Kennedy’s cause has been aided by McNab suffering the most untimely of race falls at Te Rapa last month.
The fall cost him almost three weeks of rides, but Kennedy’s job to win a premiership less than two years after arriving in the country from his native South Africa will be one of the great – and most unlikely – modern-day stories of New Zealand racing.
Kennedy says if he is crowned premier jockey when the season ends on July 31, at a meeting that has been moved to Tauranga, he will ride sparingly during August to decompress before the racing schedule gets hectic again.
“I am committed to riding at the Winter Cup meeting at Riccarton on August 3 and then I might take a break of sorts.
“I will still ride work and try and gallop a few for my wife Barb because she has got very busy very quickly with her stable, which is almost full now.
“But I might try and only ride at the races on Saturdays for a few weeks to give me some sort of a mental break.”
While Kennedy would be happy enough to not concede any ground to McNab today he may actually add to his lead because he has, on paper, a stronger book.
“I have a good few chances but I think the best two might be I’m All In [Race 2, No 1] and Cimarron [Race 6, No 6].
“I’m All In is an obviously top chance, while I liked what Cimarron did up there last start so he could be my value bet chance.”
Kennedy also has the talented pair of Love Affirmations (Race 1) and Master Brutus (Race 4) early, the latter in the race of the day against Shamus, Malt Time, Pippy and Turn The Ace.
“One horse I am on who might have a little chance later is Sterling Express [Race 7, No 1]. He is not a bad horse but just got left with too much work to do last start in a race where there was no speed on.”
While Ruakākā will provide good winter footing and four $60,000 ITM/GIB Finals, Saturday’s other domestic thoroughbred meeting will be completely the opposite.
Trentham will host its Wellington Steeplechase and Hurdle meeting on the Heavy 10 track that has been synonymous with this meeting for as long as anybody can remember.
As has become the case with our best steeplechases more often than not, one of the big three will be asked to carry the 73kg topweight, this time The Cossack.
Winner of the Waikato Steeples two starts ago, he was a brave fourth in the flat last time and will be a warm favourite on Saturday in a field that lacks depth without the other two big guns, West Coast and Te Kahu.
The Cossack’s stablemate Nedwin faces the same weight but without the same recent formline in the Wellington Hurdles, with the race missing this season’s best hurdler Berry The Cash.
** New Zealand trotter Bet N Win has been robbed of a golden opportunity by a hoof abscess.
The warm favourite will miss Saturday night’s A$150,000 Great Square at Albion Park in Brisbane after the issue flared up on Thursday.
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s racing editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.
