STAYING POSITIVE
Racing breathes sigh of relief after rider gets the all clear
TOP Melbourne jockey Mark Zahra didn’t change his laid-back persona even though the immediate future of the Australian racing industry hung on the result of his coronavirus test.
Zahra was confident, as he was fit and healthy, he would return a negative to the test, but he had thought about the ramifications for the industry if he tested positive.
“I don’t get too stressed but I was relieved when I got the news I was all clear,” he said yesterday.
“To be honest, we spend most of our lives being flat out, so it was nice to have a day where you could sit back and relax.”
Zahra said he spent Thursday with his feet up and playing Xbox with his wife Elyse, indulging in a glass of wine, as he waited for the verdict.
The 37-year-old was first alerted on Wednesday afternoon that on a March 12 flight back from Sydney he had sat near someone who later tested positive to the virus.
Zahra said a last-minute decision to change flights led him to the predicament: “I was flying back on the 1pm flight and that got delayed to 3pm. I spotted a flight going at midday so I got on that quickly. I wish I didn’t do that.”
Zahra was allocated a seat in the back emergency row and didn’t sit next to anyone.
“The health authorities contacted Dr Gary Zimmerman and he quickly alerted me,” Zahra said.
“I rang my wife, my mum and dad, my two brothers and sister quickly while Gary alerted the racing fraternity.”
Zahra said he was buoyed by the news yesterday that fellow jockeys Hugh Bowman and Tommy Berry, who had shared a charter flight to Sydney with Zahra last weekend, had tested negative to coronavirus but he also knew the incubation period to get the disease was 14 days.
Zahra won’t be able to return to Sydney to ride at Randwick on April 4, costing him rides on Super Seth in the $3 million Doncaster Mile and Santa Ana Lane in the $2.5 million TJ Smith Stakes.
“It’s very disappointing I can’t get back there, as they are two of my favourite horses and they’re running in big races,” he said.
Zahra has five mounts at Bendigo today, including Masseuse in the $250,000 VOBIS Gold Rush and Sikandarabad in the $150,000 Bendigo Golden Mile.
Racing Victoria has formed separate groups of jockeys as an extra layer of protection from coronavirus for the state’s best riders.
As Zahra is in the “Green Team” of 21 jockeys, he is not allowed to ride trackwork.
SUNSHINE Coast trainer Kristy Best will make a rare trip back to the Gold Coast today when she saddles up Rock Tour in the Fillies and Mares Class 1 Handicap (1200m) at Aquis Park.
Best trains a small team at Caloundra and hasn’t had a runner at the Gold Coast since May last year when Rock Tour finished fourth in a 2YO Fillies Maiden.
But she is no stranger to the Gold Coast, having completed a Bachelor of Business degree – majoring in marketing and sports management – at Griffith University.
She also worked for Coast trainer Bryan Guy for a time.
“I haven’t had a runner at the Gold Coast for a while. Mostly Ipswich, Sunny Coast, Brisbane and Toowoomba,” Best said.
She is hoping for a better result today and is expecting Rock Tour to figure in the prizemoney.
“She has been doing really well and she was a bit unlucky last start,” Best said.
“She is a lovely little horse and tries her heart out.”
Rock Tour has had two runs back from a spell and is ready to perform at her best against the fillies and mares as comes off a second-up third in a 1200m Class 1 Handicap on her home track on March 20.
“She is well suited and back to fillies and mares. She been racing in town on Saturdays and at the midweeks behind a lot of nice horses,” she said. “We have always had a big opinion of her.”
Best’s husband Adam will ride Rock Tour and the Eurozone filly will jump from barrier four in the 14-horse field.
Best is hoping Rock Tour can join her stablemate No Better Moment in the winner’s stall after that gelding broke through for his Maiden win at the Doomben midweek meeting on February 19.
The Sunshine Coast trainer said she was keen to build up her stable numbers.
“I have a team of seven horses but I’m always on the lookout for more horses and am happy to take other horses on,” she said.
Nine-times Gold Coast Jockey premiership winner Daniel Griffin has a good chance to lay claims for a 10th title with a full book of rides at Aquis Park today.
His best chances appear to be the Helen Page-trained Flag Raiser in the Colts, Geldings and Entires Maiden
Handicap (1400m) and Hallside Hot Stuff in the Colts, Geldings and Entires Class 1 Handicap (1200m) for Toowoomba trainer Matt Boland.
Griffin has been aboard Flag Raiser for his past two runs and has decided to stick with the three-year-old after finishing second on him in a Gold Coast Maiden last Saturday.