Kate Hercock salutes the judge while bringing Platinum Designs back to the winner’s stall following their success in a Rating 73 race over 1000m at last Sunday’s Awapuni Synthetic meeting.
Hawke’s Bay jockey Kate Hercock is poised to record her best season yet after a career spanning three decades.
The talented rider brought up her 52nd win for the season when getting Platinum Designs home first in a Rating 73 race at last Sunday’s Awapuni Synthetic meeting. That equals her tally for the 2022-23 year and is only four shy of her record 56 wins recorded back in 2003-04.
Hercock is presently in the top 15 on the national jockeys’ premiership and her mounts have won just over $1.8 million in stakemoney this season.
She has been one of the busiest jockeys in the country, making regular trips to South Island meetings as well as travelling north while still training a small team of horses from her Ōtāne property. She competed in seven of the eight races at Wednesday’s Pukekohe meeting.
Hastings-born Hercock was based in Waikato for most of her early riding career, chalking up 237 New Zealand wins in the eight years between 2002 and 2010. She then had a two-year stint in Macau, where she racked up a further 20 wins but also broke both arms in a nasty race fall, which led to her giving up race-riding for several years.
She made a comeback in 2020 and has kicked home a steady stream of winners since, including seven black-type victories.
Hercock’s run of success this season has been even more remarkable given that she lost her partner, Danny Champion, who died suddenly in November last year.
Champion had made the move north from Canterbury to join Hercock and take over the training side of the operation, and the pair were in the throes of establishing a great partnership together before he suffered a fatal heart attack.
Hercock’s resilience and strength have certainly shone through since, and it was poignant that she chalked up her biggest success to date aboard Marotiri Molly in the Group 2 $150,000 Manawatu Challenge Stakes (1400m) at Trentham on December 21, just over a month after Champion’s death.
Hercock was seen at her excellent best aboard Platinum Designs in last Sunday’s 1000m race, settling the horse into a perfect trailing position third on the fence as the two leaders set a fast pace up front.
She angled Platinum Designs off the fence around the home bend, and the 4-year-old responded well to a vigorous ride over the final stages to wear down pacemaker Showbastian Coe and score by half a length.
Vale Bryan Hutchinson
Bryan Hutchinson, a longtime committeeman of the former Hawke’s Bay Jockey Club as well as a Hastings city councillor and Deputy Mayor, died on June 19, aged 84.
Hutchinson was the owner of Hutchinson’s Flooring, Furniture & Interiors, a business his father, Ray, started in 1951 and one that Bryan took over 18 years later.
He soon moved the shop from Karamu Rd to Heretaunga St East, into the Spanish mission-style Hastings Municipal Buildings. The new premises were transformed from a series of disconnected ex-council departments into a nine-room showpiece of upmarket furniture, curtains and flooring.
When that building was declared an earthquake risk, the business moved a block closer to the city centre, where it is still based.
Bryan Hutchinson was a keen racing man and joined the Hawke’s Bay Jockey Club committee in the late 1970s when his father-in-law, Eric Wishart, was the club secretary.
He had racing shares in several thoroughbreds over the years and had some success. He loved interacting with people and enjoyed racing horses with such prominent Hawke’s Bay breeders as Don Gordon and Tom Lowry. He also co-bred and raced horses with Buzz and Susie Williams of Little Avondale Stud in Masterton.
Betting law changes seen as a plus
Changes to New Zealand betting laws, passed by Parliament on Wednesday, will provide a vital boost to sporting and racing codes and to the safety of bettors when the bill becomes law in a few days.
Alongside the strengthened harm minimisation protections for customers, a $100 million payment from Entain Group, which will be made after the changes to the Racing Industry Act take effect, will further deepen Entain’s commitment to the industry and boost the fortunes of Kiwi racing participants and national sporting organisations.
Entain’s suite of brands in New Zealand includes TAB and betcha, offering Kiwis a choice of bookmaker and betting preferences.
Entain’s 25-year strategic partnership with statutory body TAB NZ was established in June 2023 to provide an immediate financial uplift to the New Zealand racing codes and 38 national sporting organisations, committing more than $360m to boost the fortunes of racing and sports in the first two years of the partnership, and almost $1 billion in the first five years.
“The payment to racing and sporting codes and ongoing benefits from the law changes play a crucial role in supporting communities and teams across New Zealand, sitting alongside efforts from government, member participation and sponsorship,” Entain New Zealand managing director Sam Moncur said.
“Entain is proud to be building on TAB NZ’s legacy of backing Kiwi racing and sport.
“We are also very aware of the privilege we have to provide a world-class betting experience to Kiwis. Entain, through TAB and betcha, will deliver odds as fair and competitive as a customer would find in the highly competitive Australian market.”
Entain Australia and New Zealand had been relentlessly focused on improving the betting experience through investment in technology and the TAB retail network, and minimising harm to customers, he said.
First wins for four apprentices
It has been a fortnight of firsts for four young jockeys.
Apprentice Ashlee Strawbridge, 19, gained her first victory aboard Cheap Sav at the Cambridge Synthetic track on Wednesday last week and didn’t take long to make it two when she guided What A Charma to success in the Seeka Kiwifruit Cup (2100m) at Tauranga last Saturday.
Emerging apprentice Jack Taplin, 21, rode his first winner on the Andrew Forsman-trained Pacifico in a Rating 75 race over 2100m at Tauranga last Saturday.
Taplin, indentured to Cambridge trainer Stephen Marsh, had ridden Group 1 winner Mercurial and Group 1 performer Harlech on his opening day at the races at Te Rapa eight days earlier and then came close to breaking through last week at Cambridge, with a second place on Billy Lincoln.
Expat Mauritian jockey Abhay Seesa made the perfect start to his riding career at Te Aroha last Sunday when winning the amateur riders’ race over 2200m aboard Dancin In The Dark for his employer, Ralph Manning.
Seesa, 20, has been working for the Cambridge horseman for the last couple of years and was excited to bring up his first win for his boss.
While intent on gaining his apprentice licence this year, Seesa elected to apply for an amateur jockey licence to gain raceday riding experience before commencing his apprenticeship.
Sam McNab will always remember his first winner at Wednesday’s Pukekohe meeting, with the 18-year-old Cambridge hoop having an agonising wait to hear the verdict after a photo finish blunder.
The recently licensed apprentice was positive from the outset aboard the John Bell-trained Muscovado in the Sistema 2100, pushing his charge forward early from their wide gate. However, they failed to find the front and were parked out three-wide for the majority of the journey.
McNab kept his cool and, turning for home, guided his charge to the better footing out wide. They entered a duel with Middle Khan, going stride for stride down the straight, with little separating them at the finish.
Returning to scale, McNab was told he was the winner. However, his jubilation was short-lived when the judge called Middle Khan the victor.
Upon review, it was found that the judge had mistaken the horses in the photo finish.
“The judge called 13, Middle Khan, the winner ahead of Sam McNab’s mount, which was number 3, Muscovado,” stipendiary steward Brady Jones said.
“Stewards queried the photo with the judge ... and it was discovered that he had erred in his decision, where he misinterpreted the heads in the official photo of the two horses.
“He falsely declared Middle Khan, the horse on the inside, as the winner but, after reviewing the photo and going through stewards’ footage, the judge has amended his placings with Muscovado declared the winner.”
The inside camera was not correctly aligned throughout the day. The results of all races were judged from the outside camera, on a permanent mount inside the judge’s box. Stewards’ concerns about the alignment of the inside camera were raised with club officials.
Despite the anticlimax, McNab was thrilled to be awarded his first raceday victory within just a few weeks of commencing his apprenticeship.
He is a son of former top jockey Chris McNab and the brother of premiership-winning jockey Michael McNab.
