In the Melbourne Cup, Bart Cummings used to tell his jockeys to wait until they reached the clock tower before asking the horse for a maximum effort. It was one way to ride the gruelling two-mile test at Flemington, usually the best way, but not the only one.
So, what do jockeys do when they ride in the $20 million The Everest, a dash for cash where the winning horse will pocket $100,000 per second? And how much do tactics come into play when it’s all about speed?
Three-time Melbourne Cup-winning jockey and The Everest winner, Glen Boss, once said he felt like his “body was on fire” when he won the world’s richest turf race on Yes Yes Yes in 2019.
This is his guide to navigating the 1200-metre course at Royal Randwick, complete with a “kink”, a famous rise and a jockey’s intuition when to go.
The start
All 12 horses will begin at the top of a chute which houses the 1200-metre barriers and enter their allotted stall. Where they settle and how the race pans out will be contingent on how quick they leave the gates.
While conventional wisdom suggests the lower the draw the less ground a horse will have to cover, Ladbrokes ambassador Boss insists the horses with greater speed early in the race would prefer to start from a wider gate given there’s no major turn shortly after the barriers open, allowing them time to travel in a straight line to the front of the field.
“If you’re a speed horse, the barriers are almost irrelevant,” Boss says. “But I think it’s beneficial if you draw out wide. You’ve only got the one corner basically, and you can actually come across and take your time. If you’re drawn in, you have to kick up a bit to make sure you control the race. If I was on a quick horse, I was happy to draw out wide.”
Bjorn Baker’s Overpass is the likely leader in The Everest and has drawn barrier two.
The kink which can catch you out
Given the dimensions of the Royal Randwick course, the 1200-metre start is not actually on the course proper, which means when the horses join up with the main surface, there’s a small “kink”, or tiny bend out of the chute.
Yes Yes Yes winning The Everest under Glen Boss in 2019.Credit: Getty Images
It’s important to keep your horse balanced around the angle as The Everest horses will be starting to reach their top speed after 200 metres of the race. For Boss, the little turn is vital for those jockeys who have drawn on horses towards the inside.
“If there’s pressure from the outside, you’ve really got to kick up and hold your spot otherwise you’ll get further back than you necessarily want to be,” he says. “It’s a pretty crucial part of the race. That’s why sometimes it’s beneficial to be out [wide].”
At half-way, you need your head on
The horses will hit the 600-metre section on a straight part of the course at the southern end. It’s here where most jockeys will hope to have their horse relaxed and in a comfortable rhythm, not expending too much energy for the finishing burst.
But Boss says this is the most crucial part of the race for riders to start plotting their best path to the finishing post.
If they’re trailing the leaders, are they following a horse who will keep going into the straight? If they’re shadowing a horse which is struggling, how do they navigate a different route? If the speed is too slow, do they start upping the tempo now?
“So much information will be coming back to you about how you’re feeling, what’s underneath you, what’s around you,” Boss says. “You’ll feel, ‘that’s not going well, I can’t be going there. Am I going out? Am I going in?’ You’re getting all this information coming to you, and you’re reacting to that.”
Most of the focus at this part of the race on Saturday will be on Luke Nolen, who rides I Wish I Win, a horse with a booming finish but likely to be pegged back towards the rails from barrier one.
“When you draw barrier one, it can be a trap of riding the barrier rather than riding the race and your horse,” Boss says. “He’s just got to go out and ride his horse for his best asset: his closing sections. Luke is going to have to be making a lot of decisions – and he has to pick the right ones.”
The famous Randwick rise
Most tracks have a distinguishing feature, and for Royal Randwick it’s the slight incline at the top of the straight, shortly after The Everest horses slingshot off the one major turn of the 1200-metre course. It can make or break a potential champion.
“You can’t really tell from the TV, because it doesn’t do it justice,” Boss says. “But when you ride it, it’s an obvious thing.”
Luke Nolen on I Wish I Win, who will start one of the favourites in The Everest.Credit: Getty
Most jockeys will want their horses to be still travelling within themselves at this point of the race before asking for a maximum effort once they top the rise.
But occasionally, circumstances may be out of the control of the other hoops and a leader like Overpass could get his rivals chasing before the rise.
“When you top the rise and are going good enough to press the button, then you can really put a gap in them and then hang on for your life,” Boss says. “You see that quite often.”
The finish
There are not many better feelings in horse racing than crossing the finish line in front of 45,000 people at Royal Randwick a winner of The Everest. And given the long straight at NSW racing headquarters, the final 100 metres can feel like it lasts forever.
“The build-up is huge,” Boss says. “There’s probably only two horses in Australia that have that feel, I’d say that’s the Cox Plate and Melbourne Cup. When you win it, you think, ‘this is a big event’.”
