Girl power to the fore in jockey ranks
‘‘Anna wore the King Country colours to an appropriate win honouring All Black great Colin Meads.’’
Former Matamata jockey Lisa Allpress led the way with a treble at last Thursday’s Woodville race meeting when females swept the board by riding the winners of all six races on the card.
No member of local female jockey ranks was riding at Woodville, but elsewhere in the past week they’ve been making their presence felt. The headline act has been Anna Jones, who won Saturday’s Interprovincial Challenge at New Plymouth on Saturday riding $40 longshot Mangaroa Flo Jo.
In the unique race where all the provinces of New Zealand are represented, Anna wore the King Country colours to an appropriate win honouring All Black great Colin Meads.
That was Anna’s first win for the season to go with the previous 113 winners she had ridden since beginning her apprenticeship with Karen Fursdon in 2013. Now a fully-fledged jockey, raceday rides haven’t been as easy to come by since she lost her apprentice claim, but even on longshots such as Mangaroa Flo Jo Anna makes the most of any that come her way.
Local apprentice Jasmine Fawcett also rode at New Plymouth on the weekend when she had three rides for a win and two seconds. The win came on Shellez Ace in a $30,000 special conditions maiden race, while the second placings were on the Iain Marktrained stablemates No Loitering and Seconds Out.
Shellez Ace took her record to two wins and two placings from her last four starts as she continued a purple patrch for trainer Karyn McQuade, whose team is headed by classy racemare Underthemoonlight.
Jasmine now has a tally of 13 wins and this season has the very tidy strike-rate of five wins from just 23 rides. At Tauranga last week fellow Matamata apprentice Tegan Newman celebrated her first win from her new base at Te Akau Racing when she wore the tangerine and blue colours to victory on Lady Pinot.
Ironically both young ladies began their apprenticeships in opposite camps, Tegan with Jim Collett and Jasmine with Stephen Autridge and Jamie Richards.