The 2008/2009 racing season has finished and we all move on to the next years worth of excitement, frustration and whatever other feelings we experience. One of our major problems as a punter is the person on board the horses we back, that is, the jockey. I thought it might be worthwhile to quickly point out how good some riders can be when compared to others in Sydney and Melbourne.Personally, I find the current method of stating the best jockey is the one who rides the most winners to be one o
The 2008/2009 racing season has finished and we all move on to the next years worth of excitement, frustration and whatever other feelings we experience. One of our major problems as a punter is the person on board the horses we back, that is, the jockey. I thought it might be worthwhile to quickly point out how good some riders can be when compared to others in Sydney and Melbourne.
Personally, I find the current method of stating the best jockey is the one who rides the most winners to be one of the more stupid awards horseracing bestows on its participants. In Melbourne Craig Williams and Damien Oliver dead heated on 71 wins and were each awarded equal billing as the best (another stupid idea: why no countback?) however, in my opinion, Damien Oliver should have been awarded the honour of best jockey simply based on the best strike rate. He had 391 rides whereas Craig Williams had 556 which is a massive 175 MORE rides. Don't tell me those figures prove Craig Williams is the equal of Damien Oliver. If you look at the figures you will find Brad Rawiller had a strike rate just 0.1 worse than Damien Oliver and 2.2 better than Craig Williams yet Brad Rawiller finished officially 7th on the official jockeys list.
In Sydney Hugh Bowman slaughtered Nash Rawiller winners wise with 98 and 53.5 winners posted respectively. Hugh had a strike rate of 4.9 while Nash came in at 4.8 yet the rankings shows one at number 1 and the other at 5th. It would be a far better system if consistent riding was rewarded as against extra rides. As I said earlier "one of Australia's more stupid awards".
For the record, across the country, in the Metropolitan venues for Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth only we found the top 10 jockeys by strike rate to be:
4.8 N Rawiller (Sydney)
4.9 H. Bowman (Sydney)
5.5 D. Oliver (Melbourne)
5.6 B. Rawiller (Melbourne)
5.7 M. Rodd (Melbourne)
5.8 S. Scriven (Brisbane)
5.8 B.Evans (Brisbane)
5.9 G.Colless (Brisbane)
5.8 C. Lever (Adelaide)
5.9 B.Pengelly (Brisbane)
I know further work needs to be done on my broad figures as you need to see how all riders have ridden when on well fancied runners to gauge the relative abilities but in the first instance you can see why I do not like our current system
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