EF JUL 14 - APPRENTICE WHITEWASH

By Graham Potter | Monday, July 16, 2012

HRO blogger David Fowler has tipped some good winners in his time, but even he must have been surprised at the extent to which his latest pointer to punters proved successful at Doomben on Saturday.

Writing in last week’s blog on HRO, Fowler concluded his blog with this observation. “With the Winter Carnival closing off, it gives the opportunity for some of our promising apprentices to strut their stuff again on the Saturday stage. Ryan Hurdle (Fire Up Fifi) and Anthony Allen (Divine City) turned in pearlers and Rosie Myers slayed them with a treble at last week's Doomben midweek. Plenty of claiming talent to bet on in the coming weeks.”

Even with that positive mindset with regard to the potential of the claimers, what price could you have got for the apprentices riding the full card on Saturday? As big as those odds would have been, they would have been a whole lot shorter than those marked up about the chances of an individual three kilo claiming apprentice riding five winners on the day, a feat last achieved over thirty years ago.

As we all know now though, both of those notable achievements were realized on Saturday when Anthony Allen completed the massive five winner haul, Rosie Myers continued her fine run of form with a double and Maija Vance chimed in with a winner that helped secure a clean sweep for apprentice riders on the day.

Anthony Allen is no stranger to riding multiple winners on a day. He had already done that twice at Rockhampton in his brief career, but when he drove Bradbury Chocolate home to a breathtaking, come from behind win in the last race, it took even his proud record to new heights.

Not that you would have known it by his demeanour. With his winning count rising with almost each passing race, Allen remained unfazed through it all. Several interviewers tried to coax some excitement out of him, but is response never changed from his first report-back after winning on Double Image, just before one o’clock, to speaking about the ride on his fifth winner just after four-thirty.

By any measure it had been a momentous afternoon for nineteen-year-old but, apart from riding the winners, Allen was reluctant to add to the hype. He said there was no point in making a fuss. He was just doing his job. When pressed by a rush of reporters he gave them something at least when he allowed that maybe it hadn’t hit him yet. But that was it.

Certainly it was a very humble response which will serve him well in the game in the future.

I caught up with Allen at the Sunshine Coast meeting on Sunday, where all three of the triumphant apprentices from Saturday were again going about their business.

If there had been any change overnight, it was that Allen now appeared to be a little more
confident in himself. Why wouldn’t he be?

But, interestingly enough, when the conversation swung to his roots in racing it quickly became apparent that Allen was something of an unlikely hero.

“How did I start? Well, about four to five years ago I needed a job. Dad was egging me on get a job and get a career started,” said Allen.

“I was the right build … the right shape for a jockey. He was pushing me to do this so I ended up doing it.

“Honestly, I never liked horses at all. I was always half scared of them and that. I had to get the guts to do it and that’s how I started out.

“I worked as a stable-hand for Dave Campbell in Grafton. I did that for eighteen months. He taught me the basics of riding. After that I went to John Shelton, who was the leading trainer at Grafton at the time. I was there for another two years.

“I got my fifty winners in the country. Then I wanted to move to the next level … metro and provincial. The word that I wanted to do that spread. I then went on loan to Steele Ryan at Deagon.

“He is the type of fellow who looks after you … and that’s what I wanted. He helps me out business-wise and career-wise in which he has helped me enormously.

“I’ve been making good progress. Saturday was in fact my first full book of rides in town. So I was already happy about that.

“When I woke up in the morning I was pretty confident on the day. I obviously wasn’t thinking about getting five winners though. I didn’t think that would happen. I hadn’t even had a Metropolitan treble before so I would have been very happy with two or three winners, but having the good horses underneath me gave me that confidence push on with it.”

Push on he did, with the now record book victories coming Allen’s way aboard Double Image (a $2 favourite), Modern Warfare ($21), Racing Heart ($4.20), Lucky Luna ($9) and Bradbury Chocolate ($3.60). Allen had won from the front. He had won from behind. He had come down the inside. He had won being the widest runner. It was one of those days when he had all bases covered.

But there was still some unfinished business to complete for the weekend.

Allen’s glorious Saturday result had taken him to a total of ninety-nine career wins.

At Coloundra, in the last race on the card, Allen moved that total into three figures when he piloted the John Thompson trained Oceltip to a personal landmark victory.

The one hundred winners were on the score-board!

Allen gave a little signal as he crossed the line. It was one of personal satisfaction at achieving a personal goal.

“I’ve been with Steele Ryan about five months now and I’ve ridden fifty winners,” said Allen. “In the two years I was in the country I rode fifty winners and in the five months up here I’ve ridden fifty winners, so I’m happy about that.”

It’s amazing the fine line that life can draw. Late on Friday night there were some thought that the race meeting at Doomben might be in jeapordy due to condition of the track and the forecast for continued rain.

Twenty four hours later, in the aftermath of a meeting that had been in some danger of not taking place, Allen was celebrating the biggest day of his career.

From being ‘half scared of them’ … when starting out … to riding five metropolitan winners in a day is quite a leap. It clearly has taken a heap of hard work and ‘the guts to do it’ to get Allen where he is today.

As such he is fully deserving of every reward that come his way.

*For the record, eleven riders have won five races at a metropolitan meeting in Queensland. Allen is only the second apprentice (with Ivan Wernowski) to join that elite club. Jim Byrne, who Allen was riding against on Saturday, is the only other current rider to achieve this feat.

But, they all fall an agonizing one win short of the best performance at a metropolitan track which belongs to Mick Dittman who rode six winners at Eagle Farm on November 1, 1977.

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