It’s been quite a week for jockeys on a hot streak as Steve reports
The riding achievements of Jamie Kah and Robbie Fradd, this week, deserve greater fanfare than they’ve been accorded. I’m sure they would have had their ‘bags’ come in Sydney or Melbourne.
Kah, of course, combined with trainer Ryan Balfour in a career-best five winners at Morphettville last Saturday while Fradd booted home six winners (including one dead-heat) for five different stables at the Gold Coast on Wednesday.
Kah, for good measure, has ridden five winners from seven rides since last Saturday including a treble at Gawler on Wednesday; has a full book in Adelaide this Saturday and has a clear lead in both the state-wide and metropolitan jockeys’ premiership, both of which she won by a space last season.
She rode 129 winners across the state in South Australia last season which was just one shy of double the next best tally recorded by Matthew Poon who’s now riding in Hong Kong.
That tally gave her the record for the most wins by a female jockey in an Australian season. Her 129 winners in a season surpassed the previous record of 111 held jointly by Victoria’s Linda Meech and South Australia’s Clare Lindop.
In 2013, the now 21 year-old, became the first apprentice to claim the Adelaide Jockeys Premiership in almost 20 years. She also collected the first of her three John Letts Medals for excellence in riding.
Her strike rate is sound and she showed she could handle greater intensity with her winning rides on Dollar For Dollar (High Chaparral) in Melbourne through the spring carnival.
“Jamie is an amazing rider, she gets that little bit more from horses that other jockeys just can’t seem to find,’’ Balfour said last week.
She’s managed by astute racing analyst Nick Pinkerton who is, understandably but also justifiably, keen to sing her praises. “She has a great affinity with horses and she has a tremendous temperament and will to win,” he said.
She is, in my opinion, among the best riders – male or female – in the country and I’m sure would succeed in Sydney and Melbourne with the right support. Just as, I’m sure, would Willie Pike if he left Western Australia which he dominates every bit as much as Kah does in South Australia.
Robbie Fradd is enjoying a great season in Queensland where he sits one win behind fellow South African and fellow veteran Jeff Loyd in the metropolitan jockeys’ premiership. State-wide he’s third behind Lloyd and yet another veteran Jim Byrne.
Fradd, who turns 53 on Monday, was champion jockey in no less a competitive jurisdiction than Hong Kong in 2000/2001. Lloyd, incidentally, is 56 and Byrne is 46.
All of the above underlines the single most extraordinary aspect of horse racing. It is the only legitimate and physically demanding sport where the the competitors are on a level played field irrespective of age or gender.
It also highlights a basic tenet of the punt – the more winners a jockey rides on a day then the more he is likely to ride. If anyone tells you otherwise, then disregard each and every other opinion they ever proffer on the turf, or any other subject for that matter.
We see it time and time again with Joao Moreira obviously something of a poster boy for the theory in recent years – with a record-equaling most wins in a Hong Kong race day (six on 1 March, 2015); eight wins from eight rides at Kranji (6 September, 2013); and eight wins in a day at Cidade Jardim (March, 2006).
Craig Newitt rode four winners at Hobart on November 18, and followed up with another quartet at Launceston on Wednesday.
And it’s been ever thus. Miller’s Guide lists 53 jockeys believed to have ridden the card. It lists around 200 jockeys to have ridden at least five in a day.
Willie Shoemaker rode six winners in a day, in the United States, on no fewer than six occasions. Darren Beadman rode five in a day on nine occasions; Damien Oliver’s done it eight times. And who could forget Frankie Dettori’s ‘magnificent seven’ when he rode the card at Ascot on 28 September, 1996.
Ryan Moore rode six winners last Saturday in Tokyo where Christophe Lemaire rode eight winners, at the one meeting, earlier in November. And therein lies another lesson for punters. Promote any horse ridden by a visiting jockey in Japan. On that basis, you’d of course backed Cheval Grand (Heart’s Cry), at the juicy odds, with Hugh Bowman aboard last weekend in the Japan Cup (Gr 1, 2400m).
Confidence is everything in sport and perhaps even more so in racing where the split second decisions are as ‘split’ at you can get. There’s virtually no chance of retrieving the ball if you fumble it first time.