Rare Ride And Win For Shane Dye
Monday, 16 March 2009: Shane Dye went to Kembla Grange for one ride on Saturday for one win as the jockey still struggles to get rides since his return to Australia last season while there is still a demand for the hoop internationally.
Dye had one ride in the nine race program at Kembla Grange with David Payne-trained Big Red Cat in the last of the day and won the $14,000 Mullet Creek Maiden Handicap (1400m) by a long neck.
“Anyone could have won on it,” Shane Dye told Sport 927. “We just went straight to the front, it wasn't hard to do.”
“The owners of the horse have about 60 horses and they are getting more and they've been asking me for a while to ride all their horses.”
It was a rare race ride and even moreso a rare win for Shane Dye who returned to Australia last season only to ride just a handful of winners from 150 starters.
“I don't worry about it much anymore, I came back from Hong Kong and gave it my all and nobody really wanted me here.”
“I came back from Hong Kong as good as gold, went to the track and I haven't had a good ride since I've been back in a year. You name one horse that should have won which I've ridden, you can't because there haven't been any.
“I haven't done anything wrong, it's just what happens. You put me in a big race and I'm as good as anyone. If you want to put me on a horse at Orange or Gosford on a Sunday, I don't really want to be there, but come Saturday's I do.
While rides in good races on good horses are scarce for Dye in Australia, the jockey still experiences the thrill of big race riding overseas.
“It's quite unusual because I'm riding in the Hong Kong Derby on Sunday with a horse called Vigor Delight,” Dye said.
“His trainer Caspar Fownes who won the Premiership two years ago, ran second last year and is in the top three again this year wants me to stay on and ride all of his horses the following weekend and is quite keen for me to go back to Hong Kong.
“I rode in the Auckland Cup last week which is their biggest race and I got a full book of rides and a leading trainer in Mauritius wants me to go over and ride for him next month.
“Yet in Australia I can't get a ride which is what it has been like since I came back from Hong Kong from day one.
“I still love riding and I want to do it. I go to trackwork most mornings and I enjoy it.”
The horse Dye will ride in the Hong Kong Derby is former Australian galloper Prince De Galles now known as Vigor Delight.
The four-year-old ran third behind Bart Cummings-trained Book of Kells in the Group 2 Tulloch Stakes (2000m) last April.
“In all honesty it is going to be hard to beat the English horse of John Moore's [Collection] because it's pretty good,” Dye said.
“The English stayers I've seen are just so much better than ours once they get over 2000m, if you took a horse of similar calibre form from Australia and England the English ones would beat us by five lengths every time.”
poor shane:ppp:
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