the Formula One way – properly.”
I don’t think I’ve spoken to anyone who spent so long out of pointing before returning as Maxine, so I quiz her on what key changes she has seen since her comeback, positive and negative. She’s a big fan of live streaming, saying, “It’s a shame it hasn’t continued (after Covid). If an owner can’t go racing, they can still see their horse run.” As for initiatives that are going from strength to strength, Maxine thinks, ‘Four-year-olds racing and the ability to make money buying and selling pointers is brilliant – yes, it makes some yards more dominant, but it makes the sport stronger. At the other end of the scale, the Veterans series is great – it gives horses another option and Retraining of Racehorses wasn’t around when I was riding.”
On the flip side, Maxine admits, “Some conversations have been going on since I was riding. When I came back to pointing, I was getting paid the same for riding out as ten years previously. We need to make it more attractive for stable staff – to get more horses, you don’t just need owners, you need the staff. They’re the backbone and, without them, the industry might collapse. We’re not a big yard and we can’t pay pool money in pointing, so what do we have to change to get more people? Maybe regulation – it’s a professional sport in all but name. When I cycled, I rode as an amateur, but had the same rights as a professional. The sport needs to think about that.”
Prize money is another issue for Maxine. “I know it’s hard, but people put their heart and soul into pointing and it needs to be better. More sponsors and higher profile racing would attract not just staff, but owners. And we need to treat them better – at Chaddesley Corbett, we were only given two entry passes, even though we were running two horses. Owners are paying and the sport needs to be more welcoming and make them feel special. Otherwise, rules racing becomes more attractive. Comparing it to cycling again, when I wanted sponsorship, I had to sell myself. We need to sell the sport to owners. For example, cycling races have a VIP area, so why doesn’t pointing? And amateur cycling is also run on a shoestring.”
While the Horner pointing operation is very much run by Maxine, she freely admits, “I have an amazing team around me and am lucky to be here. Lucy Lawson and Thea Ransom come in part-time, Liam Whelan is a brilliant farrier and I’ve even cajoled the builders Mark and Dan into being yard hands! While we don’t have anywhere to work the horses here, we take them twice a week to Mervyn Loggin’s gallop at Hinton-in-the-Hedges, where his daughter Sam – who I used to ride against – helps me school them over her uncle Chris’ fences. It’s a real family operation! Then they go to Greatworth for their flat work – the combination of everything gives them all-round exercise and they use themselves properly. After work, they live out in the paddock all day – Lift Me Up is a real mud monster – and they’re so well-behaved that I’ll probably take them hunting too.”
Maxine talks fondly of her two inmates. “Lift Me Up is seven and a distant relative of Denman – like him, he’s tall, at 17.2 hands. The Horners got him unraced and unnamed from MM Lynch in Ireland in August 2021. That’s how they could name him after one of Geri’s songs. I hoped he’d win first time out at Chaddesley Corbett but there was no pressure from Christian and Geri – while they’re competitive, they understand racing and I discuss everything with them. But they might have been some outside pressure, so it was a massive relief when he won. He’ll run next at Horseheath on Saturday and the Intermediate Final at Cheltenham is the target, although it’s a big ask as not all horses take to the fences, and I hope to run him in a Hunter Chase beforehand – I tell him every night that he’s a Cheltenham horse!”
Lift Me Up galloping to victory with a happy James King (photo: Michael Walton)
As for Quickly Now Please, “They went very fast at Chaddesley Corbett in his first race for us – it was a learning run for him and Megan Fox rode him very nicely and didn’t give him a hard time – then he was second at Cocklebarrow last weekend. Like Lift Me Up, he’s quite young, and I don’t want to over-race either of them. He may go to Mollington as it’s local and might have another race beforehand. He’s immature and an unknown quantity, but I think a lot of him.”
Lucy Lawson with Quickly Now Please
My final question to Maxine is what she loves most about the sport she’s embraced again as a second career. Her response is simple. “The horses. I tried to replicate it (with cycling), but there’s nothing like the buzz they give you.”