Jockeys look to make their mark in Melbourne Cup debuts
Restrictions on interstate travel and bans to some of Victoria’s leading riders have opened the door for lesser-known jockeys to shine on Tuesday when they make their Melbourne Cup debuts.
Damien Thornton and Rachel King are among a number of riders, including Fred Kersley, Teo Nugent, Harry Coffey and Blaike McDougall, who will have their first-ever Melbourne Cup rides this year.
Rachel King will ride in the Melbourne Cup for the first time on Tuesday.Credit:Getty Images
“It’s exciting to have my first Cup ride – it will be a bit of fun I suppose,” Thornton said.
“It’s the race you want to ride in, now I am a senior you get a bit closer to it. I am slowly but surely starting to get there, still got a long road to go, I but feel I am slowly but steadily improving, trying to work my way up the ranks and get better each season.”
King said she felt privileged to be a part of the race.
“I have been to Derby and Oaks Day, to Moonee Valley and Caulfield as well, but it is great to have a Cup ride,” she said.
“It’s really exciting and to be riding for the Lloyd Williams team makes it even more special and I feel very privileged to be a part of it.”
While big-name jockeys such as Damien Oliver and Brett Prebble have taken several of the group 1 contests this spring – Prebble won the Caulfield Cup on Incentivise and Oliver had a group 1 double at Flemington on Saturday – lesser-known riders have also grabbed the limelight.
Irishman John Allen grabbed wins in the Cox Plate and Victoria Derby aboard State Of Rest and Hitotsu, while Daniel Moor has landed his first three group 1 wins on Sierra Sue in the Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes, and Wild Ruler and Jonker in the Moir Stakes and Manikato Stakes respectively at The Valley. Thornton, on Yearning in the Thousand Guineas, is another to have doubled his group 1 winning tally from one to two.
The absence of Jamie Kah, last year’s premiership-winning rider in Melbourne, Ben Melham and Mark Zahra, all three of whom have been banned for three months because of their roles in the notorious Mornington Airbnb affair, has also opened the door to others. The three are proven group 1 performers and likely would have been offered fancied mounts on Tuesday.
On Tuesday, King will ride Pondus, raced by Team Williams and now trained by Robert Hickmott. She will be seeking to emulate Irishman Allen by showing that former jumps riders can win Victoria’s great group 1 races.
She came to Australia seven years ago having ridden over jumps in England as an amateur and on the flat as an apprentice in a bid to reignite a career that had not really taken off back home.
She has come a long way since working initially for Bart and James Cummings and then becoming an apprentice with Gai Waterhouse, and her first Cup ride is something she is savouring.
“I was an amateur and apprentice at home and I rode over jumps – I had to carry a lot of lead,” she joked.
“I came to Australia for a working holiday for a couple of months, felt that there were more opportunities here and I thought I would give it a go and see what happens.
“I came here as a track work rider to start with. I worked for James and Bart Cummings, then I went to Gai after two months. Then I worked for her for 12 months as a track work rider, I did travelling, I went to America for her with horses and all sorts, did lots of travelling, and after about 12 months I got my licence, and it’s maybe six years ago when I started race riding.”
She has not ridden Pondus in a race, but she can go into Tuesday’s Cup knowing that anything Lloyd Williams is running is likely to have a chance.
“I am really looking forward to him. He is a horse who is definitely progressing and improving all the time, and I thought his run the other day was really good.”
Thornton won the first group 1 of his career for the Chris Waller stable aboard Toffee Tongue in the Australasian Oaks in Adelaide in May 2020, and he will team up with the champion Sydney trainer once more in the Cup with Ocean Billy.
The former Kiwi might be a long shot, but having won the Auckland Cup over 3200 metres he should find the distance no problem.
Thornton rode him when he ran ninth in the Caulfield Cup – albeit a long way behind Incentivise, Tuesday’s hot favourite, but believes he will be better on a track with less give in it.
Damien Thornton has doubled his group 1 win tally this spring.Credit:Getty Images
“I am happy enough with the barrier, I will just let him find his feet, keep him happy. He didn’t really like the soft track in the Caulfield Cup. It should be a bit firmer on Tuesday, so he will like that.”
Coffey, who won the Group 1 Australasian Oaks earlier in his career, is a unique figure in the jockey ranks in that he suffers from the life-threatening illness cystic fibrosis.
That hasn’t stopped him pursuing his career goal of riding winners and featuring in the top races, and he dislikes being known only for his illness and wants to be judged against his peers on his merits. However, there is no doubt that securing a Cup ride, even on the outsider Port Guillame for the Hayes yard, is a feather in his cap when so many other jockeys can go through their careers without ever featuring in Australia’s greatest race.
COVID-19 regulations have made it harder for leading Sydney riders to travel south, so few have this year made the journey. Only champion James McDonald of the top jockeys on the Sydney premiership list has made the move south for the Cup, as has the former Victorian premiership rider Glen Boss, who recently announced he planned to move back to Melbourne on a permanent basis.
McDonald will ride Verry Elleegant for Chris Waller in the Cup, while Boss, forever etched in the Cup’s history as the rider of the race’s only triple winner, Makybe Diva, takes the mount on Waterhouse’s imported northern hemisphere three-year-old Sir Lucan, who carries bottom weight and has the number 24 saddlecloth.
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