A bumpy ride that failed to unsettle Mr Cool

For someone who once threw up before his school play, John Maxse has become remarkably comfortable with the spotlight. Then again, if eight years as the public face of the Jockey Club doesn't cure stagefright, nothing will.

Maxse is the man sent into bat when the media start coming in off a long run. Correction, he was that batsman. When he returned to his Shaftesbury Avenue office today, Maxse swapped his PR Director's hat for another marked Director of Communications and Special Projects.

The new role is more commercial, revolving around 13 racecourses owned by the Jockey Club, but the old one will not be left behind lightly.

"I've had enough of PR in some ways, but I know I'll miss it," he said.

"The sheer breadth of the job means there is very little repetition and, good or bad, you never know what's round the corner."

You can say that again. Maxse prides himself on having his mobile on 24/7 and is used to answering it day and night when news breaks.

"Having seen the reaction to the void Grand National in 1993 I had a good idea of what I was letting myself in for," he said. "It's all about reacting swiftly and sensibly, but I don't know whether I'm the best person to judge what progress has been made."

Perhaps he isn't, but Maxse has ridden a rare double by giving racing's establishment a more media savvy face while maintaining the respect of a racing press which can be notoriously fickle.

Smooth of manner and sharp of dress, the 37-year-old Old Etonian has supplied a cool head in a series of crises which would have sent lesser men scurrying for the Grecian 2000 long ago.

Imagine having to step in after your security chief is captured calling leading Jockey Club figures "f****** ignorant" while being secretly filmed by a Panorama crew.

Or consider how you might cope if a hungry media drilled you for reaction to the news that the champion jockey has been branded "The Fixer" in an explosive News of the World expose.

Add in a foot and mouth epidemic, a spate of dopings, a jockeys' strike over mobiles and an ongoing City of London police probe into alleged race fixing on a massive scale and it's clear that Maxse's spin doctor skills have been tested to the full.

"That Panorama incident with Jeremy Phipps was probably my most remembered appearance and I never even said a word," he recalled.

"He was like a rabbit in the headlights and I had to get him out. That whole saga with Panorama was depressing in that they came with an agenda they were determined to see through, but good came out of bad because we now have a far stronger investigating team."

Maxse feels the subsequently discredited News of the World probe into Kieren Fallon and John Egan provided a good example of the value of patient PR. "That was a valuable learning experience and a classic example of the need to avoid kneejerk responses," he said.

Such responses have been made in certain quarters over the current police probe into Fallon and almost 30 others who are on bail, but Maxse plays a predictably straight bat.

"One could argue it's a lose-lose situation," he said. "If nothing comes of it, a lot of time and money has been wasted and a lot of reputations have been harmed, while if convictions follow then racing's image has to be damaged. However, in order to ensure this was thoroughly looked at, we had to hand it over to the police."

Maxse is rare in the PR world in that he tries to give a straight answer to a straight question.

Most embarrassing moment? "Giving a telephone interview to Attheraces about the mobile dispute during a train journey and being told off live on air because I was using my own mobile in the Quiet Zone."

Worst name you've been called? "Plenty F's and C's, especially from Dandy Nicholls, but someone also

sprayed 'Up Your Jaxi, Maxse' on the turf at Doncaster during the mobile row." Most satisfying moment? "The way we worked with the BHB to ensure racing didn't shut down during the foot and mouth crisis made me very proud, while the biggest frustration is the baggage which comes with the mistaken assumption that the Jockey Club is still rooted in the past."

Maxse's future involves a resumption of his amateur riding career next winter and watching Senorita Rumbalita, the mare he owns with a group of friends,.

And, though it may surprise some, he gives no guarantees that he will remain a one-club man forever. "I have been tempted by other options and might still be tempted if an offer involved something I really cared about," he said.

Meanwhile, Maxse sums up his advice to his successor Paul Struthers in simple terms. "Be available, be accessible and, whatever you do, don't lie," he said. And, harking back to those thespian days, don't get too nervous might be another useful addition to the list.