Ultra competitive market making life hard for former top jockey

Darren Gauci, once thought of as one of the world’s finest jockeys, turns 50 later this year.

Despite one of the most decorated CVs in racing, Gauci wasn’t at Warrnambool this week plying his trade. The promise of large books of rides was never a chance so this year is one of the rare years he missed the carnival.

In 1978, Gauci, then an apprentice, was the talk of racing, leading owners, trainers and fellow jockeys marvelling at his rare balance and poise for one so young.

However, in 2015, Gauci is, like so many of his profession, working around the clock to make a living. As his manager Peter Meilak puts it, Victorian racing has too many jockeys and not enough races.

“We’ve got jockeys from overseas, interstate and they’ve all converged on Melbourne. We’ve got 140 jockeys on hand with the best 45 able to service five meetings a week.

“So that leaves a little over a hundred jockeys to dig out a living from four meetings. It’s just purely and simply a glut of jockeys.

“And this is not a criticism to the industry but we will have another 14 gifted apprentice jockeys rolling out of the academy this year, which makes things even tougher,” Meilak said.

However, Gauci says that when he started riding in the late 1970s it was the toughest school in the world.

“I was thrown out among the wolves like all the kids of my day. What it did do was really find out if you wanted to be a jockey and if you did you would survive, but a lot didn’t.

“Apprentices today are very, very fortunate. In my time you landed in a stable and it was up to your master to give you some hints on what you’re doing right. But today, you’ve got mentors, teachers and so many others helping groom them and teach them the right way to go.

“In my day, it was basically a se-

In my time you landed in a stable and it was up to your master to give you some hints on what you’re doing right. But today, you’ve got mentors, teachers and so many others helping groom them and teach them the right way to go.

nior jockey might pull your coat about what you’re doing wrong,” the premiership-winning jockey added.

Steven King, who turns 45 this year, has also seen a remarkable change since he started riding 30 years ago.

King, a winner of a Cox Plate and Caulfield and Melbourne Cups, has firm thoughts and concerns at where his profession is going.

“Gauch and Ollie [Damien Oliver] and myself are really at the other end of the scale, age wise. We’re in our 40s, but where have all the jockeys we came up with gone? You look around and the next jockeys of a similar age are in their early 30s.

“Perhaps riding trackwork seven days a week, barrier trials and criss-crossing the state may have just not been worth it. Basically the money might not have been there.”

The former champion apprentice agrees with Gauci that there’s huge competition in Victoria.

“I can ring the top four stables in the state and ask if I can come and ride work and they’d say ‘No, I’ve got four or five jocks of my own and they need to earn a living.

“It’s been made more difficult with the ratio of horses falling but the number of jockeys are getting greater.”

King rides track work for Australia’s leading owner Lloyd Williams, but admits that it’s become very much a seven-day-a-week occupation.

“Lloyd’s been very good to me and throws the odd bone, but I can see where all these jockeys are becoming very worried at not managing to get an income,” King said.

Gauci travelled from the northern suburbs to ride trackwork at the age of 16 and was so small he’d have to stand on an upturned water bucket to look over the door of the stable.

“That’s what it was then, it was lots of work but a lot more of a level playing field,” he said. “It’s like the big stables going to Echuca whereas 30 years ago it would be unheard of.

And when the big stables go there, the big jockeys go there – that’s where it’s very much different.

“But we are unified and I know that we are all terribly worried for the blokes at the bottom end of the scale that are just struggling to make a living.”

Jockeys in Victoria earn $180 a ride but many are finding that two rides at Horsham on Saturday and three the next day at Kilmore is far from economical and many jockeys have to supplement their income with outside jobs. FAIRFAX