CAMERAMAN Bill Smith has driven more than a million miles and spent hundreds of hours perched in the air, all to help the Jockey Club preserve the integrity of horse racing.

For Bill, of Cemetery Road in York, was one of the first recruits to operate the camera patrol films which gives the stewards at race meetings a detailed look at just what happens during each race.

Now, after 36 years behind the lens, he has retired, having covered his last meeting on Saturday at Redcar where the authorities made a champagne presentation to him in the winners' enclosure.

Bill, 60, joined the Race Recording Company when it was established in London in 1964 and since then has visited and worked at all 59 of the country's racecourses numerous times.

To York's credit, he cites Knavesmire among his favourite racing venues. "York is one of the best in my opinion, along with Chester and Cheltenham," he said.

"The big tracks are different to smaller ones, with the small ones sometimes having more character. But I really like York, which has a good atmosphere and excellent racing."

Bill, who is originally from Dagenham, has seen many changes in the last 36 years, both in technology and in racing rules.

"When I first joined we only had one team operating from London and we travelled all over the country using black and white movie film cameras. They only had a range of about three furlongs and the film had to be unloaded from the camera and rushed to a dark room on the track to be processed before it could be shown to the stewards.

"Nowadays there are instant video replays from all angles and the hawk-eye photo-finish camera allows the judge to name the winner within a minute or so of the horses passing the post.

"And there is so much more racing that we now have fixed teams three in London, one in the Midlands and two based in York to cover every fixture."

Bill's expertise on the head-on camera poised high above the track has been vital over the years to Racecourse Technical Services as the company became known and now Racetech, and his friends and colleagues gave him a rousing send off at a party in the Waggon and Horses in Gillygate.