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SYDNEY: Kiwi jockey Jim Cassidy is confident of notching his landmark 100th group one win aboard star filly Gold Edition in Brisbane today.
The man who shot to fame with his 1983 Melbourne Cup victory aboard the Waverley-trained Kiwi sits poised on 99 group ones, 18 of them
in New Zealand before his permanent move across the Tasman two decades ago.
Today Cassidy, 44, hops aboard Gold Edition, a $2.10 favourite with the New South Wales TAB, for the group one A$650,000 ($734,000) Doomben 10,000 (1350m).
Cassidy admitted he was in no hurry to notch up 100 group one winners, as long as it happened eventually.
But it's clear he wouldn't swap the mount on Gold Edition for anything, the Toowoomba flyer shooting for her 16th win from 28 starts.
"When they have speed to burn and can run sectionals at both ends of a race it makes it impossible for the rest of them to beat them," Cassidy told the Sydney Morning Herald.
"They can't run the times and come from behind to beat them."
He rated Gold Edition as the short-course version of Might And Power, whom Cassidy partnered for a Caulfield Cup-Melbourne Cup double.
And he warned there was better to come from Gold Edition, who moves from 3-year-old company to tackle champion sprinter Takeover Target at weight-for-age at Doomben.
"We haven't got to the bottom of her. We'll find out a bit more on Saturday."
Cassidy has previously rated his Wellington Cup-Melbourne Cup winner Kiwi, Might And Power and Rough Habit as his three favourite horses.
With Gold Edition now on the scene, Sydney-based Cassidy said there were no plans to scale down his riding.
"When you're hungry, still want to win, still getting good rides, I'll continue punching them around. I've got no desire to worry about hanging up the boots yet.
"You've got to be riding good horses and I am ... Retiring is the last thing on my mind. If you don't work, you die."
Cassidy was lured from New Zealand to Sydney in 1984 by prominent owners Bob Lapointe and Robert Sangster to ride for the Nebo Lodge syndicate and trainer Brian Mayfield-Smith.
In the 1985-86 season Cassidy won his first and only Sydney jockeys' premiership as the partnership ended Tommy Smith's 33-year reign as Sydney's premier trainer.
Cassidy will join Australian riding legends George Moore and Roy Higgins in the group one centurions club with one more victory at the top level. He currently sits tied with Darren Beadman on 81 Australian group one wins.
- NZPA