Brent Thompson making a riding comeback!

[Chief Stipe]

Thomson back in the fast lane

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Pride Of Jenni was not the only star working into her Cox Plate campaign at Cranbourne on Saturday.

While the Cox Plate favourite was out and about preparing for her first run for more than four months in next Saturday’s Memsie Stakes, for the other star of the turf, his work on the track and his absence from the action were even more significant.

Brent Thomson sat on a horse for a fast gallop for the first time in 23 years on Saturday morning when he and an imported horse called Warnie zoomed around the Cranbourne training centre for trainer Ciaron Maher.

For the 66-year-old, the old anticipation was there pre-gallop as was the buzzing exhilaration post-gallop, but mostly there was an overwhelming feeling of familiarity.

“It seemed a bit natural,” he said a few hours later at The Valley on Saturday. “But I think 23 years is a hell of a gap since I’ve gone fast on one.”

Thomson used to go fast on plenty of horses, bringing him fame and fortune throughout the world. But it was at The Valley especially that he established himself as a rider of supreme talent winning four Cox Plates in five years, beginning with Fury’s Order in 1975 when the former Kiwi nicknamed “the babe” was just 17.

Two years later, he won for George Hanlon on Family Of Man and a year later, he rode So Called to victory for Colin Hayes. In 1979 came his most famous Cox Plate win when the ill-fated Dulcify space his rivals in what turned out to be the final race he would finish.

Thomson took to social media platform X on Saturday to express his delight at the morning’s work. “Well, it was a milestone morning,” he wrote. I rode my first fast gallop on Warnie … loved it and had a little blow myself,”

Thomson’s return to trackwork may also pave the way for him to again be an active Cox Plate player as he revealed there was a possibility he could be asked back to the track in a few weeks to ride at the traditional Breakfast With The Best.

He said that while he has been riding for Maher in slow work since February, he hadn’t seen a lot of the country’s most talked-about horse, but he certainly has felt her presence.

“I don’t have much to do with her, but she looks lovely and strong,” Thomson said of Pride Of Jenni. “I think they are all pretty proud they have a mare like her in the stable. Everyone loves a champion.

“I know just around the stable – I asked Sammy, who rides her when I’ve been down there – and she said she is absolutely enjoying herself.

“If you are looking ahead to the Cox Plate, you’d just think this track is readymade for her. If you had a pick of rides this far out, hypothetically, you’d be going ‘she’s the one’.”

Thomson said Pride Of Jenni’s front-running style compared to that of Vo Rogue some 40 years ago when he and fellow rivals of the bold Queenslander would try to come up with ways of beating him.

“If she’s in her best form, I don’t know how they are going to beat her,” he said.

“It’s a very hard thing to take her on as you destroy your own chances doing so.”