From South Africa to Sydney to a Slipper, hopefully it’s See You Soon’s day
This afternoon, the eyes of the racing world will be on Rosehill for the world’s richest two-year-old race, the Golden Slipper Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m). It’s a race I’ve watched every year since I moved to Australia in 2015.
Last year, I was watching from the sidelines. I was injured and was just starting my comeback, so I strapped a horse on the undercard before heading to the gym, where I watched the Golden Slipper from a treadmill. The thought of riding in the race a year later was just not on my mind. And yet today, thanks to a bonnie filly in See You Soon (Siyouni) and an incredibly supportive trainer in Jean Dubois, I’m one of 16 riders with the opportunity to win the $3.5 million feature.
It’s something that seemed impossible when I was a nine-year-old in South Africa, clinging to life. I’d fallen from a pony while practicing for a showjumping competition and I was left with a cracked skull and bleeding on the brain. My mum was told that it was very unlikely that I would come out of theatre alive.
It still seemed out of reach when I moved to England from South Africa when I was 12. I couldn’t speak any English and I’d never been involved in horse racing. However, our new home was 10 minutes outside of Newmarket. Being so close to the heart of racing in England made it a logical step, and so I went to the British Racing School and I did my apprenticeship.
Over in the UK, I was apprenticed to Roger Varian and Stuart Williams but I was only there for a short while – I had 16 rides for one winner at Wolverhampton. I didn’t think being a jockey was for me and when I gave it away in 2013, I thought that I’d never come back to it.
To be frank, I was very immature, I was a useless race–rider and I needed to grow as a person.
It was then that I joined Mike de Kock. He was based in Newmarket and he was a South African, so it was an easy choice, but he also was travelling horses around the world and I knew that I wanted to head overseas. I spent two years in Dubai with him and also went with some of his horses to Hong Kong, like Variety Club (Var), Vercingetorix (Silvano) and Sanshaawes (Ashaawes). I learnt a lot from him about how horses are prepared and it gave me a good grounding.
When I decided to move to Australia, a career as a jockey seemed firmly behind me. I was looking more to become a trainer or an assistant and I wanted to get experience. In fact, I already had a job lined up to become an assistant trainer back in England once my Australian trip was done, which was only supposed to be six months.
I joined Bjorn Baker to gain more training experience, but it was his racing manager at the time, Jack Bruce, who had planted the seed in my mind about giving race-riding another go. Once I had my head around Sydney racing, I decided to get my weight down from about 65 kilograms to give an apprenticeship another shot.
It’s been a whirlwind few years and to say it’s been a rollercoaster ride is an understatement. I’ve been lucky enough to have some great opportunities and to ride almost 200 winners since arriving.
This season, I’ve joined the Anthony Cummings stable and I’ve been very grateful to Anthony for his support. It’s a very good environment to work in and he has supported me with plenty of rides. However, he also gives me the freedom to go and build connections with other stables, which is something that is so important to an apprentice in his final year.
However, the last 18 months haven’t been without their difficulties. I’ve had a number of injuries during that time: a hand and wrist injury in January last year, a broken ankle in May, a fractured left shoulder and a broken right wrist in December.
It has been a tough road back each time on so many levels, but it’s made me a stronger person and it’s strengthened me mentally and physically. I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by good people who helped me through, especially my amazing girlfriend Kiersten and my uncle and auntie, John and Laanie. They helped me keep my spirits up.
In between the injuries, I was fortunate enough to hop on a filly at the Warwick Farm trials in mid-October. She impressed me straight away; she reminded me so much of another horse trained by Jean Dubois named Aylmerton (Siyouni), who won the Todman Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) a couple of years ago. Like Aylmerton, this filly was by Siyouni (Pivotal) and she felt very similar.
It was See You Soon. This trial was on the Tuesday before she was set to debut at Randwick on the Saturday and I thought straight away that she could be a little bit special.
When she came out at Randwick, she proved it. The way she won was quite impressive and her times backed it up as well. After her second start in the Golden Gift (1100m), when I had to cut the corner and she only started to hit top gear late, I started to believe she could be a Golden Slipper contender.
I am grateful to Jean, as he committed to me straight after the Golden Gift. We’ve formed quite the partnership now – it started at country tracks and has now taken us to one of the biggest races of them all.
It’s exciting, because everyone dreams of riding in these top-class races and not many apprentices can say that they have. It’s an achievement in itself and something about which I am very proud.
When I was injured in that barrier trial fall in December, I wasn’t worried about missing the Golden Slipper. I knew I’d be back by then. I was more worried, though, that I’d miss her lead-up races to the Slipper, and so she gave me the incentive to work as hard as I could to get back in time to ride her.
The early plan was that she would return in the Widden Stakes (Gr 3, 1100m) on February 1 – which she obviously didn’t make in the end – but I had set my mind on returning in time for that race.
In the end, I was back in plenty of time for her return in the Reisling Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) two weeks ago. It looked a messy race on paper with no speed and that’s how it played out. I was a bit stuck. I was drawn widest of all so I had three options: go to the fence, sit four-wide midfield or look for a position two- or three-deep but right at the tail.
If I’d been four-wide, I would have been behind a horse that wouldn’t have taken me into the race far enough. I knew that being at the tail of the field in such a slowly-run race wasn’t an option either, so the fence was the best option. The way the race was run, I knew they’d be rolling off the fence and that I’d be able to get the run through, which is what happened.
The Golden Slipper is a different race entirely. There looks to be speed and every horse should have their chance. For us, we’ve drawn in gate eight which I think is ideal. You’d like to say that being middle of the line is best because it gives you options. From there, I can jump and she can end up wherever she wants to be. There’s speed drawn either side of us as well – we’ve got Prague (Redoute’s Choice) directly to our inside while Farnan (Not A Single Doubt) and Mildred (Hinchinbrook) aren’t too far outside us either.
If the dream did come true and I was to win the Golden Slipper, the most exciting aspect for me would be that my name would go down in the history books as a Slipper-winning apprentice, alongside two of the greats in Darren Beadman and Wayne Harris. Who’d have ever thought that the small country boy who had missed most of the past year with broken bones could be in that company? I certainly didn’t.
It would also reward the faith that the connections of See You Soon have had in me, to stick with me when they so easily could have looked elsewhere. Hopefully, I can prove today that I can be relied upon, whether I have a claim or not.
Above all, I’m extremely grateful and excited for the opportunity. Whatever happens, I know just how privileged a position I am in. Bring it on.