Hewitson crowned Champion Jockey
LYLE HEWITSON burst to prominence soon after joining the apprentice ranks in March 2016 but few would have envisaged him being crowned national champion jockey in just his second full season as a professional rider.
He becomes the first since the great Michael Roberts to win the national jockeys championship while still an apprentice.
Roberts achieved the feat in the 1972-73 season although he attained his full jockey's license in June of 1973.
Therefore, at tonight’s Equus Awards, Hewitson will become the first to receive the national champion jockey trophy while still an apprentice since Gerald Turner did so in the 1960’s.
Knee injury
Hewitson is currently recovering from a knee injury but the good news is he will not require surgery and expects to be back in the saddle in about four weeks time.
He said yesterday, “There is quite a bit of bone bruising and there is a hairline fracture and a strained ligament, but it will heal by itself. I will make sure I am 100% before coming back.”
He is receiving physiotherapy as well as sitting in an oxygen chamber and receiving Tecar heat therapy in order to speed up the healing.
He expects to be able to ride in the Jockeys International in Singapore on September 25.
He will be team South African together with Muzi Yeni and Aldo Domeyer and will be taking on Team Australia, Team UK and Team Asia.
Hewitson said the reality of being champion jockey had not really sunk in yet but admitted, “When going down to the start and hearing the commentator saying ‘Lyle Hewitson, the champion jockey elect’, it caused goosebumps. It is also great knowing there is still more to work on.”
Hewitson said he had never had the championships in mind at the beginning of the season but his goal had rather been to ride a Grade 1 winner.
He had appeared booked for second place in the championship before the reigning champion and runaway leader Anthony Delpech’s horror season-ending fall at Turffontein in the SA Classic on April 7.
Hewitson had at that stage ridden 105 winners and was 31 behind Delpech and was eight ahead of thirdplaced Muzi Yeni.
He hit the front on May 13 when riding a double at Greyville and looked a certainty for the title as he was by now 28 clear of Yeni.
However, there looked to be a chance he would become probably the first champion jockey in history to have never won a Grade 1, a tag he would not have wanted.
Undercover Agent
That all changed about a month later, also at Greyville, when bringing home the Brett Crawford-trained Undercover Agent in the Rising Sun Gold Challenge.
His feeling was not one of relief but rather that “the floodgates can now open.”
He duly scored a second Grade 1 winner on Vodacom Durban July day on Redberry Lane in the Jonsson Workwear Garden Province Stakes. He ranked this his ride of the season and recalled, “I had done well on her.
“She is such an honest filly and it was also for Sean Tarry who has done so much for me. I went in feeling it would be hard to beat Snowdance but Redberry Lane is a good frontrunner and I felt maybe if I stole a couple of lengths we had a chance.
“It didn’t unfold that way as she didn’t quite have the gatespeed of Snowdance and others and we ended up fifth in the running, so I had to go to Plan B. I just punched away in the straight and she dug down deep and got her head down. It was very satisfying that things did not go our way but we adapted and it worked out, a fantastic feeling.”
Doing it on July day made it all the more special as a lot of friends had been watching.
His ride on Undercover Agent was also memorable as this horse has a tendency to be strong in the running and despite the crawling early pace he managed to settle him after 150 metres. The big three-year-old colt consequently found enough extra to power all the way to the line.
Hewitson spoke about the vital skill of being able to settle a strong horse, “You have to trust the horse to come back to you without fighting the horse. It is all about feel and it is probably something which comes naturally, it becomes second nature.”
Hewitson said the cherry on the top of his season would have been to score a third Grade 1 on Return Flight.
She had always been his ride but he was sidelined when she won the Thekwini on the last day of the season.
He named Return Flight, the everimproving Chimichuri Run, Celtic Sea, Saturday’s impressive debut winner In The Dance, his favourite horse, Africa Rising, and Lord Silverio as some of the horses to follow from the Tarry yard this season.
Khumalo
Hewitson grinded away when second choice in the yard to S’Manga Khumalo and when the latter was off injured he grabbed the opportunity with both hands.
He felt when Khumalo came back they were both getting an equal share of the rides and it was down to which rider Tarry regarded as more suitable for a specific horse.
Hewitson rode 185 winners in the season winners at a strike rate of 12,59%.
He rode 99 winners on the Highveld, 57 in Port Elizabeth, 24 in KZN, three in the Western Cape and two in Kimberley.
He felt the season could have been even better if the Tarry yard had not hit a two month dry spell.
On his long term goals he said, “It will be tough defending the title as I will have lost a couple of months, but I aim to ride more Group 1s and if an offer to ride overseas comes that would be high on the agenda.”