LUST FOR THE DUST
The Gold Coast’s most successful jockey Danny Griffin – seven GC premierships in all – is ticking off one of his bucket list items when he saddles up at the Birdsville Races next month
AKUBRA, check. Swag, check. Whip, check. Wife ... hmm maybe not this trip.
Danny Griffin, King of the Coast, is hitting the road – all 1600 plus kilometres of it to ride at the Melbourne Cup of the Desert, the Birdsville races.
It’s the one race day of the year where Akubras will outnumber fascinators.
Where tips and tinnies are traded ferociously and where men throw their swags down next to singleengine Cessnas on the bush airstrip.
Or like Danny, where they go to tick off a bucket list item.
“It’s been on my bucket list for so long ... and I’ve never been able to go before,” Danny said.
“But next month, I’ll be there. It’s one of our iconic events and I wanted to go while I was still riding ... but no, the family won’t be coming.
“I asked the wife (Jana) but she wasn’t too keen on this trip ... I think it was all the stories she had heard.”
Last year’s races, over two days, attracted more than 10,000 visitors. It was the first time the magic 10,000 figure had been busted.
For Danny, the trip will be a painful one – punctuated by frequent stops and ice packs.
Danny’s mounts have won more than $12 million in prizemoney over his 17-year career.
He had a golden run of sixstraight Gold Coast jockeys premierships before a sickening three-horse fall in 2012 saw him tear the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee.
The fall ended the riding career of colleague Dean Tanti.
And for Danny, it was a two-year journey to get back on the horse again. Literally.
Comeback he did, to win last year’s history-making seventh Gold Coast premiership.
But the knee is not quite right.
“After the first comeback ... I had to take a break ... and I wasn’t sure if I would ride again and I was in the surgeon’s hands.
“He was confident with another crack at it we should get it right and I just had to trust him. But it’s just so great to be riding again.
“And that’s one of the reasons I wanted to ride at Birdsville ... because I still can.
“The knee will play up a bit on the trip out there, we’ll have to make a few stops and ice and elevate ... but it’s more the pressure you put them under when you’re riding. “I’ll cap myself at six races.” The Birdsville races are held the first weekend of September.
Next weekend will be the 134th race weekend hosted by the tiny town on the edge of Simpson Desert, population 115.
“I’m a bushy at heart and I’ll be there swagging it up (sleeping in a swag like most of the expected 10,000 visitors),” Danny said.
“And when it’s all done and dusted a few cold ones won’t go astray.”
The carnival itself includes a 13race program and boasts prizemoney of $200,000.
The track, the 35-year-old explained, is on a claypan and runs alongside sand dunes ... it is also one of only four tracks in Queensland that runs anticlockwise. On Friday, there are six races followed by seven races on the Saturday including the big one – Race 5, Birdsville Cup Open Handicap.
Right now, Danny has some rides on the Friday program but is waiting for confirmation for the Saturday rides.
Danny said: “There’ll be some bush jockeys, locals ... I know Matthew Palmer from Brisbane will be riding. I think for all of us it’s a chance to be involved in what is just a great Aussie bush race meet.
“But I’d love a ride on the main race day, you don’t travel nearly 2000km not to have a go.
“I did try to talk the wife into coming but she has heard too many stories from mates over the years.
“She was pretty straight to the point ... ‘just leave me out’, she said.”
IT’S THE ONE RACE DAY WHERE AKUBRAS WILL OUTNUMBER FASCINATORS