THE SUNSHINE COAST NEWSPAPER COLUMN - WHAT HAPPENS TO TARRANT NEXT WILL BE TARRANT'S CHOICE

By Graham Potter | Sunday, January 17, 2016

Graham Potter writes a weekly column for the Sunshine Coast daily. Due to demand from those having trouble accessing the paper these columns are now also published on HRO courtesy of the Sunshine Coast daily.

The free fall that former gun apprentice Luke Tarrant has experienced in the last twelve months is a quite staggering reminder that success is fleeting and that your future prospects are only as good as your projected current value.

This time last year Tarrant was celebrating a momentous win in the $2 million Magic Millions Two-Year-Old Classic. He was a comfortable leader in not only the Brisbane Apprentice jockey’s Premiership but in the open title as well. He was no stranger to riding multiple winners at metropolitan meetings and he, more often than not, had the choice of favoured rides in most contests.

As the season went on Tarrant did start to stagger, results-wise, but the first major body blow to his career arrived in May 2015 when stewards sustained a charge of reckless riding against Tarrant which earned him a six week suspension.

Reckless riding is as serious a charge you can get for your actions as a rider on the track and a guilty finding turned out to a big game changer for Tarrant’s career ... not just because of his period of inactivity, but because of the luke-warm reception he received from owners and trainers on his return.

Good rides, and by implication, positive support for Tarrant had dried up to a marked degree. Even with the passing of several months and a vow from Tarrant to fight back, there was no significant improvement in that situation. In fact it was soon to go from bad to worse.

On 2 December 2015 Tarrant provided a sample of urine to the Stewards and his sample returned a positive to the metabolites of cocaine. Tarrant was duly charged. He pleaded guilty to taking a banned substance. He was then disqualified from racing for a period of six months.

The fact that Tarrant arrived at his sentence hearing wearing a peak cap bearing the slogan “Enjoy Coke’ perhaps said as much about him being a ‘little boy lost’ as anything he had done before.

It was another critical error of judgement which has cost him a good number of the sympathisers he had left and his reputation was savaged on social media.

I offer no defence or excuse for Tarrant’s actions. You simply cannot pardon the level of irresponsibility which put his fellow riders at risk and the lack of respect that goes with that so, I also have no qualms about the penalty that has been handed down.

I do have some sympathy for Tarrant though ... as a person to whom too much came too quickly at too young an age, when he was ill equipped to handle the fast and furious fame-game and the company that brings.

Tarrant famously has the tattoo ‘Second Sucks’ on his chest. That slogan represents a competitive spirit that wants to be the best it can be. For Tarrant, that is still a long term option, be it in racing or elsewhere.

While it is easy to dismiss Tarrant’s chances of making a successful comeback to racing from here, as was the case with his downfall that outcome will ultimately depend on the choices Tarrant makes ... not in six months time, but from today.

And make no mistake about it, whatever destabilizing distractions there might be in Tarrant’s life, he always has a choice.

Some might not back him to make the right one, but I hope he does!

Luke Tarrant