Racehorse TALK

I would say apprentices get plenty of chances in Sydney  You only have to pay attention through the late season / winter months to see they are well in demand.

I'd take Chad claiming three anytime, especially if it's a leader or on pace runner.

Another sweeping generalization  fields this week - 7, 9, 20 + 3, 10, 14, 16, 15 & 16 + 4

Should the apprentices get plenty of chances   

I fear you are looking  at Sydney racing through rose coloured glasses.

The reason that the fields are generally small is because over the last 5 or 6 years there have been too many meetings  being held in Sydney. It can't sustain 3 meetings every week. The numbers are up this week because of last weeks rain and the fact that trainers scratched their horses on the wet tracks. Last Saturday had a total of only 61 starters.

 It will be interesting to see how the fields hold up next week when there is Warwick Farm on Wednesday, Canterbury on Friday and Rosehill Saturday. I can't imagine we will see too many apprentices riding next week.

Just in case I was wrong about the small fields I picked a date in June and arbitarily came up with the Saturday 11/6/11 only 72 starters.

The pleasing thing about this week's Sydney racing is that there are 114 horses nominated for this Saturday and the likes of Schofield,Adams,Guymer,Clipperton,Spriggs and Hyeronimus all get another chance in Sydney. They are joined by Jake Duffy,Taylor Lovelock-Wiggins and Ben Vassallo.

Let's see if they can add to Chad  Schofield's winner on Wednesday.

ianb you have to compare apples with apples, NSW is a huge state by comparison to Victoria, the majority of horses trained outside the metro area are a lot further away to travel to town "just to make up the numbers", if we had all the horses trained in NSW move to say between Newcasle in the north and Kembla in the south, Hawkesbury in the west we would have capacity fields all the time, I haven't done the numbers But I reckon NSW has 2 or 3 times the number of runners that Victoria has, that is not to compare them, they are totally different animals, like comparing our transport system(Trains) to say the Singapore system,

Chad is a very Good rider and has a huge advantage over some of the other youngsters, he has a mentor who is willing to spend the time and effort to teach him the finer points, I would have no trouble backing him regardless of his Claim,  that is just a bonus
In saying That young H??????Mouse's Dad was a Rider too and a pretty fair one from memory(had to be related to him as the name is too unusual to be a coincidence) Clipperton has one of the best ever helping him, the difference is Chad's Dad will always be there and won't give up on him, Chad will always be his top priority, Kid's with plenty of ready Cash can go off the rails and it is very hard to get back on track if you run amuck

Gee I reckon Kids get a great go in Sydney, you only have to look at how many of them there are that own a Block of flats!!  

I think Adam's father Craig would already be envious of his son. I would be surprised if Craig rode more than a handful of listed or group winners in his entire career.

Having said that he rode a very good race on a horse that I had an interest in the 1980s. Each morning I wake up and see Craig riding Uno Petera to an easy  victory at Warwick Farm .

 Sometimes I also look at the photograph of some of the owners.

I then look in the mirror and think God 1983 was a very long time ago.