IT'S half an hour before the first race at Newmarket, but John Reid's thoughts are far away from the cut and thrust of the day's racing.

Shortly after announcing his retirement from the saddle three weeks ago, the 46-year-old Ulsterman is back in the tranquil surroundings of his farm at Baulking, near Faringdon.

"It has not crossed my mind," he says. "I looked at the morning paper and I was up there because we had horses running that I manage for Mike Dawson.

"I also went to the sales, but that was more to get a feel of it and to see a few people."

After 28 years in Flat racing's fast lane, Reid, who was awarded the MBE in 1997, is content to take a back seat while he decides on his next move after bringing down the curtain on a glittering career.

If a reminder was needed of the heights he scaled, it comes as soon as you walk through the door - hanging on the facing wall is a framed photograph of Reid in the Epsom winner's enclosure with his 1992 Derby hero Dr Devious.

And it soon becomes clear that it's the prospect of not being able to attain similar success which has contributed to his calling it a day.

"At this stage, I am quite happy with my decision," he says. "I just felt the time was right. I suppose it had been in the back of my mind for a while - how much longer I could go on.

"Things had not been going quite so well as in the past. I had not had a bad spell, but I was used to going to Ascot and Goodwood and having a hatful of good rides and chances of winning the big ones.

"Although I won the German Derby this year and have been placed in quite a few of the Group 1s, the big rides were just not coming and I couldn't see it changing without a Sir Michael Stoute or Aidan O'Brien or another big stable.

"I couldn't see where they would come from - not that I could see where they would come from in the past, but they would turn up because I had good jobs."

And turn up they did - with Dr Devious's Derby win one of no fewer than 48 Group 1 successes that Reid, who hails from Banbridge, County Down, notched up.

After serving a five-year apprenticeship with trainer Verly Bewicke at Chilton, it was Ile de Bourbon, trained by Fulke Johnson Houghton at Blewbury, who propelled Reid into the big time by landing Ascot's King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes - a race he won again on Swain in 1997.

His triumph on Tony Bin in the 1988 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe stands alongside all his big-race wins.

"The Derby is a big highlight, but the Arc would have to rate pretty highly, and the two King Georges are certainly out of the top drawer," he reflects.

There were also Classic victories in the 1,000 Guineas, twice, aboard On The House in 1982 and Las Meninas in 1994, and in the 1998 St Leger on Nedawi.

Reid, the Jockeys' Association president, was equally successful on his overseas raids. He won the 1987 Irish Derby on Sir Harry Lewis, the 1993 Italian Derby on White Muzzle,

plus this year's German Derby on Boreal.

But it was in the pursuit of another big winner that his career came to an end as he took a crashing fall from Boreal in Cologne.

"It hurt my pride more than anything," he says. "I caught the heels of a horse in front and was brought down. It was the first time it had happened for many years - it was just one of this things.

"I took a couple of days off and I thought maybe it is time - I have had a public warning there and if you start thinking that way, you have got to quit and by the next day I had made my mind up."

Now the big wins are treasured memories as Reid is looking to the future.

He is keen to stay in racing. This season he has managed York businessman Dawson's string, and that is an area which he feels provides openings.

"We have had 14 winners from 20 horses and I have enjoyed it. It was my idea to make it more successful by just keeping an eye on things," he says.

Having broodmares and breeding yearlings plus media work are other areas he says he would consider getting involved in, but he has no plans to take up training.

Whatever he decides to do, with his standing in the sport and enthusiasm for the game, it's an odds-on chance he'll make a success of it.