LARRY’S VIEW - RIDING WEIGHT ISSUE SHOULD BE ADDRESSED SOONER RATHER THAN LATER

By Larry Cassidy | Friday, April 8, 2011

Larry Cassidy currently has forty-two Group 1 successes behind his name. He is a multiple Premiership winning jockey having taken out three titles in Sydney and one in Brisbane. Larry’s View, the personal blog of this top class rider will appear on horseracingonly.com.au every Friday, workload permitting.

Firstly, I just want to thank everybody for the positive response I’ve had since joining the HRO team. It’s good to know that so many people are happy I am on board.

I received some informative and interesting feedback regarding my weight-loss regime and I have been asked to give my views on the ‘raising the riding weights’ issue which is an on-going subject of debate.

Also, I have been asked to touch on the ‘education’ of riders with regard to the level of medical knowledge that is made available to them concerning the stress they might be asked to put their body through when becoming a jockey.

So let’s deal with those two items one at a time.

When I first came to Australia I think the minimum riding weight was 50kg. I could ride that weight back then.

Then, when the weights went up to 51kg … I initially found 51 easy, but then it got harder to do 51. Then … 52kg, and the same happens. Then 53kg. Obviously I’m older now so I find it difficult to ride 53kg week in and week out.

This means that weights have only risen 3kg or six percent in the last 20 years. I'm pretty sure the average person is more than six percent heavier than they were 20 years ago!!

People are bigger these days. Studies have shown that. You only have to look at society and the build of children in schools. For example, I have a fourteen year old son and he’s bigger than me. That just shows you. I mean
he’s sired by a jockey and he’s built like a footballer.

It’s the modern world. It’s just the way the world is and the way people eat today. That’s definitely had a bearing on how people are growing these days.

I think raising the riding weights is something that definitely needs to be looked at. I think Victoria is looking at it while New Zealand recently raised their weights.

I can’t see why 54 can’t be the minimum and maybe 53 in the Group 1 races … and, of course, the top weight must go up accordingly. Definitely.

You have to keep a range of weights intact. If you put the minimum up, the top weight has to go up because otherwise it is too compressed and not a proper handicap spread between the better horses and the lesser horses.

There is no reason why the top weight shouldn’t carry 60kg.

A lot of people will flinch at that, but, like people, it is also true that horses are bigger and stronger nowadays. Years ago many were on the lean side. I think the majority of horses are bigger and stronger now.

When you look at overseas … Europe for example … when their horses come over here for the Melbourne Cup and they get 58kg, they’re giggling to themselves because they are used to getting more than that. They think they are thrown in.

I know you are going to have some people say, well look, my horse can’t carry weight.

Obviously all horses are different. Some horses are smaller. Some can’t carry weight. You’ll get some big horses that also can’t carry weight. You’ll get some little horses that seem to carry it.

Every horse is different, whatever the weight scale. That’s just part and parcel of the racing game.

Raising weights will also have the advantage of keeping riders in the game longer and, more importantly, possibly attracting more riders into the sport.

With regard to any education new apprentice jockeys receive about what they might be going to put their body through, I can only talk about my own experience.

When I was an apprentice I was quite light. It probably wasn’t until I reached twenty … or twenty-two years old … that I started to struggle and had to really watch what I eat.

There was nothing like the access to knowledge there is now. Nutritionists and all that … well, they were about, but we didn’t know anything about it.

You would just not eat for two days and jump into a sauna. You would put your plastic suit on and go for a run.

I’ve tried every diet under the sun. I’m been from lemon detox to Jenny Craig to Lite And Easy. They all work if you exercise and cut out alcohol, but I find that it can only work for me for about three months.

My body can only withstand that for about a three month period because, realistically, I should be 56 or 57kg’s. I’m trying to keep around 54kg so I can ride 53. So your body can only withstand that for a certain period of time.

That’s what people don’t understand.

You see we are not like some of the everyday people who should be 60kg and they are 70kg and trying to get down to say 62kg.

They do that over a period of time where they are not dehydrating their body.

Jockeys dehydrate so we are all really treading a fairly fine line in terms of maintaining good health.

There is no meter we can check to see how close we are to crossing the line so our lifestyle has a reasonably dangerous element to it in terms of our health.

I, thankfully, have probably only pressed over that line a couple of times in my career and each time it has been a wake-up call.

About six to eight weeks ago, I actually … you could sort of say I collapsed the morning of the races.

I still came to the races and rode. My wife wasn’t very happy with me.

I rode four races that day. I went back and looked at my rides and I rode them all well. I think my professionalism kicked in. I put the mishap of the morning behind me and, after studying the videos, I don’t think it affected the way I rode, although the Club Doctor stood me down after Race 4.

But I knew I could not carry on that way. I don’t want to be in a position where I feel I am a danger to myself and a danger to others around me.

Fair enough … fall off and hurt yourself. Fall off and hurt someone behind you … that’s not on.

That was a wake-up call for me. I then stopped riding 53kg for about a month until I was able to get my weight down in a more natural way.

Now my weight is good.

A natural side-effect of wasting is how it can affect you psychologically.

Depression can become a problem, particularly when things are not going well with your riding. You can get down on yourself.

I suppose I felt down before I came up here to Brisbane. I was going so well in Sydney and then, all of a sudden, I couldn’t get a ride.

The most difficult thing for me was there was no reason for the change. I had done nothing wrong. I was riding well. I’d been Premier jockey. I’d ridden more than forty Group 1 winners.

I ended up riding 100-1 shots on a Saturday and getting three rides. That got me down.

I still have no idea why it happened.

I wouldn’t say I got depressed during that time, but you do start looking at yourself and questioning yourself.

You start asking yourself things like, how the hell have I ever ridden two thousand winners? How have I won three Sydney Premierships when I can’t get a ride?

From studies done on jockeys apparently there are quite a few who have suffered from depression.

Obviously each individual’s personal situation will have its own effect. If you are by yourself it will be very difficult to deal with it alone.

Luckily enough for me, I’ve got a loving family … great kids and wife … so the support base is there for which I’m grateful.

So, yeah, my bottom-line to the riding weight question is, yes it should be looked at with a view to raising the weights and that should be done sooner rather than later.

As far as jockey education with regard to medical matters is concerned, with the information available to us these days through the progress made by medical science, it is ‘must’ that new apprentices be taught everything they need to know so that they can have the knowledge to make the most of their chosen profession by going about their business in as healthy a manner as
possible.

Ok, let’s end with a change of tack.

I’ve got a good book of rides on Saturday that includes a mare caused Jasminka.

I single her out not as a ‘good thing’ but because she is my favourite horse at the moment.

She is such an incredible horse to ride in a race. She is no superstar. She is a handy horse and she is going to win her races, but she is so easy to ride in a race because you can put her where you want.

When you draw wide … I’ve been drawn wide on her quite a few times … I’ve never been trapped wide. I’ve always got one-off the fence or on the fence because you can manoeuvre her so easily.

She travels through her race and can pick up and really finish off.

Track-work … she gets on the toe and really jumps around.

She actually dropped me last time in the parade ring before she won her last start, but she’s not mean. She won’t hurt you.

She’s got a bit of an attitude, but once you get out there … I just let her do her little thing without giving her a crack with the whip or anything and then you growl at her. Her stable name is Mary so you growl, ‘come on Mary’ and all of a sudden she will be fine.

Horses like her … I love riding them.

Another horse I love riding is Fillydelphia. She is very much the same.

She’s a bit tough to ride work sometimes when she gives you a difficult ride … but she is a great horse to ride in a race.

I haven’t done that much work on Jasminka. I’ve done quite a lot of work with Fillydelphia. Hopefully both go through and win a Group 1 race. That would give me great satisfaction.

They are not Group 1 horses at the moment, but they are up there as the favourite horses I love riding.

Sunline has to be my all-time favourite.

She was a three-year-old filly when I rode her. She was real tough … cranky … and she would give you an incredibly difficult ride in track-work.

Even going to the barriers. In the race she would jump out and pull her head off.

You’d run unbelievable sectionals early and then when you let her go she’d just zip along and leave them to it.

So I suppose she really sticks out as my all-time favourite ride.

More to come next week.

Cheers,
Larry

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