By Craig Kerry
Ben Osmond did not take any notice of racing until watching it with his mates at the pub.
A tall but naturally light-weight horseman from Dungog in the Hunter Valley with experience in camp drafting and polocrosse, Osmond thought, “That looks all right”. Seven years later, and Osmond is in the hunt for the Sydney apprentice title.
Ben Osmond lands another winner, this time on Robusto at Rosehill.Credit: Getty Images
Osmond, who has 10 city winners this season, looks set to battle Zac Wadick (13) and Molly Bourke (seven) for the title after two-time champion Zac Lloyd’s rise to senior status last week with 21 victories in just four months of the campaign.
At 25, Osmond is the oldest of the trio and perhaps the most unlikely contender, given his late start.
“My goal was just to get into race riding,” said Osmond, who is apprenticed to Kris Lees in Newcastle. “I think my first winner was with my fifth ride. Then I think it took me six months to get my second. So I never thought I’d be down here.
″I was never in racing until five or six years ago. I didn’t really watch races at all. Then when you turn 18, you’re down at the pub with your mates watching the races of a Saturday. Then I thought, geez, that looks all right.
“I was at uni for a year, but I didn’t really like it. I think I just rang someone at Racing NSW saying I wanted to see what this is like, and they put me on to Kris Lees. Then they sent me out to their pre-training farm at Ellalong and I learnt to ride racehorses out there.”
Osmond has come through the grades with the backing of Lees, but his rise in town in the past six months has been boosted by riding trackwork for premier Sydney trainer Chris Waller, who was looking for claiming apprentices.
“It was good timing – just the right place at the right time really,” he said. “The biggest thing is probably I’m a bit more confident in my riding now.
“You take some risks in races you probably wouldn’t in the early days, and that’s just probably from watching the other jockeys down here do their thing.
“Kerrin [McEvoy] and Tommy [Berry] are a really good help. If you ask them, they are really nice. They will give you time if you’ve got a question or anything. I’m probably down here three times a week, and I don’t mind the travel. It’s only up the freeway and Newcastle is close to family, so I don’t think I’ll be moving anywhere.”
Osmond, who stands 181 centimetres tall and rides at 55 kilograms, wants to just get through his apprenticeship and “see how many winners I can ride”.
As for moving to Sydney one day, he said: “Nah, I doubt it. I think it will be too much for me.“
The laid-back character does have one eye on the city apprentices title, though.
“It’s probably not as competitive as the previous years with Zac [Lloyd] and Dylan [Gibbons] and that, but it should be a tight go for it,” he said. “Everything is going well; I’m just trying to ride my best. And when I see Zac Wadick ride a winner, it kind of makes me want to ride one more, so there’s a bit of competition.”
At the Kensington track today, Osmond has chances to add to his tally with rides on Valetudo ($8) and Captain Maverick ($8.50) for Waller, and La Vesuvius ($12) and All Black ($6) for Newcastle trainers Pat Cleave and Nathan Doyle respectively. Tomorrow at Rosehill, he rides genuine hopes Ravello ($7.50) for John O’Shea and Tom Charlton, Claim The Crown ($9.50) for Annabel Neasham and Rob Archibald, the Bjorn Baker pair of Infatuation ($7) and Iowna Merc ($11), and Spangler ($17) and Little Beginnings ($7.50) for Lees.
“Both of Kris’ are coming off a first-up run and I thought they ran really well, so if they can just improve off of that, hopefully they will be in the finish,” he said. “A few of my rides ran on the Kembla day when the track was rock hard so you’ve got to forgive them.”
