Myers and Fannin in command
Two jumps races at Rotorua on Saturday and no surprises – the Kevin Myers and Shaun Fannin roll continued.
Their dominance of winter jumps racing has been extraordinary and their Rotorua double came hard on the heels of a winning treble in the three jumps races at Timaru.
The combination added a double in the two jumps races at Awapuni on Thursday for good measure.
Punters are catching on, they installed both Bayrum and Ngario as firm favourite in their respective 3000m hurdle races and never had any worries as both cleared out under typically efficient Fannin rides for easy wins.
Bayrum won the maiden by 14 lengths while Ngario never appeared to get out of second gear in his 7.5 length win.
He may not have won by as wide a margin, but Ngario was convincing in the open grade Forgotten Highway Adventures Hurdle as he took over midway through the fin al round.
Ngario’s only blemish was over the last fence before recovering cleverly to easily account for the late finisher Hunters Creek and Ngatira Gold.
Jumps racing statistician Chris McQuaid chronicles that out of the 107 jumps races this season, Myers trained the winners of 34, an absolutely amazing result.
‘‘This has blown away the previous record of 28, set by Ann and Ken Browne in 1992-93,’’ McQuade said. The record number in a calendar year is also 28, recorded by the Brownes in 1990.
It stands to be broken as Myers has already clocked up 25 wins this year, with still nearly two months and around 35 races left in the jumping season.
Fannin started this season with just 11 career jumping wins and added one in the couple of months before the summer break.
This year has been one that any jockey could only dream of. The record number of wins for a jumps jockey in a season is 28 set by Brett Scott in 1995-96.
So far Fannin has ridden 24 winners this year, from just 60 rides, to finish with a season’s total of 25 wins, a number beaten only three times since 1903-04. On 24 he equals the record number of winners ever ridden in a calendar year and like Myers, he still has two months left to improve it to a figure that will be hard to beat in the future.