Jumping’s new pin-up boy may have Aussie plans – Mick On Monday

Jesko (gold colours) on his way to winning the first-ever Great New Zealand Steeples at Te Aroha yesterday. Photo / Kenton Wright

Jesko may prove to be the shooting star of New Zealand jumps racing.

Because while the sensation of the winter capped his remarkable rise in the Ben and Ryan Foote Racing Great New Zealand Steeplechase at Te Aroha on Sunday, his reign at the top may be short-lived.

In New Zealand, at least.

The warm favourite only started his steeplechase career on May 11 this year but has won five of six jumps races since, reaching his zenith yesterday when he won the first running of what used to be called the Great Northern by nearly five lengths.

In just over four months, he has also added Manawatū, Wellington and Koral Steeples, his only defeat coming when second to Captains Run in the Grand National after what trainer-jockey Shaun Fannin describes as a less-than-ideal build-up week to that iconic race.

He made up for that yesterday, his leg speed too much for his brave, battling rivals, albeit aided when Nedwin fell soon after surging to the lead down the back straight and looking to have his rivals in trouble.

Jesko has that little bit more razzle-dazzle than the garden-variety jumper and in Fannin and wife/training partner Hazel Fannin, the ideal combination to manage his career.

But just how much of that will be here in New Zealand remains to be seen.

Jesko carried the 70kg topweight yesterday, admittedly only because Captain’s Run was scratched, but as the first winner of the Great New Zealand, he is going to find himself an automatic topweight for almost every steeplechase he enters in New Zealand from now on, especially if and when West Coast is retired.

For all his ability, Jesko is not blessed with West Coast’s monster frame and Fannin is too smart a horseman to spend the next three years blunting Jesko’s ambition levels by sending him around carrying 73kg on heavy winter tracks.

“That is something we will have to look at next season,” he admitted.

“He has got up in the weights very quickly and it could make him hard to place here.

“He needs and deserves a good break now and because of that, a carnival like Warrnambool would probably come up too quickly for him.

“But a race the Australian Grand National next season could well suit him.”

If Jesko makes it to Victoria, that will suit one of his best-known owners, Victoria’s premier race commentator Matt Hill, the voice of the Melbourne Cup.

Hill took a small share in Jesko when he was in New Zealand for the Wellington Steeples meeting, while the winner’s circle at Te Aroha was crowded after yesterday’s win, as Jesko is also part-owned by the FRAC Racing Club, the new micro-share racing business which has found the perfect winter pin-up boy.

One of his other owners is Graham Bruton, the former owner of champion trotter Lyell Creek, but better known to many New Zealanders by his nickname Steel Balls, earned for his famous and sometimes infamous punting exploits of 20 years ago.

Jesko and his unusual mix of owners have been the highlight of a wonderful renaissance for jumps racing in New Zealand this year, with the weekend’s Great New Zealand carnival the exclamation mark on a comeback story many predicted was impossible and plenty didn’t want to see.

Anybody in New Zealand racing who thinks jumps racing shouldn’t continue clearly wasn’t at Te Aroha yesterday.

Maybe they should have been.

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.