The effort by 16-year-old New South Wales based apprentice Tim Bell, to ride four winners at last Saturday’s Doomben meeting in Brisbane certainly sparked a plethora of emails regarding questions about the performances of other apprentices in Queensland. Bell was successful in Race 1 on Ollie Vollie at $2.10, on Rare Diamond at $5 in Race 3, before riding the last two winners on the card, Dealers at $10 and Fantastic Blue at $6.
His effort earned rave reviews from experienced racing personalities, including this on from Sky Channel racecaller, Alan Thomas, who upon Fantastic Blue winning Race 8 – and thus making it four winners for the day for young Bell declared, “I think we have to stand and salute a rising superstar. I think we are looking, ladies and gentlemen, at one of the great riders of our future in Tim Bell. I’ve only seen him in a couple of weeks. I’ve seen a lot of good apprentices over the years and you can’t name them all, but this kids got something freakish, yeah there’s something freakish about him, these horses just run for him, they just run. That’s come from a mile back (Fantastic Blue). I said the two favourites weren’t in it, Rapid Leica Jacko and Just A Piccolo, but when they came around the home turn, the winner was just in front of them and he’s just gathered this horse in, gave it a couple of cuts (with the whip) and then burst it through in the middle, took it to the lead and you could see the horse, not so much head on, but when you see the race side on, how the horse was enjoying his racing, that horse was galloping and just enjoying galloping, and Bell was hardly moving on him”.
Whilst I’m certainly not claiming to be an historian on Brisbane racing, I alluded to the performance of Melanie Price last Monday on the website, whereby she had ridden four winners, on the first Saturday of her riding in Brisbane, at Eagle Farm on 18/2/2006. Those four winners were advised as being Pure Energy, Adavale Hornet, Fair Ace and Partridge. Melanie Price through that feat created Australian racing history that day, as no other apprentice had ridden four winners on their first Saturday of riding in town.
Subsequent to Monday, I’ve gone back and checked, and then Caloundra based apprentice, and now fully-fledged rider, Rachel Mason also rode four winners in Brisbane when she was a three-kilogram claiming apprentice. She achieved the milestone on 22/10/2005 at Doomben, when she saluted on Grand Lover for trainer Troy Hall, Planagram for Rob Heathcote and both Canadian Shuffle and Chasin’ Tail, who were both prepared by Deagon based trainer Pat Duff.
In fact some apprentices have even ridden five winners on a metropolitan Saturday meeting. Millers Guide advises Roy Higgins rode five winners at Flemington as an apprentice on 11/3/1972 – and then seven days later at the same track also rode another five winners. Unfortunately, Millers Guide doesn’t advise what his allowance was when he achieved that feat.
In New Zealand at Otaki on 21/5/2000 a sixteen-year-old apprentice, Michael Walker, rode five winners.
Ivan Wernowski was an apprentice when he rode five winners at Doomben on 23/4/1977 and the Queensland record for number of wins in a day, is held by Michael Rodd who rode six winners at the TAB meeting at Caloundra on October 2003.
So Bell’s achievement last Saturday, whilst meritorious, in no way, shape, or form automatically gives him any God given right - in the dog eat dog world of thoroughbred racing – that he will become a great success story as a fully fledged jockey, as the day Melanie Price rode four winners at Eagle Farm on her Saturday debut – or Rachel Mason rode four winners at Doomben as a three-kilogram apprentice, a person may well have been able to draw the conclusion, that they too would go on and have wonderful careers in their chosen profession, yet Melanie has retired from race riding, whilst Rachel Mason, although she can ride at fifty kilos, rarely gets a ride in the city these days.
In fact, I suggest it is poignant that in my lifetime I have seen dozens of “successful apprentices” who struggle to get rides as soon as they lose their claim.
