The competitor in champion jockey James McDonald doesn’t really care about his 100th group 1 win, which could come at Caulfield on Saturday: his focus is Damien Oliver.
The 32-year-old is coming into the prime of his career and is set to join the elite band of jockeys to ride 100 group 1 winners. The group includes Jimmy Cassidy, Hugh Bowman, George Moore and Damien Oliver.
But it’s the drive to be the best that fills McDonald’s ambition.
“Any group 1 is special, but the talk about 100 isn’t wearing on me at all,” McDonald said. “Everyone else can talk about. It’s just a number really.
“It’s a big number, but the number that is relevant to me is 129.”
That’s the group 1 mark Oliver finished on when his storied career closed so memorably in Perth last year.
James gets his 99th group 1 on Broadsiding in the Golden Rose last month. Credit: Getty Images
McDonald wants to ride the best and be best. It has defined him in the past 15 years since winning his first group 1 on Special Mission in the Breeders Stakes at Te Rapa as a teenager.
He has gone around the world since, riding group 1 winners in England, Hong Kong and Japan as well as regularly leading the group 1 premiership in Australia.
“I didn’t think about this in my wildest dreams, but when you get the list of those group 1 winners, you just have to say that is some horseflesh,” McDonald said.
“These horses are unbelievable, you forget some of them. Hartnell, he was unbelievable at his best but Winx was around then.
“I have ridden a lot of great horses, hard heads like Zaaki and Fangirl, a great straight horse in Home Affairs, but there are five that stand out.
“Romantic Warrior is the best and has taken me to new places. Anamoe was the smoothest. Verry Elleegant and Nature Strip for the biggest memories, but they were bloody tough to ride.
“Then there is Dundeel,, where it started. He was a super horse and we didn’t see the best of him.”
But just as Chris Waller brought up his 100 group 1 with Winx, McDonald is set to do it on a special colt that is rewriting the record books heading into the Caulfield Guineas.
James McDonald drives Romantic Warrior to the Cox Plate last year. Credit: Racing Photos via Getty Images
Broadsiding has won the Champagne Stakes, JJ Atkins and Golden Rose and will look to become the first horse to win four consecutive group 1 races against his own age on Saturday.
McDonald has two brilliant three-year-olds at the moment, but after Autumn Glow had to be scratched from the Flight Stakes because of a chipped bone in her knee last week, it leaves Broadsiding in the box seat.
“I was really hoping the stars would align with Autumn Glow to be my 100th, but we will have to wait for her. Not everyone gets a fairytale,” McDonald said.
“But I get to swing my leg back over this colt that could be anything in the Guineas.
“Broadsiding is a three-time group 1 winner and is only just starting his career. He is all power and the best colt in the country.
“I hadn’t ridden a two-year-old that won two group 1s before him, and at his first start at three, he won a Golden Rose.
“He is fast-tracking to be something special. You look at Anamoe, he had only won one group 1 at the same time.”
Atishu could spoil the Broadsiding party by being McDonald’s 100th in the Might And Power Stakes, which is the race before the Caulfield Guineas.
“If Mr Brightside stubs his toe, Atishu will be there to capitalise,” McDonald said.
“She is a group 1 winner at 2000m and can be lethal on the back-up, and 101 has a good ring about it, doesn’t it?”
