Always back the horse named self-interest, son. It'll be the only one trying
When we were kids everyone dreamed of riding flying horses. Times have changed. No-one wanted to ride Benchi Pegasus at Julia Creek on Saturday. They had to scratch him from three races on the same day for want of a jockey, which surely must be some sort of record. I guess when it is hard […]
There is a huge problem in regional Queensland with the current shortage of jockeys. Everyone knows it, but no-one wants to fix it, or alternatively they don’t know how. Only 6 jockeys turned up to ride at the Mt Isa meeting yesterday. As a result 6 horses on the 6 race card had to be […]
After a long, self-enforced absence from the race track during which he is believed to have worked out in the mines, and a period of mourning following the loss of his Dad, jockey Michael Murphy is back in the saddle. Not quite with a bang yet – Murphy has had five rides in then past […]
You couldn’t watch Mark Du Plessis’s ride on Blaze Seven in race at Ipswich this afternoon without a single word flashing across your brain in big bright lights. That word? Dead. Blaze Seven was backed from $6.50 into $4.40. Du Plessis gave it the perfect ride in the early to mid stages, popping it in […]
Poor Carly Frater. You can only imagine how she felt when she saw what she thought was the winning post, sat down and punched her mount out to victory, and then stood up triumphantly in the irons. Only to discover that it was a power pole, and that the real winning post was 50 metres […]
They should put a huge poster of Willie Pike riding Mrs America to a nose victory in the 7th at Ascot at the door of every apprentice school in Australia. Watch how he is in the irons. See how low he is in saddle. Look at how his body is almost horizontal. Stare in wonder […]
In descending order, the three worst judges of a horse’s chances in a race are: Jockeys Trainers Owners Owners usually love their horses too much to be proper judges of their chances. Trainers invest so much time, effort, blood, sweat, toil and tears into preparing their steeds that it is near impossible for them to […]
Ten years ago today Danny Nikolic rode Sistine Angel into 13th place in the Group 1 Empire Rose Classic, then known as the Myer Stakes. Nikolic’s regular mount was Mosheen, but he couldn’t make the three-year-old filly’s light weight of 49.5kg, so Craig Williams took the mount instead. Mosheen ran 6th. Five days later she […]
How about this for a ride by apprentice Stacey Metcalfe on the winner of the second race at Bordertown today? It might look easy, but it ain’t. That is great skill, brilliant actually. That’s how they rode them when Archer won the Cup.
