God’s greatest AFL side, Hawthorn, hails from Victoria just as His chosen WA side is West Perth.
These are indisputable facts, as the bulk of my readers are well aware!
However, the Victorians are still dills as they proved recently with the treatment of our blonde wonder girl of the saddle.
Crack WA apprentice jockey Lucy Warwick had 29 rides in Victoria in a two month stay in that State. She has equalled that number of rides in exactly a week since returning to WA.
She rode five winners, over there, from limited opportunities, including one on her favourite horse, Lucciola, where the duo combined to win the Stony Creek Cup.
That little grey mare was sensational last year in Perth and Warwick was the pilot in seven consecutive wins. Lucciola had also won a couple for Shaun Meeres earlier in 2014.
Since returning to Perth the apprentice has again been in demand. Resuming at Geraldton, on March 11, Warwick was strangely unsuccessful in her seven rides at the Northern track, with a couple of thirds her best result.
Then the usual story started. The next day at Bunbury she had two winners from her six rides; at Ascot on 14 March another double and a second flowed from five rides; at Mt Barker the next day, another double (from five rides); at last Wednesday’s Ascot fixture, on March 18, she had a dead-heat for first and then another winner and a second.
Note well, Lucy is not grizzling over the Victorian experience. She told this writer, last Saturday, it was an eye-opener to be going to bush meetings and seeing a dozen or more Group 1 winning jockeys all competing.
Even so the Vics hardly used her talents. It is a rare WA meeting in which the leading apprentice does not have five or six rides, and the former number has been her lowest amount since returning to her home State.
Clearly getting only a few rides does impact on race fitness and Warwick confessed she had put on a few kilograms over there -weight that she wants to shed.
Like General Douglas McArthur (check your History) she ‘will return’ also – in her case to the Garden State. Indeed, some more rides on Lucciola would be an enticement, later this year.
Barring injuries or suspensions Warwick is as certain to win the Metropolitan Apprentices Premiership as William Pike is the Jockeys Premiership (and Warwick will run second to him in that competition).
Indeed, when Lucy left Perth she was a clear leader in the Apprentices race.
Joseph Azzopardi clawed to within two wins of her, in her absence, but he won’t ever get that close again.
by John Elsegood
