Steve Moran speaks to Stephen Baster as he looks to secure his first victory in the Caulfield Cup
Jockeys Stephen Baster, Hugh Bowman, Kathy O’Hara and Corey Brown trekked the Kokoda trail in August. On Saturday, the first three named will compete in the Caulfield Cup and Brown would have been there but for a suspension.
None of the quartet has won a Caulfield Cup (Gr 1, 2400m) but victory, aboard Jon Snow (Iffraaj), for Baster would be especially sweet as he’s come agonisingly close on three previous occasions and given that racing’s spotlight seems to side step him despite perennial success.
Not that the soon to be 43-year-old and 13 times Group One-winning jockey has time to dwell on such things.
His twitter profile reads as follows: Melbourne based Jockey. Animal lover, Melbourne Storm, Richmond Tigers. Chairman of the Victorian Jockeys Association.
It fails to note that triathlons, cycling and photography keep him well and truly occupied in between his day job of riding temperamental racehorses. Not to mention that he and his wife Melissa have their hands full with two infant girls, Izzy who’s one and Penny, two.
Baster was busy when I rang him Monday morning. Out for a bike ride as it turned out. But not just any old bike ride. He’d cycled 100 kilometres including five ascents of Arthur’s Seat, on the Mornington peninsula, which is a three kilometre climb rising 208 metres at an average gradient of eight per cent.
Earlier this year, Baster contested the Amy’s Gran Fondo (a 120 kilometre cycling event) and performed well enough to qualify in his age group for the World Championships to be held in Italy next year.
“It’s in September so I won’t be going,’ he said, given the clash with spring carnival horse racing. “But I enjoy the cycling, it’s good for keeping my weight in check and I like the competitive nature of the sport.
“Everything I do, I’m competitive. That’s just me. My strength is the hill climbing because I’m light. My skinny legs aren’t as fast as many others on the flat,” said Baster who is preparing, not only for the imminent major races, but also another cycling event in December.
Baster has also climbed Arthur’s Seat on foot. “I did that in preparation for Kokoda, walking about 11 kilometres including the climb in about two hours so I thought that Kokoda wouldn’t be too bad if I could handle that. I was in for a surprise. On day one, after two hours we’d only covered four and a half k’s (kilometres). The terrain is crazy and you have to watch every single step you take,” he said.
The jockeys completed the Kokoda trail in three and a half days. “It was tough and we formed a bond, for sure…to share that experience. Most people take eight or nine days to do it. We were up at 4am, left camp and 5am and finished around 5.30pm with a half hour for lunch,” he said.
Baster is seemingly under but not off the racing radar most of the time. That’s partly of his own making. He rides less often than many of his high profile colleagues and yet it doesn’t seem to stop him regularly making an impact around carnival time.
“It’s not that I’m not working. I’m riding work most mornings,” he said. He makes the 80 kilometre trip to the ‘hub’ Flemington even though he lives walking distance from the Mornington racecourse.
“I ride plenty of work, I just don’t want to ride in races seven days a week. One, because family time is important to me and, two, because I think your form and focus suffers if you’re riding all the time and especially if you’re riding too many slow ones at the lesser meetings. It doesn’t make sense to me, especially at this time of the year,” he said.
Baster has ridden three Caulfield Cup placegetters, beaten an aggregate of less than two lengths.
The front-running Jon Snow, prepared by Murray Baker and Andrew Forsman, looks a good match for Baster who nearly pinched the Cup on-pacers Aqua D’Amore (Danehill) for Waterhouse in 2006 and on Barbaricus (Lion Hunter) who led from barrier 17, at 100/1, for Danny O’Brien in 2008. Barbaricus finished a little over a length behind Kerrin McEvoy’s All Too Good (Diesis) and, ironically, the Baker–trained Nom Du Jeu (Montjeu).
In 1999, Caulfield’s most significant trophy eluded him by just a nose when his mount Laebeel (Zabeel) was edged out by superstar Sky Heights (Zabeel).
He remembers each race well. “The rails run probably came too soon for Aqua D’Amore and she was brave. Barbaricus was posted three wide from the gate (17) and did an amazing job to hold on for third. On Laebeel, we got the (right) runs from midfield but she was nosed out by a very good horse,” he said.
As to this year? “This bloke (Jon Snow) is right in the market and probably has a better chance on paper than my previous mounts who went close. And if wet get some rain, that’ll be a real plus for him,” he said.
Baster has just two rides at today’s Caulfield meeting despite boasting a better than 25 per cent winning strike rate with six wins in recent weeks, including a double on Turnbull Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m) day. He’s had fewer rides than anybody else in the top twenty on the Victorian jockey’s premiership this season.
He often seems to be the forgotten man and yet somehow manages to secure decent rides in big races. Gai Waterhouse certainly doesn’t forget him. He’s ridden three recent winners for Waterhouse and Adrian Bott and the Hayes’ team and New Zealand’s maestro Murray Baker employ him but his support across the board is sometimes sporadic.
A win in one of the ‘majors’ like a Caulfield Cup just might make all the difference – not that he’s starving as he still managed to boot home the winners of around $3,500,000 in prize money last season and his most recent Group One win was less than 12 months ago.
“I feel like I’m getting some better rides as I get older,” he said after winning on Invincible Star (I Am Invincible) last Saturday. “Maybe that was a bit of wishful thinking but it’s not entirely untrue and you’d hope that thinking would apply. It certainly does in Europe where experience is highly valued and the older jockeys generally get the better mounts all the time,” he said.