LARRY'S VIEW - HAPPY TO BE BACK IN THE GAME

By Larry Cassidy | Friday, September 2, 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.

It hasn’t quite been the start to the season I was hoping for, but I seemed to have weathered the storm and look forward to picking up momentum.

Serving a suspension can be a frustrating time for a jockey, but my latest ‘time served’ on a careless riding charge, which officially kept me out of action from August 21 until September 2, has been the least of my worries.

As things turned out, I’ve been quite sick during my time out. I rode on the Saturday. I got home Saturday night and I could feel myself getting sick. I was in bed for the first four days of my suspension, so I would have been no chance of riding anyway during that time.

I think what made the situation worse was that leading up to that suspension I had got on top of my weight. I rode 52.5kg. Probably because I rode the 52.5 … I was light. My immune system was down.

I have to be very careful because I had pneumonia two years ago. I actually thought I was getting pneumonia again. I went to the doctor on two or three occasions. I did two courses of anti-biotics, because the first lot didn’t appear to be helping. I was really quite breathless. So I went back to the doctor and he put me on something stronger.

Because I was out of breath he just checked that there was nothing on my lungs. There wasn’t, thank God.

You know, you tell somebody you’ve got the flu … and they say, yeah, right!

I’ve found when I get the flu and I’ve been riding light, it knocks me for a six. Remember, I’m 6kg or 7kg lighter than I normally should be, so when your immune system is down you are more susceptible to get something worse than you normally would.

Even my doctor said that with the strain of flu this time around, even after a course of anti-biotics, people have been taking another two weeks to get over it. So, I think it did knock me about. Having had pneumonia before, I’ve got to be very careful to do my best not to let things go from bad to worse.

One plus, I guess, is that I didn’t actually put on much weight during my suspension because I was so sick. Having said that, the moment you lose a kilo you can really feel the effects that you have been sick.

They’ve decided to raise the weights again. It goes up on January 1, so it might be a happy New Year!

In general though, apart from the obvious and even without the complication of a sickness, a suspension does bring other negatives into the equation.

You say you are going to look after your weight, but it’s very difficult to look after your weight when you are suspended. You’ve got no immediate motivation to not pick the food that you wouldn’t normally eat and, as I’ve said many times, wherever you were form-wise you lose momentum and opportunities.

That why it is very important that when you come out of suspension, sickness … whatever, you make your presence felt again as quickly as possible.

You have got to get on the scoreboard and you have got to take enough rides to let people know you are prepared to work your way through it.

Two answers (in reply to questions) to end off this week’s blog.

No, I’m not worried about my strike-rate.

The bottom line is that you are trying to win on everything you are on, even though you know that realistically you are going to ride some horses that have no chance … and, the basic fact of the matter is, you are out there to make a living for your family. It’s our profession and that is what we are out there to do.

We are getting $160 a ride so, at the end of the day, if my strike-rate is one in ten and I have eight hundred rides for the season, I’m doing alright. Turning down $160 for five minutes work to keep up a strike-rate doesn’t interest me.

People can say all they want about strike-rates, but it doesn’t pay the bills.

… and lastly, again, no I’m not looking for any stable rider position and I don’t think many trainers are looking to employ stable riders.

I ride work for Rob Heathcote, Brian Smith, Kelly Schweida … occasionally Liam Birchley, Lawrie Mayfield-Smith … and that generally opens up options for me.”

Till next week,
Larry

*Larry Cassidy followed his own ‘comeback’ advice by landing a winner with a ripping ride on Trump in his first meeting back in action at Eagle Farm on Saturday.

In his blog Cassidy said, ‘That is why it is very important that when you come out of suspension, sickness … whatever, you make your presence felt again as quickly as possible’ … and he did just that.

This was Cassidy’s second successive win on the Rob Heathcote trained runner. He had also won on Trump on Exhibition Raceday back on August 17, the day he incurred his latest suspension.

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