Racing: When larrikinism becomes a liability

Horse trainers are right - they would have less grey hair without jockeys.

But before you dump on a jockey you have to realise what makes them tick, or put more simply, the life skills they need to perform at the top level on the racetrack.

They are not the same ones you and I need.

Probably something like 50 per cent of jockeys have either run off the rails, or gone close, at some point in their career.

Helter skelter, devil-may-care recklessness and, yes, even a bit of arrogance are valuable commodities out on the track.

Kids who cut their own school lunch and sit at their desk with their pencils in a row and never open their mouths are not the ones from which you source the next generation of riding geniuses.

Horse racing is a tough game. A perfectly mannered, shy teenager is left behind almost every time climbing the apprentice jockeys' ladder. So how do you objectively view a situation when a jockey appears to run off the rails?

Michael Walker has and the future of Lisa Cropp's almost irreplaceable talent will be known in three weeks at the completion of a hearing over a positive drugs test to methamphetamine provided on raceday.

Racing cannot afford to do without either, but the flirting with danger - coin of the realm in race riding - is almost always going to create that possibility for the likes of Walker and Cropp.

On Tuesday Walker lost his driver's licence for nine months when he pleaded guilty to drink-driving and of careless driving while under the influence.

The 21-year-old former champion apprentice and also senior rider crashed his Mercedes-Benz near New Plymouth at 4am on June 24.

His lawyer, Kelly Marriner, told the court that Walker would seek professional help in Auckland for his alcohol problems.

This is not defending Walker's actions. It is simply pointing out that the recklessness that led him to them is in part what also made him a superstar in the saddle.

When a jockey's feet are attached to the ground, not the stirrup leathers, larrikinism is different to stupidity.

Knowing the difference and maintaining the balance is to separate someone to be admired from someone who wasted talent most would kill for.

I was with Dave O'Sullivan the day at Trentham a decade ago when Chris Johnson, astonishingly, admitted one hour before the group one Telegraph Handicap that he was 2.75kg over the weight allotted for O'Sullivan's mare.

It was unforgivable - and if you don't believe that, ask O'Sullivan sometime now that apoplexy has finally left him. Perversely, that I-don't-care attitude which haunted Johnson's career was part of what made him the genius he was.

Horses relax and give to jockeys who expel every emotion linked to anxiety and stress. Johnson appeared to be half-horse and horses responded brilliantly to him.

Unfortunately, he could never find the balance.

Lisa Cropp's fate rests in the hands of the panel at the August 3 inquiry.

Michael Walker's is different - his future is in his own hands.

He is about to start a contract with one of the country's leading stables, operated by Mark Walker at Matamata.

Walker is seemingly at the crossroads of not only his career, but his life path.