ONE YEAR DOWN … AND WHAT A TWELVE MONTHS IT HAS BEEN FOR JASMINE CORNISH

By Graham Potter | Monday, April 25, 2022

Jasmine Cornish officially hit the race riding scene for the first time on April 25, 2021.

It was appropriate in many ways that the race took place at Cornish’s home track of Beaudesert, riding for her family’s stable (Greg Cornish) on a horse, Rocky Nugget, who was Sheree Drake’s last winner before a serious ankle injury forced her to retire as a jockey.

Less than two weeks later, on May 7 at Gatton, Cornish had landed her first career victory on a horse called Mighty Moose … and she has been working hard since then as evidenced by the fact that his first year in the saddle yielded no less than 86 winners (at a winning strike rate of 15 percent), 162 places (a win / place strike rate of 43%) from 580 rides … which translates to an average of a little over eleven rides a week.

That’s a pretty big workload for a young rider.

And Cornish wasn’t just sauntering down to the nearest race-track.

All in all, Cornish took her riding classroom to no less than 28 tracks and has won races in all but four of them.
With that sort of commitment and some very obvious natural talent that comes from working with and being around horses for virtually all of her life, it is no surprise then to see the lofty heights that Cornish has already aspired to in the apprentice riding ranks in Queensland.

At the time of writing Cornish sits at the top of the Queensland Provincial Apprentice Jockey Premiership for the current season with 62.5 winners, 66 second places and 41.5 third places. This from 411 rides which have earned their connections a cool $1.4 million to date.

Cornish would be the first to acknowledge the fact that she does have a several other very talented young riders chasing her in the Provincial Premiership … Angela Jones is only half a win behind her … so that result is anything but a forgone conclusion, but it is certainly going to stack up as a highly successful first full season of race results for Cornish … and Jones … whatever that outcome might be.

It is a great contest … arguably showcasing the future of racing … which is likely to go down to the line.

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