LARRY’S VIEW - A PRETTY EVENTFUL SEVEN DAYS
By Larry Cassidy | Friday, September 16, 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.
The last seven days have been pretty eventful for me. There was plenty of good with a fair sprinkling of the ‘not so pretty’ … but you learn to roll with the punches in this game and that’s how you manage to take everything in your stride.
Last Saturday started with Russian Jar playing up with me in the parade ring before the first race.
I didn’t know the horse. He had arrived from down south from the Chris Waller stable. Not knowing the horse I actually observed him walking around the enclosure and he seemed to be a nice, big, strong horse. He was walking around nice and relaxed but, the moment I got on him, he just changed.
He was jumping up in the air and sort of half trying to pig-root. I didn’t know whether he was going to stand there and spread his feet and then maybe flip over … or what he was going to do.
When he actually first jumped up in the air I didn’t have my feet in the irons. He half-threw me up in the air and I came down and landed in very uncomfortable spot. It had me gasping for air for a second or two.
The main thing was just to keep him moving and to try to keep him calm … and also obviously to try and stay calm yourself. If you start panicking then the horse would feel that and it would make the situation worse. It turned out to not be a big problem. The pony came across and grabbed me straight away and he was a lot better with the pony.
I actually had to re-saddle the horse around at the start. I thought once he got around to the start he would be fine. When I re-saddled him I said could they take me around the front so I could give him a bit of a trot around. Once they got out the front he was doing it again.
As I said, I didn’t know the horse … but I’ve got a feeling the horse could always be like that. I got the pony to come and grab him again, just in case it threw me and got away.
So, in this case, I don’t necessarily think his antics impacted on his run because that might just be the way he is. Relating to his run, on paper it might have looked disappointing but he was second-up. He ran a blinder first-up. So I think you’ll find there was a bit of a second-up syndrome about it even if it looked disappointing.
Luckily I was able to get one back for the Waller stable later in the day when Our Cannavaro won well.
It’s great for me to have the connection with the Chris Waller stable. I spoke to Chris about three or four months ago. He said at the end of last season he had a lot of horses that could be rated the same and instead of having three or four runners in the same race, he was going to start sending ones up here. Instead of running them all in a mid-week on a Wednesday down there, he could get a couple of Saturday runs in Brisbane
He said he was probably going to pick the eyes out and send a couple up here and there.
He certainly sent the right couple up for starters, even though the first one didn’t win. There’s certainly a good race for him up here somewhere.
When his horses come up they are going to be great to be on.
Things played out the other way around at Doomben on Wednesday. I got my winner first and then had a few problems on my last ride of the day.
Luminous Harmony was my winner. She was a beautiful ride. She just walked around like an old hack … just cantered to the start. Bryan Guy just said to me she has to be ridden quiet. I did that and she was never going to get beat.
Signify was a very different story in the last.
I think the connections were quite confident the horse would run well. The horse was sort of jig-jogging around the enclosure but, you know, nearly every horse does that so I wasn’t worried about anything there
Then we went out onto the track. The bloke let me go out the gate onto the course proper. The horse dived straight into a canter, which again is not unusual. He had his head down, which is still not unusual. I just flopped over his neck and went with him.
He started heading towards the running rail. Some horses do that. They will go in an arc and probably get three horses off the fence and then they spot the rail and away you go.
So, right until then, I was not concerned … but he didn’t straighten!
I might have actually snagged the horse and tried to turn it towards the fence to show it the fence … maybe, I don’t know.
When we didn’t come around and we hit the fence, I remember the rail buckling which was just fantastic … these plastic rails … because the aluminum trails would have bent into the shape of the horse. He would have got tangled up and panicked. The uprights are made of steel … and who knows I could have been tangled up. The horse could have flipped and landed on top of me. It could have been horrible.
As it was I sort of got thrown clear. I went over the top of the rail. I must have got thrown quite high too because when I came down I landed with a thud on my side.
They say the noise that came out of my mouth …well, it must have been all the air coming out of my lungs.
I couldn’t breathe. I thought I might have broken some ribs. I was lying there in agony on my side. I didn’t move, because I wasn’t sure if I’d done more damage or whether moving would cause further damage. You just don’t know.
I’ve had falls and jumped up straight away because I knew there was nothing wrong. This time, I wasn’t sure. I thought there could be something wrong here and I know that you shouldn’t move just to be safe.
I lay there quite still. They came and gave me some oxygen and, when I could finally get my breath, they rolled me over and pressed my ribs … and I knew then that nothing was broken.
So, I got up. I was incredible sore but basically I had come off pretty lightly given what the outcome could have been. It was a big relief when I was able to walk back across the track I can tell you.
I did have a terrible stomach ache before I left the races … which I was a little bit worried about. Even though my side was hurting, my stomach inside was really hurting. I called my wife and she rung her father who is a doctor. He said, look, just keep an eye on him in case I’d ruptured my spleen or something like that. You don’t know.
It was nothing like that. I just think because I was so winded I’d just jolted everything so hard inside that it just affected me for a while. At least you can look back and laugh about it.
By the way, I am riding Signify again next Wednesday. The horse is going to get led down to the start. The horse previously always used to get led down to the start with the exception of his last two starts because he had been behaving. Obviously he had a bad day again last Wednesday.
I’m not worried about getting back on him. He feels like quite a nice horse, so … let’s hope.
I was well enough to ride again two days later at Ipswich. After my first ride at Ipswich I was actually sore and my hip was very stiff, but there was no bruising to show … which was bizarre.
That first ride at Ipswich (Seriously Ready) was a winner. I only had two other rides on the day (Liesele and Tehuti) and managed to complete the treble. Going home with a full house of wins was a nice confidence booster.
With six winners at my last four meetings (one the previous Friday, one last Saturday, one on Wednesday and three this Friday), I obviously do think my form is picking up momentum. I think the quality of my rides is improving slightly and that shows in the results.
So it’s nice to be back on a regular winning track, even if there were some hiccups along the way.
Can’t say things have been dull.
Till next week,
Larry
*Larry Cassidy continued his strong run of winning form by adding a double to his tally at Doomben on Saturday where he piloted Secrets Untold and Leapfrog to victory. These latest results mean that Cassidy has ridden eight winners in his last five meetings … a welcome return to form for a rider who had been going through a relatively quiet spell.
Unfortunately for Cassidy, again everything was not smooth sailing on Saturday with his ride on Trump coming under the scrutiny of stewards. An inquiry was opened into the running and handling of Trump. After taking initial evidence from Cassidy and trainer Robert Heathcote, the inquiry was adjourned to a time and date to be fixed.
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