BEN'S BEAT: A YOUNG RIDER SHOWS HOW TO PUT A BAD EXPERIENCE ASIDE AND JUST GET ON WITH IT

By Ben Saunders | Friday, October 11, 2019

In this edition of Ben’s Beat, the personal blog of Ben Saunders, Ben covers a testing ten days in the life of young apprentice Alex Patis. He doesn’t harp on her well documented mistake, but instead highlights the impressive way in which Patis has coped with what would have been an even more difficult time for her if she had lesser self-belief. Also, Patis herself provides the background to her riding career to date which puts this very early part of her career into perspective. This is Ben’s Beat, which appears exclusively on HRO.

They say any publicity is good publicity and, while she might not have thought it the time of her mistake, that’s the way things could work out for apprentice Alex Patis.

Yes, Alex did misjudge the winning post at Toowoomba in the first race two Friday’s ago aboard Just Favulous, but the character she has shown in what she has achieved both before and after that misfortune suggests she is not going to let it unsettle her in any way going forward.

She made the error and she has accepted her punishment but, if you look beyond that honest mistake, there are positive points that you can put alongside her name … not least the way she has just got on with things in the week following that race.

Bear in mind, Just Favulous was only Patis’s second ride in Queensland, was only her second ride racing clockwise and the first at Toowoomba.

She was riding a horse which is a frontrunner on the hill at Toowoomba. She had to take a lot in and she rated the horse perfectly until late in the running. She’s pushed hard. She dove at the line … or what she thought was the line. That’s when it all came undone.

Unfortunately, it was a costly misjudgement on her behalf and she wouldn’t want anybody to make light of that. There was no person more embarrassed about it than her. She knew immediately what had happened. She’s pulled up. She’s gone straight to the stewards and admitted the error.

The senior riders … like Ronnie Goltz … did come out and see that she was alright and that she was looked after. They were trying to keep her up which was really good.

That guidance and support after the event was clearly of benefit to her because there is always some social media backlash that riders invariably to deal with after an incident of this kind.

At that time, Patis was one win off losing her 3kg claim so it would have been an important win for her.

Like I said, it was a very good ride … until it wasn’t. There is no doubt she rode it all the way to win the race and I’m sure it was consoling for Patis to a degree that the connections of Just Favulous gave her the ride again in the horse’s next start.

What a lovely story it would have been had Patis got Just Favulous up in a bobbing finish at that next start, but all races are different and that result was not to be.

Patis has taken her penalty on the chin … something that happens all too rarely these days. She did initially leave the period of appeal open but she went back to her boss, Helen Page, and then decided to cop the twenty-eight day suspension on the chin.

After that Toowoomba meeting Patis still had eight days to go before her suspension started and she fronted up at Gatton last Friday and rode a winner. We all know how hard Gatton can be to ride and she carried that off well.

She then had two seconds for Helen Page and Les Kelly at the Gold Coast on Saturday and she had a winner for Lindsay Hatch at Toowoomba on Sunday … so she has certainly knuckled down and shown that she is a really hard worker.

The fact that Patis had fourteen rides in the next three meetings after her mistake shows she might have lost that race but the support base that she has been gradually building since relocating to Queensland was not affected.

She did very well in Tasmania (see her story in her own words below) but bringing all that you have learnt in Tasmania and applying it in Queensland does not occur overnight.

It is a very steep learning curve, particularly at a new location on horses you don’t know well.

She is a very positive young woman and, as I say, it was quite refreshing to see how she just got on with it after things went pear-shaped.

I have little doubt that she will come back all the stronger for the experience.

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

This is Alex Patis' story in her own words:

"I grew up in Queensland and my family live here … so. I’ve actually just moved back home.

"I went to Tassie because it is a great place to learn how to ride. You get support from all trainers … from the bottom to the top. You get a full book every meeting and that’s what you need to have to get going.

"When you are starting off you don’t want to come for only one ride. You come for a ride and then all you want is another one in the next … and then the next. You want to keep learning and improving and, because of the number of rides you can get there, Tassie is a great place to give you that sort of experience.

"You can ride all day and hopefully every race you get better. I felt I kept making progress and that it was a good decision for me to go there and ride.

"I did win the Tasmania Apprentice Jockey Premiership (by one win). I think I ran fifth in the overall Premiership which gave me a lot of confidence. It was an achievement in itself because it was my first season of race riding. To achieve that wasn’t actually a goal I had set myself at the start of the season but when it became achievable, I really knuckled down and I got it.

"I was with Adam Trinder in Tasmania. He trains that good horse Mystic Journey so it was a good stable to be in. He really helped me out a lot.

"When I thought I had got everything out of Tassie that I needed I had an option of going back to Melbourne. I had started off in Melbourne.

"It was a choice of going back to Melbourne who coming to Queensland and … well, nothing beats family so I wanted to come home.

"It took me a while to transfer my apprenticeship over (to Helen Page) so I actually decided to take a holiday regardless of how long it was going to take to sort out the delay in the paperwork … so I went to Greece for six weeks.

"In Tassie I had worked virtually every day for a whole season so I was pretty worn out, particularly from chasing that premiership. I didn’t want to start here worn out, so that’s why I took some time off so I could come back fresh.

"It was obviously really unfortunate for me to make that error with the winning post in my first ride at Toowoomba … but I’ve just got to cop the penalty I received on the chin.

"I realised my mistake early. I didn’t want to come back in. I knew within a second that I’d made a mistake. I knew I was going to be in trouble … and I just had to try and keep my head up and stay strong.

"I knew the mistake would be well publicised … and it was … but I have to say how grateful I am for the fact that I received a lot of support from some jockeys, including high-end jockeys all over Australia, that I didn’t expect. They really didn’t know who I was but they gave their support which obviously helped me a great deal in terms of getting through it all.

"My main goal prior to any of that happening was to hit the ground running and I couldn’t afford to, and I wasn’t going to let that incident get in my way at the end of the day.

"Every day in racing is a new day and I just did my best with the week I had remaining before my suspension started. I’m happy that I was able to get two winners during that time and I can’t wait to get back."