MICHELLE PAYNE PLANS HER RETURN TO RACE-RIDING

By Graham Potter | Wednesday, February 23, 2022

Michelle Payne, who made a rare visit to Queensland last Saturday to check in with Nikita Beriman, (her Queensland stable foreman), has hinted of a return to race riding … albeit while at the same time admitting … “I’m not far from hanging up the boots, but I am going to enjoy the time I have left.”

Speaking to Racing.com, Payne added. “I took a break over summer. I don’t like my horses running much on hard tracks and it was nice to reward my nephew Sam with some rides we did have,” said Payne, speaking the Racing.com. (Sam Payne rode two winners … Richmond Poet and Rambler Rebel …for Payne over the summer).

“I am ramping back up again now and getting ready to ride again,” added Payne.

Payne, who holds a dual trainer/jockey licence, has not ridden in a race since the Geelong meeting on September 5, 2021, and you have to go further back to March 21, 2021, a full eleven months ago, to find Payne’s last winner in the saddle which came aboard the Patrick Payne trained Douceur at Ballarat … but that timeframe back to the last win is easily explained, and put in perspective, by the fact that Payne has only taken nine rides in that eleven month period.

On the training front, Payne has saddled thirty-two runners in the last eight months at a more than useful winning strike-rate of 18.75 percent … underlining the progress she is making in that aspect of her career where she is happy to keep her stable under a boutique banner with the aim of working with quality over quantity.

In spite of her strike-rate, Payne’s limited representation in terms of numbers and activity have left her flying well under the radar, but the measured process she has put in place is likely to gain more traction, and attention, moving ahead.

It is all about ticking off boxes along the way, such as when Payne landed her first winner in Queensland two Saturdays ago with Group Think.

Payne was present at the Sunshine Coast last week to watch Group Think attempt to make it back-to-back Metropolitan victories and, although that didn’t happen (Group Think finished second), Payne would have gone away well satisfied that her training operation is moving in the right direction … and in a game as tough as the racing industry, that is about all you can ask for.

So, it’s not a bad time for her to think about getting back to race riding.

Somewhere down the line, going out a winner … riding a horse that she trains … would probably be the best ‘sign off’ that Payne could have to her riding career, and once she does get back in the saddle again that becomes a very real possibility.

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