LARRY'S VIEW - TWO RIDES, TWO DIFFERENT OUTCOMES
By Larry Cassidy | Friday, August 12, 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.
In his Tuesday column fellow HRO blogger David Fowler highlighted the punters’ response to the book-end results at Doomben last Saturday.
My rides in those respective races evolved in two very different circumstances and, not surprisingly, had two vastly different outcomes. The feedback received at HRO has given my ride on Leapfrog a one hundred percent pass rate. With regard to my ride on Red Royal, the rating was less favourable.
As you are probably well aware, the Stewards have initiated an inquiry into my ride on Red Royal. That enquiry has yet to take place. It will probably happen before the first race on Saturday. As that inquiry is pending, it would be inappropriate of me to comment on the ride at this time, although I obviously do have firm views of how circumstances dictated the way Red Royal’s race unfolded and I am confident about the outcome.
With regard to the Leapfrog run, punters apparently took issue more with the supposed form reversal than anything to do with my ride.
I think ‘form reversal’ is an over-used term.
For example, a horse can have finished in seventh or eighth place, beaten by four or five lengths in strong company off bad gates. That could be a horse that has speed, but speed that gets them into trouble because they can’t clear other horses and they don’t have a lot of luck.
All of a sudden they draw an alley. They get the right run … and then they come out and win. People say … well geez, its form is eight, eight, seven and nine, so it must be a form reversal. That’s not true. Things were in its favour this time and the horse improved accordingly.
More than ever, barriers are very, very important. It was especially important for Leapfrog the other day. That (the number one draw) was such an important gate, because he has got such brilliant gate-speed. We went three strides and I was three lengths in front.
The thing is that, even though I was something like four lengths in front early, I hadn’t made him do that. I got down to the 900m mark. I was three or four in front and I had done no work. It’s like they had placed me in front and then they had started.
So I am three lengths in front of the field … with no weight on my back, having done no work.
What I did from there, I had a real deep hold on him. I didn’t push him to get there. It was just like I was riding pace-work. I went whoa mate, whoa mate … and he come back underneath me. That’s when the rest of the field caught me up.
He then travelled strong underneath me. I think we must have got about 400m or 500m very easy sectionals and all he had to do was run home the last 300m.
I’d still nursed him to the corner and then started to let him roll just prior to straightening as I had three or four horses outside me starting to attack me.
As you run around the corner at Doomben you actually run downhill slightly. So, if you’ve done no work, you have to make use of that hill because you can gain a length on them without doing any work.
Where I won the race was out of the gates and then slipping around the corner. I was very mindful of the trip. Bruce (Hill) had said to me that he really struggles at 1200, so you’ve got to get some easy sectionals in the mid-section somewhere … and he said, don’t go too hard early.
I’ll give myself a pat on the back for that ride. I don’t give myself a pat on the back very often, but on that ride I do.
Just for record, I’ve given myself a few uppercuts now and then too … but that’s a different story.
So that, at least, explains my counter argument against the form reversal argument leveled at Leapfrog and hopefully provides some food for thought.
As I stated at the outset, I would have been happy to give you a similar run-through of the Red Royal race but, due to the fact that the run is subject to an inquiry that has yet to take place, it would not be prudent of me to do so here.
Till next week,
Larry
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