Chief Stipe

Rule Number(s): 869(2)& Use of the Whip RegulationsFollowing the running of Race 6, Harcourts Grenadier Real Estate Ltd – City Office Mobile Pace, an information was filed by Chief Stipendiary Steward, Mr N M Ydgren, against Licensed Open Driver, Mr S F Smolenski, alleging that Mr Smolenski, as the driver of MIKEY MAGUIRE in the race, used his whip on ...View the full article

Rule Number(s): 869(2)& Use of the Whip RegulationsFollowing the running of Race 10, Public Cup Week Tickets – On Sale 2nd September Mobile Pace, an information was filed by Chief Stipendiary Steward, Mr N M Ydgren, against Licensed Open Driver, Mr J W Cox, alleging that Mr Cox, as the driver of FRANKIE D in the race, used his whip on more occasions ...View the full article

Behind the scenes on Ride Like a Girl

Peter FitzSimons09:30, Sep 03 2019 RACING PHOTOS Mikaela Claridge was tragically killed in a training accident last week. OPINION: Before sun-up last Friday morning, the 22-year-old apprentice jockey Mikaela Claridge was riding her horse at Melbourne's Cranbourne Training Centre when she fell and was tragically killed. At the Fannie Bay Racecourse in Darwin just the next afternoon, 32-year-old jockey Melanie Tyndall was riding her mount Restless in the third race of the afternoon when her horse appeared to clip the heels of one of the horses in front, became unbalanced, and Tyndall fell so badly she was pronounced dead at Royal Darwin Hospital a short time later. The Herald sends its deepest condolences to their families. Yet the death of those two female jockeys in Australia in the space of two days last week also points to an appalling matrix. Despite the fact that women form a broad 30 per cent of the jockeying ranks, they now form a shocking 75 per cent of deaths among Australian jockeys from riding mishaps in the last 10 years – with nine women among 12 Australian jockey deaths in that time frame. Is there an issue? Is this troubling statistic an anomaly, and in no way connected to the gender of the jockeys who fall? Or is there something in the female form which makes it more vulnerable to tragic consequences when engaged in bad falls? I do not pretend to know and there appears to have been little work done in the field to find out, but my starting point from the racing people I have talked to is that it is a very sensitive subject, and a difficult one to navigate through. No one wants to go on the record. GETTY IMAGES Jockeys like Melbourne Cup winner Michelle Payne have proven that women riders don't lack ability. On the one hand, there is no doubt the rise of female jockeys is an inspirational story. Up until 1979 it was illegal to be a female professional jockey in Australia. The first known person to get around this law was Wilhemena Smith who up Queensland way – around the turn of last century – lived and worked as a male licensed jockey and trainer, known as Bill "Girlie" Smith. Her actual gender was only discovered upon her death in 1975. Just four years later Pam O'Neill and Linda Jones broke through the racing barriers as proud females – rrrrracing now – and galloped away to glory. Since that time ever more females have flooded into the field and racing is now one of the only sports where males and female compete side by side on absolutely equal terms. And women are the frequent winners. The most famous female jockey of the lot, Michelle Payne, won the Melbourne Cup in 2015 on Prince of Penzance, and a film on her life Ride Like a Girl, will have its international premiere this Sunday. The issue, thus, is not remotely the ability of female jockeys. They have proved themselves to be as good as the men if not better, time and again. But on the other hand, when the death rates among women is so much greater than among men, there has of course been discussion in racing ranks on the subject. That chat, I am told, has not been lead by the women, as their inclination in this game is to neither ask for nor give quarter, and highlighting their mortality rate might be mistaken for weakness. Beyond that, the point is made that it is in the very nature of successful jockeys not to focus on the dangers of what they would do, as otherwise they would never race horses in the first place. There are, nevertheless, some quiet theories that have been floated in racing ranks. One is that men, who often grow up in a much more rough and tumble environment than their sisters, learn how to more easily take a fall, which involves most fundamentally learning how to soften your impact by using your forearms to roll. (This was the case with one of my own sisters - when we were kids I noted how, instead of rolling, she would fall like a dropped pie.) Another theory is that because men have more muscles around their already thicker necks, they are better able to withstand bad impacts on the most vulnerable part of their bodies in bad falls. The answer? I don't have the first clue. But my starting point – heightened by the fact right now female apprentices in the racing industry are greater than 50 per cent is that it must be time for racing in Australia do some serious research and proceed from there. There is no appetite in racing and nor should there be, to go back to pre-1979 days and ban females from racing. But at least let female jockeys have a good understanding of the risks before they start and let the industry as a whole also look at ways of making them safer. SMH

Dubawi‘s colourful story is a perfect reminder that attitudes–and prices–are constantly changing in the bloodstock world. Subject to the usual difficulties which face young stallions before their progeny prove themselves, Dubawi was priced at only £15,000 in his fourth year in 2009, having attracted no more than 91 mares in 2008. Even that substantial price cut (from €40,000) didn’t have the desired effect, with Dubawi’s book falling further in 2009, to only 68. Then Dubawi’s first crop hit the track running, with the G2 victories by Poet’s Voice and Sand Vixen highlighting his considerable potential, and Dubawi began the restoration of his profile which ultimately saw him become Britain’s highest-priced stallion in each of the last four years. As his profile rose, Dubawi began to receive more mares sired by the mighty Galileo. Among the first half a dozen foals that Dubawi sired from Galileo’s daughters was a chestnut colt out of the listed-placed Forest Storm. Conceived at £20,000, the colt made only 32,000gns as a yearling but then proceeded–as Night of Thunder–to win both his 2-year-old starts before becoming the only horse to defeat Kingman, in the 2000 Guineas of 2014. A matter of days after Night of Thunder had become his sire’s second winner of that mile Classic, Dubawi was to cover Nightime, a mare who had become Galileo’s first Classic winner when she landed the Irish 1000 Guineas in 2006. By 2014 Dubawi’s fee had already reached £100,000 but that six-figure sum was still to prove a very sound investment on behalf of Nightime’s owners, the Weld family’s Springbank Way Stud. Nightime’s Dubawi weanling colt was consigned to the 2015 Goffs November Foal Sale, where he became the year’s highest-priced European foal at €1.1 million. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the colt–Ghaiyyath–has now followed Night of Thunder’s example by becoming the second Group 1 winner to represent the Dubawi-Galileo combination. Already a Group 3 winner at two and three, Ghaiyyath received a rave review from his trainer Charlie Appleby in the Racing Post‘s stable tour in early April: “A very exciting horse who was one of our big Classic hopes last year but had a setback just before the Dante,” Appleby explained. “We gave him plenty of time to get over that and he had just the one run–an impressive victory in a Group 3 over 1m2f at Longchamp in September. He’s another progressive Dubawi colt who has done all the right things at home and after a very pleasing victory in Group 2 company over 1m2f in the Prix d’Harcourt back at Longchamp last weekend, we’ll aim next at the G1 Prix Ganay at the same track on Apr. 28, with the Arc being the long-term target. I wouldn’t say he lacks a change of gear, but he’s a big, powerful horse and his biggest asset is that when he gets to the front he’s relentless and just keeps piling it on.” Although the Prix Ganay venture didn’t go to plan, with Ghaiyyath finishing only third behind Waldgeist and Spirit of Man as the 1-2 favourite, the Arc target seems to be very much alive and kicking following the 4-year-old’s demolition of the opposition in Sunday’s Grosser Preis von Baden. I suspect that Night of Thunder and Ghaiyyath are just the tip of the iceberg where Group 1 winners from the Dubawi-Galileo partnership are concerned. At present there are 10% black-type winners among the nick’s 42 foals of racing age, which include seven 2-year-olds of 2019. The nick’s other black-type winners are Dartmouth, now resident at Shade Oak Stud following his successes in the G3 John Porter S., G3 Ormonde S., G2 Hardwicke S. and G2 Yorkshire Cup, and the Listed winner UAE Jewel. The latter was unbeaten on his first two starts in the spring but hasn’t been seen out since. He holds Group 1 entries this autumn, but if he does reappear this year Ghaiyyath has shown it is possible to bounce back at four from an interrupted 3-year-old season. Dubawi also has something like 18 yearlings with dams by Galileo, including youngsters out of the Group 1 winners Golden Lilac, Great Heavens, Nightime (dam of Ghaiyyath) and Romantica, as well as the Group 2 winners Gretchen and Secret Gesture. The partnership also has at least 19 foals. One is a filly out of the multiple Group 1 winner Alice Springs, while one of the colts is out of Kissed By Angels, a Group 3-winning sister to the magnificent Minding. As most of these youngsters are out of black-type earners, it seems fair to expect this cross to flourish over the coming years. Ghaiyyath’s dam Nightime was not only Galileo’s first Classic winner, but also one of the first to demonstrate that Galileo often benefits from mares with plenty of speed in their backgrounds. Nightime’s first two dams, Caumshinaun and Ridge Pool, were respectively sired by the King’s Stand S. winners Indian Ridge and Bluebird, and her third dam, Casting Couch, was by another leading sprinter in Thatching. Daughters of Indian Ridge produced two further group winners by Galileo. One, Oh Goodness Me, was essentially a miler, as she was third in the Irish 1000 Guineas, but the other, David Livingston, won the G3 Rose of Lancaster S. over 10.5 furlongs, having taken the G2 Beresford S. over a mile as a 2-year-old. Nightime’s stamina went unproven, as she failed to reproduce the form she had shown on heavy ground in the Irish 1000 Guineas. However, her broodmare career suggests strongly that she would have stayed quite well. Ghaiyyath is her second Group 1 winner, following the GI Man o’War S. winner Zhukova, who stayed a mile and a half well despite being a daughter of the sprinter Fastnet Rock. Nightime also produced a mile and a quarter winner to Oasis Dream and a mile and a half winner to Raven’s Pass. Although Ghaiyyath’s second dam Caumshinaun was essentially sprint bred, she stayed a mile, as she showed by winning the Listed Platinum S. Ghaiyyath’s fifth dam, the speedy Drama, won the G3 Greenlands S. and went on to produce a pair of notable broodmares in the GIII winner Tycoon’s Drama and the listed-placed Last Drama. Last Drama was the dam of the Grade I-winning American turf performer King’s Drama and second dam of Dubawi’s son Move Up, who enjoyed group success over a mile and a half in Britain and Turkey.

Probably but needs to find the right glue to attach the right appendage to the Prince(ess).

Geez I like that idea but I guess there won't be many fillies around?

I met Jim Dalgety once. He visited our stall at the races and had a look at my Dad's 3yr old colt by Lordship. Jim reckoned he was the exact replica of Johnny Globe and Jim would have known given his close involvement with Johnny.

OK. Often I wish we had the irreverant attitude of our mates across the ditch. We are far too insular. Part of the reason why I allow everyone to have a say on BOAY.

Who took it down?

Just out of interest a kg is 4 points in gallops (might be wrong on that but Thomaas isn't here to correct me) what is 10m in points for harness?

Anyway sign language always works!

Does Newmarket?

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Message me if there is anything I can help with.

I'm happy. Personally my first passion in racing was harness. Worked in a stable, did my amateur drivers course but have never owned one. Owned a few gallopers though.

His name is Ghaiyyath. A big horse. I really like the way he trotted back after thrashing that field. By one of my favourite sires Dubawi.

That's a LOT!

Yeah I wish Thomaas was here because I think this horse can beat Enable.

I had to look that word up. anthropomorphism applying human like qualities to animals. I've worked in stables and owned a few horses and I assure you that some do have human like qualities particularly the good ones. I'm also a firm believer that you need to manage the mental side of horses carefully. They are a herd animal and within a herd there is a hierarchy. Good trainers step up incrementally. Aussie trainers are great at it. A few in NZ are. Murray Baker is one.

Off to take on Enable.