Racing: Champion jumps rider Shaun Phelan sidelined following fall

The Cossack. Photo / Supplied

New Zealand’s best jumper returns at Te Rapa on Saturday but he will be minus New Zealand’s best jumps jockey.

That’s because champion jumps rider Shaun Phelan is set to be sidelined for at least a month following a fall at the famous Warrnambool carnival in Victoria on Wednesday.

Phelan has fractured two bones in his back after his mount Mighty Oasis fell in the steeplechase and after initially thinking he was only winded, Phelan was taken to Warrnambool hospital. Mighty Oasis was uninjured in the incident.

“First I thought winded then I thought I might have broken my ribs again but the x-rays show small fractures in my T6 and T7 so I will be out for a while,” Phelan told the Herald.

“They reckon any bone break is a six-week turnaround and while I will listen to the doctors and see how I feel, I hope to be back in four weeks.”

That will have jumps trainers around the country scurrying to find new riders, as Phelan rewrote the records books for a jumps rider here last season, winning 20 races at the unbelievable strike rate of a win every 2.35 rides.

The best of his regular partners is Hawke’s Bay jumper The Cossack, who hasn’t been beaten over fences in New Zealand since October 2020, bolting away with many of our biggest prizes.

He warmed up for Saturday’s $30,000 Ken and Roger Browne Memorial with a solid finish for fourth over 1950m on the flat at Rotorua last week and trainer Paul Nelson says the now nine-year-old is ready to maintain his great jumping record.

“He is ready and he has never been a horse who carries a lot of weight so it is not like we need to race it off him,” says Nelson.

“We initially weren’t looking at this race but he gets in so well with just 67.5kg, only 1.5kg above the minimum and it is a great opportunity for him to jump some live fences.

“It is a real shame for Shaun getting injured like that and we hope he is back riding as soon as he can be but we should be able to get away with it this weekend even without him.

“We were lucky enough to get Dean Parker to fill in.”

The Cossack opened at $1.15 and even at that price, there will be punting thrillseekers willing to put him in their multis to give themselves about five minutes of fun early on a Saturday afternoon.

The only rival rated a danger to The Cossack is Locally Sauced, who has not only won two steeplechases but is the much older half-brother to this season’s Australian Guineas-winning filly Legarto.

The only other horse to have raced out of their dam, Geordie Girl, is smart South Island galloper Emanon, who contests the Great Easter Stakes at Riccarton on Saturday, so the family has the possibility of updating its unusual and varied list of achievements this weekend.

Saturday’s meeting also sees the first hurdle race of the northern season and true to his word, premiership leader Mark Walker is supporting jumps racing with three of the seven starters including Leaderboard, who just four starts ago won the Wellington Cup.