Bryony Frost will return to England for the Grand National but won’t be back full time as she is loving life in France

The message that beeps through just after 6am on Thursday is laser-sharp in its precision but also unwittingly poignant.

‘I’ll be schooling when you get here,’ Bryony Frost punches out. ‘Keep an eye out for horses, they are coming in any direction! Busier than the M5 here! I’m on a string that’s wearing straight-line rugs, like you see in Newmarket. I’ve a bright green hat on, can’t miss me!’

We will discuss that point in due course, as her presence on British courses is missed. But a few moments later, in the picture-perfect surrounds of Lamorlaye — a schooling ground just outside Chantilly, the epicentre of French racing — Frost is exactly where she said she would be.

She is happy, too. It is 10 months since she took the bold call to uproot and leave everything behind and embark on a new career as the retained rider in France for powerful owners Simon Munir and Isaac Souede and it is a decision that is reaping dividends.

Frost has been keen to keep a low profile but, after some persuasion, the 29-year-old has agreed to an audience with Mail Sport. She will be back in Britain next weekend, to ride in the Randox Grand National, but there will not be any pangs to stay, such is her immersion into a Gallic lifestyle.

‘It’s nearly breakfast,’ she says, chuckling about the early start. ‘And that means coffee. Nothing else! I’ve been educated on this! When I first came here, I’d have sugar and milk and everyone was like, ‘Non! Tres difficile!’ I was told, ‘Espresso!’ I detested straight black coffee, now I drink it like water!

Jockey Bryony Frost pictured in Chantilly, France, after making the move there 10 months ago

Frost became the first female jockey to win a Grade 1 race at the Cheltenham Festival in 2019

‘I’m becoming more French! For those first two months, I had caffeine shakes because I couldn’t keep up but now I’ve adapted very well! I moved over with zero French in my vocabulary. That was my naivety thinking, ‘Oh, I’ll manage’, but I’m getting a grip on things now.

‘I needed the challenge and I needed the change. For quite a while, France had appealed as having potential for my career and my life. I’d done what I needed to do in England and then came the moment when in my heart I knew I was ready. It was time to go.’

And she has not looked back.

Settled in an apartment in Paris’s 17th arrondissement, not far from the Eiffel Tower (she went to the top last week) and the Arc de Triomphe, the young girl who grew up in the roaming fields in Buckfastleigh, Devon is now a fully- converted city kid and unashamed tourist.

This would not have been possible before. British racing can be oppressive; the hours for jockeys are long, the travel is exhausting and relationships and opportunities are fragile — as Frost (left, on the gallops in Lamorlaye) knows only too well — but the French rhythm is different, the work and life balance much more manageable.

On Saturday, for example, she rode at Fointainebleau in the morning, an hour outside Paris, and was back home for late afternoon, having partnered her seventh winner of 2025. The daily commute to Lamorlaye, meanwhile, is rarely more than 45 minutes and has opened her eyes to new possibilities.

‘Time is gifted to you,’ she explains. ‘There is no guarantee with anything in life. If you can win with time, that is your biggest victory in life. You don’t have that time in England. You are racing every day, in the car for a minimum of four hours.

‘Of course, you love racing and you love horses but you are doing it every day. There is no moment to take a breath. The French calendar is different.

The 29-year-old will return to England to ride Stay Away Fay in this year’s Grand National

‘I needed the challenge and I needed the change,’ she said of her move from England to France

‘You race intensively for three or four days, then you have three of four days off when you can properly work with the horses. Everyone knows when they are given an opportunity, it’s a matter of turning left or right if you know going straight on isn’t good for you.

‘As soon as you make the turn, you know what is going to happen. You have your instincts. I knew France was going to be right.’

France’s gain is definitely this country’s loss. Frost, the first female to ride a Grade One winner at the Cheltenham Festival, in 2019, and the only female to win the King George VI Chase, possesses the rare ability to transcend the racing pages and tap into a wider audience.

Her father, Jimmy, conquered Aintree in 1989 with Little Polveir — ‘that was the only thing I was ever boastful of as a kid… my Dad won the National’, she says with a grin — and it would be some story if she could emulate him on Stay Away Fay, the mount supplied by her old boss Paul Nicholls.

There will be so much more to it at Aintree, though, not least an appreciation of the backing she received from many through well-documented difficult times.

‘The last time I was back home was Exeter last November,’ she says. ‘That will go down as one of the best days I’ve had in the saddle. Not because of the level of race but because I won on a horse for my dad, for owners who I’ve known all my life at my local track. The reception was better than Cheltenham!

‘I wasn’t expecting anything like that. But I opened my eyes, looked out and saw the crowd. You know they have got you. It’s like they were saying, ‘You’re doing well, keep kicking kid’, and that sort of support I feel privileged, honoured and very special to have.

Frost says she is grateful for the support from back home, especially a heartwarming reception at Exeter last November where she rode a winner for her father

‘I don’t know why people are so behind me but I’m beyond thankful. I can go to that memory at any point and you know people are there with you. You’re not standing alone. Even in those days when you feel like you are, you are not. Maybe people find common ground with me.

‘This sport has given me the chance to meet wonderful people. Maybe I won for them one day and it paid for their fish and chips. Sports gives so many opportunities for strangers to be friends. Aintree is a place where that can happen. It’s an amazing race and it takes courage.’

With that, she headed off to ride another horse. And, once again, her words were unwittingly accurate.

Bryony Frost is sponsored by Castell Wealth Management and is an ambassador for the David Power Jockeys’ Cup.