Racing: Payne ignores the hype and silences his critics

By MIKE DILLON in Melbourne

Patrick Payne lay on the tiny bed just outside the jockeys' room at Moonee Valley on Saturday.

He looked exhausted and he was.

Not from the brilliant ride on Northerly to win the A$3 million ($3.4 million) Cox Plate, but from the hype surrounding the Southern Hemisphere's greatest weight-for-age race.

Payne spent nearly six years riding against the best in Singapore, Hong Kong and Macau and is regarded as one of the finest horsemen to ride in Australia in recent decades.

But it's not something you'll hear him say.

The hype, the glamour which is thoroughbred racing at its best is not for Payne.

He is, after all, a country boy from Hawera.

His father Paddy Payne moved his family from Taranaki to Ballarat in Victoria about the time he sold his fine 3-year-old Paddy Boy to Robert Sangster for a stack of money in the late 1970s.

He has made a big contribution to Victorian racing. He fathered 10 children, Bridgette, Therese, Maree, Bernadette, Patrick, Margaret, Andrew, Cathy, Steven and Michelle and only Margaret and Steven did not become jockeys.

Ask the professional punters in Hong Kong and they will tell you Payne was riding as well as any of the world class jockeys in there during his three-year stay.

He said he learned a lot of riding skills in Hong Kong to compliment his fine horsemanship.

"It toughens you up riding there.

"I'd had a pretty easy time as an apprentice in Australia.

"When I arrived in Hong Kong I was given no favours and I had to find my own way.

"That toughens you mentally."

Payne needed that mental toughness when the sometimes rugged Australian press suggested Fred Kersley had made a mistake putting Payne on Northerly for the first time in a race like the Cox Plate.

Northerly was difficult to ride, it was suggested, and Payne's non-aggressive riding style would not suit the horse.

It stung so much Payne defended himself with his own column in a Friday newspaper.

"I don't believe you have to terrorise a horse to get the best out of it," he said.

"There is more than one way to get the required result. You have to work with a horse, not against it."

The critics were pretty quiet after Payne rode a spectacular race to get Northerly home a clear-cut winner to prove he was the bare knuckle champion of the racetrack.

Payne is an outstanding horseman as well as being a fine rider. He understands horses and made a remarkable statement about Northerly.

"He hasn't got the greatest ability, but he has got great heart and lungs."

He needed both when Sunline put blowtorch pressure on the opposition with a hectic pace on Saturday.

Payne had the mare within his sights in second place the entire way.

"I knew I couldn't afford to let Sunline get too big a break on me, but I didn't want to tackle her too soon and force the pressure any more and make it for the swoopers behind."

Northerly levelled on the home bend and the result was obvious from there.

"I thought I was in for a tough ride after what Damien [Oliver] had to do on Northerly last year, but I couldn't believe how easy a ride it was."

Payne said Northerly's traditional habit of looking to be under pressure a long way out in his races comes from the horse's personality.

"He bludges. It's not that he's ungenuine, but he only ever does what he has to.

"He can always find plenty."