GEORGINA CARTWRIGHT JOINS TOP QUEENSLAND STABLE

By Graham Potter | Thursday, September 3, 2020

On the back of the recently arrived Ben Thompson’s boost to the riding ranks in South East Queensland, the state’s leading stable is about to open its doors to apprentice Georgina Cartwright who has been relentless in her quest to take up a role with the multi-premiership winning trainer Tony Gollan. It was no ‘gimme’ … but her persistence … Gollan used the word ‘tenacity’ … has paid off and, once out of quarantine, the Queensland chapter of Cartwright’s career will be up and running. HRO’s Graham Potter spoke to Tony Gollan and asked how this arrangement came about.

“I was asked if I would take apprentice Georgina Cartwright into my stable. I didn’t know much about her to be honest and I was luke-warm about the idea at first. She kept ringing me and I missed her calls.

“Then I had heaps of people ringing me about her. Brett Cavanough rung me. Greg Bennett rung me and I spoke to a few other people down there and, honestly, I have never heard of a person where everyone has so many good things to say about them … her work ethic, the kind of person she is … which is all very important to me.

“I don’t want to bring in someone, and have them come into our place, who hasn’t got a good work ethic and who is not a pleasant person. They wouldn’t fit in with us.

“She obviously has got good ability. After all I have heard about her it now seems a shame she is so deep into her apprenticeship. I would have loved to have her with a year more of her apprenticeship to go, but that’s where it is at. It is a good opening for a kid with her nous as a rider and also her tenacity to want to get here.

“She was very persistent, so I know she is coming here with enthusiasm.

“When I finally did speak to her on the phone she came across as a very impressive young woman. I said to her you are going to have to quarantine. She said ‘I’ve done that already. I’m happy to do that.’ She has apparently quarantined twice already since Covid started and she is not fussed by that. Nothing seems to be a problem for her.

“She is light. She has a limited claim … but she can claim off light rides. I won’t say we are short on that as such but, if anything, in our stable too, we are a bit light on light riders. We obviously have Baylee and Ryan but they are heavy so she’ll be a great addition to the light riders.

“Initially, she is on a three-month loan … which is a standard arrangement … but she hasn’t a bunch longer time as an apprentice anyway. She is looking for an extension to her apprenticeship. We’ll just see how the three months goes for her but I’m sure with our support, which we plan to give her plenty of, I think she’ll have a good time here.

“The apprentices I have had have done well. Baylee (Nothdurft) has done well. While the stable helped, he had to do a lot of it himself to get where he is. He had to step up to the mark. (Nothdurft won both the senior and apprentice Jockey Premierships last season).

“Before that we had Alannah Fancourt. She was just beaten out for the apprentice title one year and she set a high benchmark. She is a terrific kid. She still works for me to this day. She has a great work ethic and is just a good person. Baylee is very much the same. He is a good human being first and foremost.

“And now we have got Georgiana Cartwright due to join us soon.

“As I said, I didn’t know too much about Georgina before I was approached but she clearly ticks a lot of boxes.

“I probably won’t recognise her when I first meet her, but I am very happy to have her on board.”
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Baylee Northdurft, now a senior rider, was handed the easiest of armchair rides by the Gollan stable in his comeback ride at Ipswich on Thursday.

The Move made a mess of his opposition without really breaking a sweat, winning by 6.30 lengths in a time of 1-02.97 for the 1100m trip.

Gollan spelt out his plan for Nothdurft. “Baylee is back riding work now. I gave Baylee the one heavy ride at Ipswich. I didn’t have a lot of runners this weekend with his weight so he is going to go to the Gold Coast for me and he has a few other rides down there.

“He can just ease back into it and probably he will come back to town next week.”

“I’m just starting off slowly,” confirmed Nothdurft. “I’ve only been back riding trackwork for a week. I’ll take it slowly … get the weight down and then head back into town.

“I’m allowing that it will probably take a couple of weeks to both get my weight down and get back fully into it.

“Tony (Gollan) obviously gave me a lot of support last season and I just hope that can continue on this season.

I’ll do most of my riding for him and then the races I’m not riding for him I’ll be available for other rides.

“I am a senior jockey now, so we’ll see how we go.”

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