It took a couple of days, maybe a week, before the enormity of the occasion finally dawned on young jockey Tom Sherry. He might have picked up the biggest cheque of his young career, but it could have been so much more if not for racing’s version of the proverbial bee’s appendage.
His rival jockey, Koby Jennings, similarly below the upper echelon of Sydney jockeys, returned with his face spluttered in mud, save for the clean patches around his eyes where his goggles had sat. He’d won the Golden Eagle on Collette. Sherry had lost on Icebath. The photo finish told as much.
“I didn’t really understand at the time the stature of the Golden Eagle and how big an occasion it was,” Sherry said. “I didn’t feel pressure or any concerns in that matter.
“She ran so well and just got nosed out. It took a couple of days to realise how big it was and the pill was getting tougher to swallow every time I watched the replay. It was a bit of a surreal moment.
“It took a week or two for it start to settle in and think, ‘What just happened?’ I nearly knocked off one of the big features.”
Racing is a fickle game, and Sherry would ride Icebath two more times in the autumn of 2021. But as Icebath’s star rose, so did the interest of other jockeys and the conga line to ride her started. Seven have done so since. None of them has been Sherry.
Tom Sherry will be reunited with Icebath in The Invitation.Credit:Getty
But as Icebath tries to defend her title in the $2 million The Invitation at Royal Randwick on Saturday, the Irish apprentice is again on her back as he tries to right a few wrongs from the spring of 2020.
“I think Tommy Berry was committed to her but he found himself suspended so I was fortunate enough to reconnect with her, I suppose,” Sherry said.
“I didn’t really expect to get back on her, but at the same time she’s a mare that runs well when you know her. I was more hopeful than anything else. You don’t really think about [the Golden Eagle] that much now. I’ll have another couple of looks at it before Saturday to see how we can correct the wrong.”
Sherry’s near miss in Sydney’s second-richest race two years ago is symptomatic of the horse herself.
Icebath has won $4.6 million in prizemoney, but has only won four races. She’s been placed 11 times at group level – including five in group 1s – but has never won a stakes event. When she did win, it was in The Invitation last year and the dam wall was supposed to burst. Instead, she keeps running well and finding one or two better.
“When she runs over 1200 or 1400 you think, ‘Once she gets to a mile, she’ll be winning because she always hits the line so well’,” Sherry said.
“I think she’s a mare [where] the race has to be run to suit you. If the pace is on and she’s midfield in her comfort zone, that’s when I think you’ll see the best of her. She really attacks the line and she has a great will to win. Unfortunately, she’s come up short more times than not.
“But she’s been racing really well, like she always does, and she’s very consistent. She just got nosed out in a group 1 and has been competing against some of the best weight-for-age horses in the country. All she’s got to do is to reproduce those efforts.”
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