Hot Oz hoop hitting Ellerslie
Jockey World Cup showdown pits some of Aussie’s best against three teams of NZ riders
One of Australia’s hottest young jockeys will make her Ellerslie debut next week as the annual transtasman summer racing invasion ramps up a notch.
Australia’s top jockeys making lightning raids on Ellerslie riches are nothing new, with elite superstars Craig Williams, Damien Oliver, Hugh Bowman, Blake Shinn and Damian Browne having all tasted feature race success at Ellerslie in recent years.
But they usually appear at carnival time or for Karaka Million night, not for a Wednesday twilight meeting better known for its party atmosphere.
That will change next Wednesday when Ellerslie hosts its first Jockey World Cup, pitting some of Australia’s best against three teams of local riders.
The International team will include one of Victoria’s most astute jockeys in Damian Lane, who has already had success on New Zealandtrained horses, including winning the ATC Derby last season on Jon Snow. Lane will be joined in the International team by former Pukekohe jockey Jason Collet, who is forging a good reputation in Sydney and South Australian superstar Jamie Kah.
Kah has been rewriting the record books in South Australia through her powerful association with Tony McEvoy and she has carried that form into Victoria on her rare visits. She replaces Shinn in the team after he was suspended and unable to make the trip.
Although the World Jockeys Cup might be a rather grandiose name for next Wednesday’s comp, having Australian jockeys riding at the six-race twilight meeting always increases overseas interest and can only be good for turnover.
It is the latest boost to Ellerslie’s enormous summer of racing which is even bigger this season.
The rejigging of the Karaka Million meeting, which has been moved to a Saturday twilight on January 27, makes it arguably New Zealand’s biggest race meeting of any code.
This season sees the first time the three-year-old race for Karakapurchased horses is boosted to $1 million, equal with the juvenile feature giving the meeting the only two $1m races in New Zealand on the same night.
And the entire support card is group racing, making the meeting the closest thing New Zealand has to Flemington’s Derby Day or The Championships at Randwick.
“Obviously the Karaka Million meeting was already a huge deal, with all the international interest, but it is going to a whole new level this year,” says Ellerslie boss Paul Wilcox.
The glut of racing at Ellerslie between now and the end of January before it even kicks into the DerbyCup meeting in March means the running rail will be adjusted for the next three meetings.
“We raced last Saturday, of course, and we will move the rail out 6m for this Saturday and then out 12m for Wednesday’s meeting,” says Ellerslie racing manager Craig Baker.
“So we will try to protect the inside for the huge Christmas meeting start Boxing Day.”
Corporate bookings for the bigger summer meetings are already tracking ahead of last year.
Markets for several of the Ellerslie features over the summer are now open with the TAB.