Warren Kennedy crowned New Zealand jockey premiership winner

Belardo Boy.

What should have been a quiet Tuesday in winter became racing’s day of tears, milestones and crowning a new champion yesterday.

The tears belonged to Michael McNab, whose fading dream of retaining the New Zealand jockey’s premiership finally morphed into a nightmare after just one trial ride at Cambridge.

McNab felt a searing pain in his back riding in the trial and doctors soon diagnosed he has a fracture in his T12 in his lower back, suffered in a race fall at Te Rapa last month.

Before that fall McNab had drawn level with his only premiership rival Warren Kennedy and racing fans were in for a rare treat, a real jockey’s premiership battle.

It never eventuated as McNab missed much of the next three weeks, Kennedy marched on through his own injuries and then yesterday’s trial scare confirmed that McNab’s injury had been more serious than he thought.

“I felt a really sharp pain in the first trial,” McNab told the Herald.

“They revisited by x-rays and told me there is a fracture in the T12 so I am done for a while.

“I have to get a booking to see the spinal specialist but obviously I won’t be riding for a while, I don’t know how long.”
McNab admits after working so hard to catch Kennedy and hope for a premiership threepeat to have that dream taken away from him was hard.

“There have been a few tears today, it has been frustrating,” he told the Herald.

“But I will take the time away to rest mentally and come back better than ever.”
While the prolonged injury issues were a cruel way for McNab’s premiership defence to end it shouldn’t in any way take away from the wonderful accomplishment by Kennedy, who is now officially the premiership winner.

He has been equal parts magnificent in the saddle, professional out of it and robotic in his determination to add the New Zealand jockey’s title to the two premierships he won in his native South Africa.

To move to New Zealand as a total unknown here and win the premiership inside two years defies belief and McNab can take comfort he has conceded his title to a horseman of rare talent and drive.

While Kennedy was the one being crowned yesterday there was a celebration of a different sort for another foreign jockey who has made New Zealand home in Joe Doyle.

The Irishman became only the third jockey to ever ride the winners of over $5million in stakes in one New Zealand season when Belardo Boy won the delayed Opunake Cup at Hawera yesterday.

The Lisa Latta-trained star carried the 59kgs topweight to a no-argument win in the black type 1400m and he will face carrying topweight again should he return to Riccarton to defend his Winter Cup title in 10 days.

The win edged Doyle over $5 million in stakes, joining Kennedy and Craig Grylls who also did it this season, with Doyle having ridden a whopping 16 black type winners, only one behind Kennedy as our leading domestic black type rider for the season.

A busy week of racing continues at Cambridge on the synthetic track today which hosts four $30,000 MAAT races, which are more or less finals for horses who were maidens at a certain date outlined in the conditions of the race.

They add some real depth to the meeting before the highlight of the synthetic track season in two weeks when Riccarton, Cambridge and Awapuni all hold $100,000 finals for horses who have raced on their synthetic tracks this winter.

Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.