Pegus catches a break
Clifford Park move hitting the mark
Jockey Mark Pegus has been around racing long enough to know anything is possible.
But he could never have thought a broken collarbone would eventually lead him to a new career opportunity, two years down the track.
Pegus arrived in Toowoomba at the start of September to test the Clifford Park water with the possibility of forming a working relationship with up-and-coming Queensland trainer Ben Currie.
Just two months later that partnership is cementing itself as one of Clifford Park’s most lethal combinations.
The Currie stable continues to go from strength to strength with 20 Clifford Park season wins already on the board following its record-breaking 2016-17 premiership victory.
Pegus has quickly slotted into that winning groove as he shares Currie’s Clifford Park riding duties with Beau Appo and a number of apprentices including Rebecca Goldsbury.
Even for a man who has ridden almost 1000 winners, 14 Queensland victories in seven weeks with a winning Clifford Park strike-rate of 53 per cent is low flying.
The Currie-Pegus link came through a chance meeting between the pair two years ago at the Gold Coast.
Pegus was in Queensland nursing a broken collarbone when he met Currie through mutual friends during the winter carnival.
Their long-distance friendship continued and has now become business after Pegus accepted an offer to join Currie’s stable.
“Ben wanted someone to work with him who he could also take to town,” Pegus said yesterday.
“I thought why not give it a go.
“The way Ben is going I didn’t think there was a lot of risk involved and if it didn’t work I could always go back to where I was.”
Pegus began riding in 2000 when apprenticed to Russell Cameron.
Pegus’s father Tassie had previously been stable rider for Russell’s father Ted Cameron.
Mark’s highlights include his Group One Goodwood victory in Adelaide aboard Shadoways for trainer Gwenda Johnstone.
“The Goodwood was one of the better things to come my way, but there have been other things just as important to me,” he said.
“I won an Adrian Ledger Memorial race at Albury for John Ledger and for me that was pretty special.”
Pegus has also ridden in Malaysia and Macau but is now fully focused on south-east Queensland racing with the aid of his new manager Cameron Partington.
“I would only have come to Toowoomba with the backing of a strong stable,” he said.
“Ben is flying at the moment and things are only going to get better for him.”