LARRY’S VIEW - LOOKING ON FROM THE SIDELINES

By Larry Cassidy | Friday, June 10, 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.

Well here I am on the sidelines. Obviously it’s not a good time to be an observer because tomorrow is Queensland’s showpiece day.

Ironically I got suspended at the same meeting last year so I’m missing the Stradbroke again. Last year I took my wife to the races and that was the first time I’d been to the races just as a spectator for a quite a few years.

This year we’ll actually be away, so I’ll have to find a television where I can watch the Stradbroke and the Derby.

Two years ago I won the Derby and I haven’t been able to ride in the Derby since, so to miss this particular meeting two years in a row is unfortunate, but I’ve just got to be philosophical about it.

I made a mistake. There was nothing done on purpose or anything like that. It was just something that happened. I was guilty. I picked up the suspension and, you know, you’ve just got to live with it and make the most of the opportunity to take my family away for a few days.

When you are riding in a big race all your focus obviously is on your own game-plan. When you are not directly involved it does allow you a slightly different perspective on things when you are weighing up the chances in the race.

I quite like Woorim in the Stradroke. I think Rob has got a great chance of winning his first Group 1.

If the track stays in good order, Woorim’s got an excellent chance of winning because it is going to be a hectic race up near the speed. If he can get into the clear with 300m to go and produce his finish I think he is going to be finishing very close to them at the post.

He has drawn eighteen, but a horse like him is probably better out there rather than being cluttered up. Obviously wide draws are not good but, at the end of the day, for him, it’s not the worst.

Who-ever wins, punters, still smarting from the Free Wheeling incident last week, will be hoping every runner gets their opportunity in the Stradbroke tomorrow.

I must admit I didn’t have that close a look at the Free Wheeling incident. I think the film that we see wasn’t that clear-cut. Obviously the stewards’ footage would have been a lot better and they had better angles.

If the horse was half upside down before the gates opened then I actually believe it was a non-runner, but the problem is we are talking about something that happened in a split second and the horse did go up very, very fast.

Just before Free Wheeling reared the starter would have said ‘all clear’ and between him saying all clear and having his finger on the button, there is that split second of reaction time.

In that time between saying all clear and pushing the button the horse could have forcefully flipped himself over. Therefore, if that was the case, the horse was afforded a fair start.

I can’t and I don’t think anybody can really decide which way to go until you have had to opportunity to view all the films properly.

The people who backed Free Wheeling did their money cold when the stewards took the line that it had its opportunity to jump.

It is a fine line, and the outcome can be debated from different points of view for a long time without settling the issue. I suppose that’s why stewards are there to make their decision … like they do about jockey suspensions.

It has been suggested to me, I hope tongue in cheek, that jockeys take liberties at this time of the year because, to quote from an e-mail we received, ‘no jockey minds getting suspended late in the Carnival at this time of year because they’ve all got their end of season holidays already booked.”

Well, for the record, I usually would take a holiday in about a month. For local jockeys in Queensland we’ve still got another three or four weeks left in the carnival.

For a lot of the visiting jockeys tomorrow could be their last meeting or maybe they’d be back for the Tatts meeting in a couple of weeks. Most of them, for sure, I know do have a holiday in July or late June.

That certainly doesn’t mean to say that they take an “I don’t care’ attitude out onto the track, but I think the attitude they do take is one where they will not shirk at being a bit aggressive in their riding … but, it must be said, that happens at all big race carnivals.

Towards the end of any carnival the races are getting bigger because the showpiece normally comes at the end of it.

When the stakes go up, racing gets more keen. You might find yourself involved in a bit of a roughhouse and you just have take what comes and do what you have to do.

If you are buried away and need to get out and have to push one out of the way to win it, you’ll probably do it, but you will never intentionally go out to cause interference of any kind.

It’s dangerous out there and the last thing any jockey wants is to see a rider on the deck.

So, no, the rash of jockey suspensions towards the end of big race carnivals has nothing to do with pre-booked holidays, as much as some people would like to believe that conspiracy theory. It just comes with the territory of competitive, hard racing.

I’m off on holiday (not pre-booked).

See you next week,

Larry

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