Jockey reaches grand milestone

He’s been stringing along his many supporters for more than a month but popular jockey Robbie Hannam has finally hit four figures.

The Awapuni-based Hannam brought up his 1000th win on New Zealand soil in race three at Trentham on Saturday.

Win number 999 for Hannam, a seven-time Group I winning jockey, came on March 2 at Hastings. Talk of Hannam’s impending milestone has been proceeding race meetings all over the country for the last 37 days.

Hannam, one of the great characters of New Zealand racing, has gone close plenty of times - with a run of seconds - but his victory aboard the Grant Nicholson-trained Artaxerxes in the Gingernuts Cup maiden was worth the wait.

Hannam worked Artaxerxes into a handy spot and injected him into the race down the outside to score a convincing one and a quarter length victory.

In a special moment, Hannam thrust his whip into the air as he turned to salute the Trentham faithful. The Trentham crowd and his fellow jockeys gave Hannam a rousing reception when he returned to scale.

Saturday’s milestone was Hannam’s 1000th winner in New Zealand but he also rode more than 200 winners during a three-year stint riding in India where he won two jockeys’ premierships.

Hannam becomes the 32nd New Zealand jockey to ride 1000 winners on home soil.