cape jock loses top job

Judging by the empty space under my Xmas tree, there is no doubt in my mind that Santa pulled up his reindeer this year, i trust an inquiry will follow...

Oh Titch, Titch, I'm sorry man! Surely you got something ... gee that's miserable.

My folks gave me Pocket (the book) ... can't wait to get reading. It makes such a change from handcream (anyone fancy some unused tubes of handcream ... going very cheap ... do let me tempt you)!!

Gerrit has been sacked by the Hodgson stable . I doubt that Andrew Fortune is replacing any top jock, he has taken a break from raceriding for a few months.

The more useless the trainer,the more times they change their jocks!

There have been some excellent trainers down the years who changed jockeys almost as often as they changed razor blades. I remember a KZN jockey getting a job with a top July and Met winning stable in Cape Town years ago and me telling him not to bother packing more than a toothbrush.(

But I know what Rob is saying. Blaming the jockey for one's own inadequacies is an easy cop-out for a trainer who is either mediocre himself or has sh!t horses and won't admit it.

Magic,you may be right but..........I'm just trying to remember one who had consistent results whilst fitting that bill!

I often talk about patterns,and one of the most obvious is the success rate of stables with stable jocks or,at worst,
consistent use of riders.
The Drier stable came to the fore when they had their first long term jock(Robbie Hill) and Dennis has never been without one since.
When Lloyd used to ride (including work) for Maingard and Bruss their strike rate increased dramatically.
The Woodruff stable is no better than ordinary since Khan retired and weill remain so until a stable jock is on board.
The Alexander stable improves any time they have a stable jock......the arrangements just never last!
That "team" thing that MdK talks about certainly seems to work.

I hear you, Rob. A good stable jockey can be a real plus.

south african racing is not condusive to stable jockeys. have a look at how many "different" owners MDK has compared to others. Mike has a "core" owner and therefore a stable jockey is a must, Woody has many owners and sometimes they dont agree with the "stable jock"

Woody's owners didn't seem to have too many problems with Mark Khan. However, there aren't exactly a million jockeys of that calibre, so I guess that Easy may have a point. Getting everyone to support a "lesser" rider is a hell of a lot harder.

lips,

in case you dont know who i am i used to work for an excellent 1st season qualified jockey that was stable jockey to MDK as well as Michael Riley, even so we did not get the pick of the rides. We still had to compete with "other" jockeys when they were around. So for example if there was a feature at turfies and karl was in town then henry mansels horses would not be ridden by rene.
Mike was very very very supportive of rene' but rene' was also only a lightie and did noit last long.

this will always be the case on SA, pierre is a mate of mine but the ammount of rides "taken from under our nose" by him in the 2 years i worked for rene would be in the upper 100's.

Its a tough game and for there to be a true stable jockey that jockey needs complete and utter support from the whole stable from the grooms to the trainer.

now add to the mix that there is a DIRECT corrolation between riding work and getting rides and boom you have a situation like sa. Too many jockeys for the horse population.

now add the fact that in MOST maiden races in sa 50% is NO GOOD and you need "jockeys" to rides the horses that are making their debuts over 1000m BUT are bred to run and win over 2000m.

SO the "stable" jockey does not want to ride the "stayer" in the maiden race he will rather ride the fav from another stable, with that mnaster stroke he pomps the jockey who rode the favourite before and provides a "ride" for a useless "jockey" to earn a few rand on a no hoper.

Where is Rene, easy? He rode my biggest winner, which we won with a 50/1 shot via an objection against the original 1/5 winner....that was a moment to savour.(