BROWNIE'S BLOG - ON 'CONFIDENCE', A GOOD SUPPORT BASE AND KEEPING YOUR WEIGHT IN CHECK

By Damian Browne | Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Damian Browne is rated right up there with the best jockeys in Australia. After severe injury setbacks which would have ended a lesser man’s career, this eleven-time Group 1 winning jockey has fought back against the odds to establish a solid reputation both as a person ... through the calm, confident and professional manner in which he goes about his business ... and as a rider, where he has built an enviable race record largely courtesy of his exceptional expertise as a horseman. Damian’s column, ‘Brownies Blog’, will appear weekly on Wednesdays ... exclusive to HRO!

We all know that race riding is perceived as a confidence game. Obviously if you are having some success that does build your confidence ... but the confidence barometer doesn’t work as simply as that.

If you are not riding well and are not getting results you can get down a little bit, but you can’t go changing things because of it.

When you’ve been doing it for a long time and you find yourself in that position you just have to go back to the basics again. You have got to stick to what you’ve done, what has worked and what has really become second nature to you.

That’s your best way back whereas if you overreact when you are in a lull the chances are it will only make matters worse.

Of course it is easy to be feeling up when you are getting results and it is easy to get down when you taken off horses or you are not getting results ... but you know you are going to experience both of those situations several times over in your career so you shouldn’t let either impact too much on what you are doing.

Personally, you know if you are riding well or not.

It is easier to drive home after the races when you’ve had a few winners than it is if you haven’t. Sometimes though, I will drive home after having had three winners and a third placing for example, and I’ll still be dirty because I thought I could have ridden the third placing better than I did ... and then you can go home having not ridden a placing all day but thinking that you gave every horse every chance and be happy with that.

If you are not getting results but you feel you are riding well, then you can’t change it. You have just got to wait and hope you can get back on the right horses.

So, for me, confidence really is a personal mindset more related to how I think I’m performing than it is related to straight results but, yes, however you define it or manage it, the level of confidence is a huge factor in any rider’s makeup.

***************************************************************************************************

Confidence can’t be ‘manufactured’. You have to get there yourself and it has to be genuine to have a positive effect ... but it can also be impacted by influences away from the track.

When I suffered two body blows ... two career threatening injuries in relatively quick succession ... my ‘confidence’ could not have faced a greater test.

But I was very lucky. I was surrounded by the right people and, particularly in times like that, you do need them.

When the second injury occurred, for the first couple of weeks I was very disheartened but those people around me saw that and they knew when to leave me alone and give me a little rest and then when to give you a kick in the backside and say it is time to either do it or don’t ... and that sort of wakes you up and sets you on the right path again.

**************************************************************************************************

I don’t really go back and look at my rides too much these days. Obviously I do sit down and do a little bit of form but I don’t do it to the extent that some people do it because I think you can overcomplicate things sometimes ... and things change so quickly as soon as you jump out.

I like to do a lot of things by feel and instinct which can only be happen in the running but, having said that, I’ve still got a fair idea of the horses around me and their jockeys, so I do have a sounding board of information in my head which helps me make decisions in any race.

They are generally the same horses we are riding most of the time. You get to know all the itzy-bitzy things about the horses, jockey, track conditions and things like that.

We are riding on the same tracks nearly every week. It’s not like in Melbourne or New Zealand where you are riding on a different track every week and you are riding different horses every week so riding in Brisbane is a bit easier in that regard.

***************************************************************************************************

Just as racing might be a confidence game for jockeys so it is a constant battle with weight issues.

On that front, I think the best thing they ever did was ban diuretics. As a kid it was the easy way out. Just drop a couple of pills and turn up at the races ... but the long-term health effects were terrible.

Like anything, I think the more you put into something, the more you’ll get out of it. Keeping your weight in check in no different.

If you focus on it enough you can keep it under control and that focus probably comes down to those things like results again.

If you are having a bad run, it’s hard. Then, when you’ve got to get into the bath and go for a sweat run ... it’s difficult ... whereas obviously that focus comes easier when things are going well and you see a reward for your efforts.

*************************************************************************************************

Finally, I’d just like to send my good wishes to Jeff Lloyd.

It goes without saying how happy I was to see Jeff escape serious injury when he came off We’re Ready at the top of the straight, with a wall of horses bearing down on him, in the last at Doomben on Saturday.

It looked bad and there were worrying moments while Jeff was attended to on the track but, thankfully, he was soon back on his feet in what turned out to be probably as good a result as you could get from a fall in those very dangerous circumstances.

Till next week,

Damian

More articles