Racing: Long road to the Peake

By MIKE DILLON

Two things define professional achievement in sport and racing - natural ability and sheer graft.

They can be separate, or they can combine.

No one ever said David Peake arrived in this world with excessive levels of natural horsemanship.

But that did not stop him becoming champion jockey five times and the third most successful all-time New Zealand jockey.

Peake, who turns 57 on October 2, redefined the word application.

He retires next week, 40 years to the month since he debuted in 1962, and leaves the racetracks still the most successful jockey to have ridden at Ellerslie.

With 392 wins he is 19 victories ahead of Lance O'Sullivan on New Zealand's most famous racetrack and 40 clear of the late Grenville Hughes.

Peake rode Invisible to win at Avondale on Wednesday - his first winner since Wai Wai Nui on the same course on December 8 last year.

He has ridden only 15 winners since the end of the 1997-98 season.

Why keep going, you might ask, at an age when most jockeys' riding careers were personal distant memories and clearly the rides, or at least the right rides, were just not coming your way.

With 2086 wins, most assumed it was a desperate attempt to overhaul Bill Skelton's all-time record number of wins - something Lance O'Sullivan recently achieved.

Peake says that never entered his head.

"I've kept going because I enjoy it.

"I never at any stage thought about Bill Skelton's record."

If one word describes Peake's long career it is toughness.

No one has ridden more gallops at the Takanini training centre. Peake was the first there every morning and left late.

His physical fitness was remarkable and his mental and physical strength legendary.

He never flogged horses, but he made sure they listened to what he was saying.

In a tight finish he'd ask his horses first then, if they didn't listen, he'd tell them.

If they still didn't respond they were going to sleep well that night.

One who admired Peake's tenacity was chief stipendiary steward Noel McCutcheon.

Their riding careers overlapped by a few years, but McCutcheon does not recall riding competitively against Peake.

"He was just about the best hands and heels rider I've seen.

"And he'd never give in. You'd see him on horses most jockeys would have given up on, and David would be encouraging and bullying them and quite often they'd end up finding something and winning.

"He won a lot of races like that.

"And when he was on a horse with a chance they were always in the right place at the right time."

Lance O'Sullivan has huge admiration for Peake.

"When I started riding he was my absolute idol, and I mean that.

"I think I called him mister for probably the first 10 years of my riding.

"He was a legend and you made sure you didn't step on his gear or kick his bag, that's for sure."

Peake returned the sentiment.

Lance's father, champion trainer Dave O'Sullivan, recalls the day in the early 1980s when he felt his son had ridden a bad race on a horse called Honest Mark at Tauranga.

"I was never into bagging riders in the jockeys' room, but I felt Lance had let me down this day and I was telling him.

"Before I was halfway through, Peakey stepped between us and defended Lance, giving me a blast.

"He told me I was being too tough - on my own son!

"He was like a mother hen, and he was serious. He really sat me on my bum.

"I can still see it like it was happening today."

Peake successfully combined with one of Dave O'Sullivan's early great stars, Shivaree.

"David was a great rider, always aggressive.

"When he and Ray Verner combined they were just about unbeatable."

David Peake was born in Napier in 1945 to parents who had no involvement in horse racing.

He joined the Takanini stable of the late George Cameron, for whose opinions he still has enormous respect.

His first winner was Bay Abbey in a hack race at Paeroa on September 15, 1962.

"Bay Abbey had been discarded by other trainers and George bought him to teach us kids on.

"To this day he is the ugliest horse I've seen. He looked like a donkey."

Peake's first three raceday rides were on Bay Abbey and the Paeroa win came at the third of them.

"I should have won the second ride on him at Avondale.

"George wised me up before the race. He said: "Let him go at the hurdle guard".

"But we'd been late getting to the races and I didn't have time to walk the course for a look.

"Guess how many hurdle guards there are at Avondale - three. George meant let him go at the last of them, but I let him go at the first."

Peake rode a lot of winners for George Cameron, but it was his association with a neighbour, Ray Verner, that was to define his career.

For a decade and a half the pair terrorised the opposition with the likes of Good Lord, Prince Majestic, Blue Blood, Turfcutter, Kashmir Belle and Melody Belle.

It was on Prince Majestic in Randwick's Spring Championship Stakes in the late 1970s that Peake showed the world how tough he was.

There are several factors about the race he says he does not want to see in print, but it was clear every jockey in the race wanted him beaten.

If you saw a video of the race you wouldn't need to be Einstein to figure money probably changed hands.

For two-and-a-quarter minutes Peake's life was a misery. He and Prince Majestic were jammed against the inside running rail and the interference the combination suffered on the home turn was astonishing.

Fortunately Prince Majestic was a huge unit and, with a bit of his own barging, Peake somehow managed to extract him from the hole and the great horse that he was he charged down the outside to win.

Prince Majestic returned with white paint from the running rail down his entire right side.

"That was the toughest race I ever rode in," says Peake now.

Royal Sheen's 1967 Auckland Cup win really set Peake's career alight.

It was at the expense of one of the best stayers of the time, Terriffic, and the rival Peake respected ahead of just about anyone, Grenville Hughes.

Terrific was trained by Merv Ritchie in partnership for the first year with his son, Frank.

The late Dr McGregor Grant had promised the Ritchies two full training percentages if Terrific won.

And it was close. Peake remembers the race well.

"We drew the outside two barriers, with Royal Sheen in the outside gate.

"I tracked Grenville from the mile and on the home turn I ranged up alongside.

"He was smiling, but when he looked across at us the smile turned to a scowl."

Terrific and Royal Sheen staged a remarkable home-straight battle with Royal Sheen's lighter weight just getting him the decision.

Good Lord proved to be Peake's brightest 3200m star, winning the Sydney Cup with a staggering 60kg.

"He won it easily, too, but it had been interesting going round. Darby McCarthy was five wide on Hyperno and started squeezing us up inside.

"I yelled: 'Darby, there's three horses inside me'. 'Darby, there's two horses inside me'. 'Darby, there's a horse inside me'. 'Darby, I'm inside you ... oh, okay, I'll pull out too'.

"He was a great horse, Good Lord. When he sprinted that day he just left them to it, despite his weight."

Blue Blood, who won three Telegraph Handicaps, was the best sprinter he rode.

"I lost a few races on him before I woke up if you went too soon on him he'd pull up once he got to the front.

"You had to wait until you were certain it was too late before you let him go.

"When he won his third Telegraph I was in behind them halfway down the straight and the gap opened. But it was too early and I waited and the gap closed.

"I was certain we'd run out of time, but in desperation I hooked him out wide and he picked them up easily."

Peake rates Lester Piggott probably the best jockey he rode against, but puts Grenville Hughes almost on the same level.

"When Grenville was on the right horse and on his game, he was outstanding.

"When you thought you could win, he'd come back and beat you."

Jack Mudford ("a brilliant gate rider"), Bob Skelton and Brian Andrews were others he admired.

Peake says he retires with two disappointments, one being that he didn't win a Melbourne Cup.

"I finished sixth on Turfcutter, which was the closest I got in, I think, four or five goes."

The other regret was being abused by a punter over the birdcage rail at Avondale as he walked back to the jockeys' room after his mount had broken its leg.

"This bloke yelled out: 'You'd do anything to get beaten on a favourite, wouldn't you'. The horse was just getting put down and here I was copping abuse."

Peake has been master of the Auckland Apprentice School for 10 years and will continue in that role.

He has a small gardening business and will continue to ride work at Takanini.

He admits his body is conceding to a few of the injuries his career has produced.

"You start to feel the old injuries. The hands and the legs feel it first.

"There is wear and tear and how long I continue to ride work will be determined by how my body feels."

Lance O'Sullivan is pleased Peake will not be lost completely to the industry.

"You never stop learning in this game and David has that vast amount of knowledge.

"I was never frightened to ask him for advice all the way through.

"In all my years as a jockey he's the one I respect the most."