LARRY’S VIEW - SOME INSIGHT INTO LIFE BEHIND THE SCENES IN THE JOCKEY’S ROOM

By Larry Cassidy | Friday, June 3, 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.

I wrote the main content of this blog prior to Wednesday’s race meeting not knowing that by that choosing the subject of the stewards’ demands on jockey’s time on race-day would come back to haunt me by the end of the meeting.

My fate for my indiscretion during the fourth race at Doomben on Wednesday is now a matter of record. The Stewards Report of the incident reads: ‘L. Cassidy, the rider of Five's A Diamond, pleaded guilty to a charge of careless riding under AR. 137(a) in that passing the winning post on the first occasion he permitted his mount to shift in when insufficiently clear of Big Max (J. Taylor), resulting in that horse striking the heels of Five's A Diamond, blundering and almost dislodging its rider. In this incident Summer Good and Andre's Choice (R. Wiggins) were checked. L. Cassidy's licence to ride in races was suspended for a period of seven meetings, to commence at midnight on Saturday, 4 June, and expire at midnight on Wednesday, 15 June 2011. In assessing penalty stewards were mindful of L. Cassidy's forthright evidence, guilty plea and good race riding record.’

The biggest disappointment obviously is losing my ride in the Stradbroke and other rides I had because of this suspension, but I have accepted the penalty.

And so on to the blog subject of the week, before things took that nasty turn.

I have been asked by several readers to give my view on the demands that the stewards make on jockeys time during a race-meeting … the question being whether the interaction between stewards and a rider after a race can affect the focus of the jockey going out for his next ride.

The question was apparently prompted, in part, by the fact that jockeys of fancied runners which fail to perform are regularly asked by the stewards to report their assessment of the run. A more serious interaction, beyond that, is when a jockey’s ride is actually questioned or, worse again, when it ends up with a rider is charged for an indiscretion.

When you are called into the room for something like a beaten favourite, it usually doesn’t take very long. You have usually ridden them to instructions and the horse has failed to fire. You basically just have to give a straight explanation … if you thought there was anything wrong with the horse … maybe you thought the horse was sore, breathing funny. So you just explain that.

The stewards might also get the vet to do a post race examination. They are just trying to learn something more about what might have contributed to the below expectations run.

Many times there is nothing to find. It is not the jockeys or the stewards who make the horse favourite. It is the punters. Sometimes maybe the explanation is as simple that punters have picked the wrong horse. Maybe they’ve overestimated how good its previous run was in a race because things possibly went well for it. You know, fast pace, horse gets back and then surges. Now it was in a slower run race and its pattern is to get back which makes it very difficult to finish off. Sometimes the speed is right, the horse has every chance and just runs bad. Horses have bad days.

Higher profile jockeys will ride the greater percentage of favourites and therefore they will be called in to explain any failures perhaps more often than others. Statistics show that one in three favourites win, one might just get beaten and the other will perform dismally. If you are regularly on a fancied runner chances are you will be called regularly to give your view of thesupposed ‘below par’ run.

So when we are called in those circumstances it is just us giving what explanation we can and it really happens quite quickly and doesn’t distract us or take up too much of our time.

It is different if your ride is queried after a particular race and you still have races to come after that and the stewards want to continue the their enquiry in-between races. That can play on your mind because you are still riding and trying to stay focused for the rest of the day.

I’ve actually never had that happen to me. The only time I’ve been questioned in that way was the other day on Captain Clayton and that was the last race so it didn’t affect me as a player because I didn’t have to carry on riding.

If, for example, that had been race one though, I would have probably asked them if we could do this after the last race. You have the right to ask that. You just say, I don’t want to talk about it until after the last. I want to focus on today.

Stuff like that, if they keep getting you in in-between every race and they are questioning your integrity and digging you, even though you’ve done nothing wrong, it still does play on your mind and it can have an effect on how you go out and how you ride in the next race.

You might think and say you are a hundred percent focused, but in the back of your mind it is playing on you. You’re thinking, God I did nothing wrong yet they are hammering me here. What’s going on?

The other extreme you can get in that situation is when the questioning can delay you going out to the start. There have been occasions where a horse has been left circling alone with the others almost at the start already before a jockey is released to come out.

That can get you quite flustered too. Possibly you hadn’t anticipated being in the room for that long … you haven’t got your helmet ready, your boots are probably dirty. You come out and, realistically, it is not fair, not only on yourself, it is also not fair on the connections of the horse you are riding in the next race.

You get rushed instructions. If it is a horse you haven’t ridden before, you need to ask the trainer the right questions … you know, can he sit and sprint … does he need to wind into it … does he jump and show good gate speed or do I have to chase him?

When things like that happen … if I was a bit rushed, I would take my time within reason. Look, they are going to wait for you. They held you up. You are not going to delay the start on purpose, but you must take a moment to get back into the right frame of mind.

You take a big breath and you say, right, focus this race … get the right instructions … get on the horse … do not rush it around to the barrier, because you are still trying to do the right thing for the people you are riding for and the punters who have bet on the horse. You must put things back into focus.

The last thing you want to do when they are pointing the finger at you is go out and make a mistake in the next race.

In the racing game, as a jockey, sometimes you have to make a choice from two options in a race and you have a split second to make that choice. Whether it be the right one or the wrong one you have to live with the choice you make. If it's the wrong one, it could put your career in jeopardy.

You have got to make a choice and you obviously make what you believe is the right one at the time. It is worse if you sit there and don’t make a choice even though a wrong choice can have serious consequences for the jockey.

Now, there is a lot of money bet on races. There is a lot of money bet on football. If the ball is thrown and the pass is dropped when all the player has to do is carry it over the line … because the ball slipped out of his hands or he took his eye off the ball … he is not questioned as to why that happened, and a lot of money is bet on football.

The jockey makes a slight error in a split second and it could be a career threatening choice that you make whether it be a two week suspension or, even worse, a disqualification.

Having said that, given the number of runs and rides that the stewards have to evaluate on any given day and their obligation to the public to ensure that everything is above board, a lot of what happens is necessary.

Thankfully, life isn’t always that hard and fast in the jockey’s room.

There are many occasions when the stewards don’t call on you and you might only have a ride in race three and then another in race seven.

If you have to ride light later in the day … at Doomben you’ve got time to go and have a hot spa to take off a bit of weight. At Eagle Farm you don’t have the same luxury. Jockeys jump in the shower there and have the shower on hot. They come out looking like lobsters!

So that’s a way of taking off weight if you need to in-between races. I’ll actually be doing that Saturday. I’ve got no light rides early and I’ve got a light one later and I’ve got a break between two races. Therefore I don’t have to get all my weight off before I get to the track. So I’ll be doing that, I think between races three and race four on Saturday.

If you don’t have to ride light, you might sit there and watch replays, do the form, have something to eat and you might even have a sleep.

Hopefully you now have some idea about the two sides to life behind the scenes in the jockey room during a race meeting. It can go from having not enough time to having too much time on your hands and, like most punters out there, you just never know how your day is going to turn out.

Till next week.

Larry

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