27/01/15

It’s no wonder racing is going nowhere as good help is hard to find. Yesterday we had “Saturday city” racing at Sandown in Melbourne with good fields and five black type races. Of those “five black type races” three were good events and they were Races 2, 3 and 4 – the Adams Stakes and the Blue Diamond Previews, one for both genders. Yet the racing form guides of this country are so pathetic that you would swear the races were mid-week events, not races worth $120,000 (Adams Stakes and Blue Diamond Preview for males) and $150,000 (Blue Diamond Preview for fillies) respectively as racing participants wouldn’t even know what colours were worn by the horses that they wanted to watch. It is particularly pathetic on the part of Queensland’s statewide newspaper, The Courier Mail, as Winning Post which came out four days earlier had the Sandown colours in its form guide. Best Bets was utterly pathetic and didn’t even have the fields for Sandown in their alleged esteemed publication which they charge $6 for from anyone who wanted to purchase it last Friday.

Surely a punter being able to watch his or her horse run via knowing the horses colours in a $120,000 or $150,000 race isn’t asking too much, particularly when Tattsbet are paying The Courier Mail a veritable fortune for including form guides in their daily newspaper.

I think that thoroughbred race day Saturday city stewards reports are often good for a giggle. The Chief Steward at a race meeting is supposed to read the report and then sign it as being correct then it gets uploaded onto the RISA website and so on. However I regularly come across a report that will say such-and-such a horse was vetted but it then won’t have what the vet found, which is about as handy as having two away sick in a football grand final. There I often wonder if the Chief Steward at the meeting ever reads it. After dealing with grain engorged 550-kilo horses on a race day as well as a plethora of half starved, pesky 50-kilo bundles of joy, the Chief Steward probably just wants to go home to “Lovey”, even if he is well aware that he’s only going to be dished up “cold shoulder, chips and salad” for his night time meal.

On the point of stewards, it would seem to me that a senior jockey can stuff up with gay abandon and come up with some of the most brain-dead excuses on the planet for his or her ride, yet apprentices can’t. And so it came to pass that Victorian based apprentice Kieran Shoemark took off at the 600 at Moonee Valley last Saturday on Zahspeed in Race 3, a 2040-metre event. Zahspeed was equal second favourite in the race and the apprentice had established a good break on straightening and looked home. Unfortunately for young Shoemark, Zahspeed sat down late and got run down by Norman Rules.

There’s a fine line between “genius” and “mug” in racing and had Zahspeed won, everyone would have said it was “a brilliant ride” and all the rest of it. For the sake of 1.25 lengths, Shoemark was hauled before stewards over his ride. The official stewards report on the incident reads: “Zahspeed – when questioned into the tactics adopted today, particularly from the 600m to the 400m, apprentice Kieran Shoemark explained that Zahspeed travelled well within itself through the race and he elected to allow the gelding to stride forward passing the 600m to steal a break on the field. After viewing the patrol video Kieran Shoemark indicted that with more experience riding around the Moonee Valley circuit he would have nursed the gelding until further into the race; Stewards agreed with his assessment”.

So all that is good – the kid hasn’t been rubbed out or anything – and he at least tried something different. Can’t breed initiative into young people, so I thought he actually showed some “initiative”. Granted it didn’t work out for him on the day, but as the saying goes: “it’s better to have tried and failed than never to have tried”. I couldn’t help thinking though that if Jimmy Cassidy was visiting from Sydney and had tried the same trick, or if a resident high profile Melbourne jockey like say Damien Oliver had done what young Shoemark did – and got run down – that not a solitary question would have been asked of either of them.

I had a hearty giggle to myself though when I read this in the stewards report about apprentice Shoemark and Zahspeed, as in the Group 1 Cox Plate just last year, I shook my head at how this alleged champion jockey Ryan Moore, riding at Moonee Valley for the first time, took off with a wide run on the inexperienced horse having just his eighth race start, Adelaide, at the 1000-metre mark, which is exactly 400 metres before young Shoemark bothered pushing the button on his mount last Saturday when attempting “to steal a break on the field”. What action would stewards officiating at the meeting have taken if Adelaide had got to the front in the Cox Plate and got run down? Or similarly what happens when Tasmanian trained galloper The Cleaner takes off a long way from home in his races just to “keep the bastards honest” – and gets run down late? Nothing I’d suggest. “They” don’t haul the senior jockey aboard The Cleaner in post race – and ask why he or she went for home when they did.

And that Race 3 from Moonee Valley last Saturday was interesting for another reason and that was to watch the apprentice jockey on the winner Norman Rules – Chris Parnham – change whip hands on that horse. Check out the replay and young Parnham changes whip hands twice – once at the 175 and again at the 50. How good is that for an apprentice? Not many can do it. I recently wrote up Brisbane based apprentice Sairyn Fawke when I saw him doing it in a race video recently.

And both Chris Parnham and Sairyn Fawke are in esteemed company, as if you watch James McDonald he also changed whip hands late on Randwick winner Ninth Legion.

Who else did I see change whip hands last Saturday? Chris Parnham again – this time on gay deceiver Smokin’ Joey in Race 7. And that was after apprentice Regan Bayliss changed whip hands at the 125-metre mark on Leveraction in Race 4 at Moonee Valley. Michael Walker changed whip hands at the 150-metre mark on Race 6 Moonee Valley winner Hong Kong Captain.

You know if you think about it logically, legging on a jockey who can hit an enigmatic racehorse with either hand is not silly and that could have a positive effect on making that enigma put in – as technically the horse may think he’s getting hit from both sides. I’m not saying he’s an enigma, as he’s only a young and inexperienced 3YO, but Norman Rules was going nowhere on the home turn at Moonee Valley last Saturday but lifted and seemingly nearly jumped out of his skin when Parnham changed whip hands. The horse may not have won without that initiative by the jockey.

And on the matter of Chris Parnham, Sairyn Fawke, James McDonald, Regan Bayliss and Michael Walker, why can’t more young people be taught to use the whip in both hands? Surely if you can ride with the whip in one hand, it’s possible, with training, to also ride with the whip in the other? If riding horses is their livelihood, why can’t jockeys learn from the start to ride their mount out with the whip in either hand?

Today on www.brisbaneracing.com.au there’s the story on the $8,800 service fee stallion that had a city double last Saturday. On www.sydneyracing.com.au Bernard Kenny catches up with Britain’s At The Races correspondent John McCririck about the Breeders’ Cup World Championships in October this year, whilst on www.melbourneracing.com.au Matt Nicholls has Tuesday Musings, which is obviously a litter brother to Monday Musings.