09 February 2010 Embiricos calls it a day
by Carolyn Tanner
ALEX EMBIRICOS (near side): hanging up her boots
photo: Steve Hunt
After finishing runner-up at Cottenham on Saturday on Sirius Storm, Alex Embiricos, who enjoyed so much success in both the South East and East Anglian areas, made the decision to hang up her boots.
"I'll really miss it," she admitted, "but I look round the changing room and I feel so old - some of the girls weren't even born when I started!"
Her final tally was 51 Point-to-Point victories, plus seven in Hunter Chases and one Chase against the professionals. In addition, she rode a winner on the flat in America, and also won the historic Newmarket Town Plate.
The highlight of her career was her third in the 2005 Cheltenham Foxhunter Chase on Placid Man - "Although all my rides on him were highlights," she stressed - and she finished seventh in the 1993 Liverpool Fox Hunter Chase on Golden Minstrel.
Alex, though, will not be taking things easy. She and her husband Tim Bryce run a Point-to-Point yard at Bradfield St Clare, near Bury St Edmunds, so she will continue to school and bring on the youngsters, and she also intends to do more eventing.
In September she will be on a different saddle, when she will be cycling from Land's End to John O'Groats in aid of the Bob Champion Cancer Trust, a distance of 1,000 miles in ten days. "I suggested to Bob that he could accompany me for a day, but he's said he'll just do the first five and the last five miles," she laughed.
Anybody who wishes to donate to this very worthy cause can contact Alex on 07876 592308.
