Jockey Battle

       Fergus Gillard - talented amateur

There is just the one jumps meeting in Britain today and that is up at Kelso.  There is also action on the fibresand at Southwell and a good card in Ireland at Punchestown.  David did have some entries up at the Scottish track but we decided against going up North on this occasion.  Our next runner is likely to be at Lingfield tomorrow, Little Red Lion is due to make his debut for the David Pipe Racing Club.  I see that Brian Hughes has four rides up at Kelso while Richard Johnson is having a rare day off.  Before any races had taken place on Saturday Richard Johnson was two ahead of Brian Hughes on 109 winners.  It is fantastic that we have a jockey's championship with a battle and something to get excited about for a change!  They are closely matched on all the figures at the moment.  Dicky has had more rides and is operating at a very good 19% strike rate while Brian is on an even better 21%.  There is not much between them on the amount of prize money they have won either with Dicky just over £1 million pounds and Brian just under.  They are both fantastic jockeys and let's just hope they both stay injury free and have a good tussle all the way to the end of the season.

While the jockey's championship will go down to the wire this season we have seen the emergence of some very talented young conditional jockeys and they have bagged some of the top races this season along the way.  17 year old Jack Tudor won the Welsh National (and of course a memorable win on Buster Edwards at Haydock!), Ben Jones won the Ladbrokes Trophy chase at Newbury on De Rasher Counter, Richard Patrick won the Betvictor Gold Cup at Cheltenham on Happy Diva, Connor Brace won the Listed summer hurdle at Market Rasen on Grapevine and Lorcan Williams won the Byrne Group Chase at Ascot on Diego Du Charmil.  These are just a few names out of a lot of talent riding at the moment and these names will probably feature highly in our sport for many years to come.  Maybe one of these could be champion jockey one day?  We do not have a conditional here at Pond House at the moment but several different ones come and ride out regularly.  We have used three of the above but there is also Jonjo O'Neill and Page Fuller rode a nice race for us on Airton at Fakenham on New Year's day.

In the yard we have our own very talented young man, 17 year old Fergus Gillard.  He is an amateur at the moment gaining lots of experience in the point to point field as well as making the most of opportunities given to him by David.  In fact he won on his last ride for Pond House, Great Tempo at Taunton.  He rides with a lot of maturity for his age and takes a very valuable seven pounds off.  He has ridden seven winners already this season and is a name we will hopefully see among the winners for many years to come as well.