| Part Seven -- Walker On Target To Be Decade Jockey |
| Friday, 09 November 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The previous four winners have been:
1960/61 - 69/70 R.J. Skelton 775
Fathers and sons who have both ridden 100 or more wins in N.Z. make a very illustrious list and an unique addition is the father and daughter pairing of John Dowling and his daughter, Paula. Listed below are the fathers and their most successful son/daughter.
Jockeys Can't Be Split
Prague Feature Worth Seeing Apart from Aintree and our own famous Great Northern with its three trips over Ellerslie hill, the ‘Pardubice' run each October, near Prague in Czechoslovakia, is another race in the ‘world famous' class. It is run over a course of 4½ miles with 30 fences and has been contested since 1874. It is a race to be included in your 12-month itinerary when you win Lotto, along with the Kentucky, English and Irish Derby's, Prix de l'Arc Triomphe, St Moritz (on ice), Riccarton's Grand Nationals and of course the Riverton Easter meeting.
Famous Stables Burnt In 1914 the famous Chokebore Stables at Riccarton burned to the ground. Fortunately all the horses were saved. Then, the stables were the largest in New Zealand, holding 30 horses and 3000 bushels of oats. Get A Paper Round Apprentices Aspiring young apprentices should perhaps take on a paper round. Hector Gray, one of our greatest jockeys, delivered newspapers 20 miles a day on his round at Normanby, near Hawera, on horse! The same Hector rode 23 winners from only 75 rides in England in 1921.
Billy Peach's Massive Divvy New Years Day at Ellerslie in 1943 was good for just a very few punters when Billy Peach paid £440/7/6. The few invested only £16 in a pool of over £8000 on his chances. Trudy The Pioneer Trudy Archer (now Thornton), was the first woman to ride in a Great Northern Steeplechase. She rode Battle On into seventh place. Trainload Of Racegoers About 7000 passengers travelled by train from Dunedin to Wingatui (20 minutes journey) over the two day meeting in 1921. Premature Death For Jumps Sire Treason Trial, the sire of great steeplechaser Hunterville, stood at stud for only three seasons before suffering a fatal heart attack. A pity, because he had only limited patronage and it is reasonable to assume that had he lived an average life span (he was only 12 when he died) he might have gone on to be ranked with Hunting Song, Day Comet, Trelay and others of earlier days. A present day sire who is threatening to be a ‘star sire' of jumpers is White Robe Lodge's, Yamanin Vital, with performers like Hypnotize and Counter Punch to name just two. |
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It seems that Michael Walker (pictured) is a ‘shoe in' to capture the rider of the 2000/01 - 2009/10 decade after the first six seasons have been completed.
