“It has been a long season with a lot of travelling but I have had great support from owners and trainers.”
The travelling is helped by Grylls having his own pilot’s licence and plane so what could have been a four-and-a-half-hour trip to Whanganui tomorrow may only take him an hour, weather permitting.
“My plane is only 10 minutes from my house so I can get in, fly down and then get picked up at the local aerodrome wherever I am going.
“It is really helpful in summer when things are so busy and obviously the weather is good and this summer just gone the weather was great, so it was very helpful.”
When you double your closest rival’s seasonal total, it suggests Grylls could have biked to race meetings and still won the premiership, his dominance slightly aided by retirements and key rivals suffering injuries while last season’s premiership winner Warren Kennedy was also not keen on chasing a repeat.
But you still need the talent and and dedication to keep winning week in, week out and nobody doubts those qualities in Grylls.
He also now has the maturity that has allowed him to be patient in sticky situations in key races as well as the ability to fire horses out of the gates and dominate, especially in the Central Districts.
His patience will only extend so far though and after racing next weekend at Ellerslie (June 7), it will be Grylls’ turn to sit in the passenger seat of a plane for once.
“Ellerslie will be my last meeting for a month or even six weeks,” he says.
“I need a break and now it looks like the premiership is won, we will be going on a holiday.
“I don’t know where yet but it will be great to freshen up and then I might even come back and ride the last two weeks of July to get my eye in for the new season.”
Grylls says his favourite win of the 130 and counting this season was Leica Lucy’s New Zealand Oaks triumph.
“Because of the build-up and her being such a hot favourite and of course being trained by Robbie [Patterson], who is my best mate.”
Grylls and Patterson are back in business chasing another black type win at Whanganui tomorrow, with Our Jumala the favourite in the AGC Training Stakes.
“She has to be a good chance. She handles the wet, is fit and racing well,” says Grylls.
Grylls will partner Atkins (R1, No 8) for the red-hot Cody Cole stable while he suggests Ma Te Wa (R2, No 4) will be hard to beat.
“He is another one of Robbie’s and better than maiden grade.”
Meanwhile, three-time Group 1-winning jockey Samantha Collett is returning home to Waikato.
The popular Kiwi rider has been living in Queensland but will be back in the local riding ranks in the new season.
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.
