The real life of a professional jockey. Daily headlines from the UAE and around the world brought to you by Gulf News. See more at: http://gulfnews.com/videos
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00I've been very very lucky to be in Dubai now for nearly 20 years racing and it's
00:05a great privilege and honor to ride under this magnificent stadium here at
00:09Maydan. But unfortunately you guys don't see behind the scenes of what goes
00:14into being a jockey. There's a lot of sacrifices. Early mornings we're up at
00:18like 4.30 most mornings to ride horses at home on the track. There's a lot of
00:23sacrifices with our weight. We have to keep our weight down so you know there's
00:27a lot of a lot of preparation into the diet and maintaining that weight. It's a
00:31difficult thing and we do it day in day out. It's very similar to boxers trying
00:36to make the weight of a fight but they do it for one day. They make the weight
00:41for maybe one fight you know maybe three fights a year. We're doing it week in
00:45week out so it's a tough thing and also there's the hazards of falls and
00:50things like that. You know every time we go out to the racetrack we're putting
00:53ourselves at risk of you know we're steering these animals. They're
00:58not machines you know. They have their own ideas and injuries can happen
01:02and touch wood they don't. But you know there's a lot of people that you know
01:07Royce and French suffered a really bad fall last year and I suffered a fall
01:12in the summer when I rode in Mauritius. So they're the hazards as well but like I
01:16think if you asked every jockey we wouldn't change anything you know. This
01:19is why we do it. We have a passion for horses. We love the horses. We love riding
01:23and we love competing. So we're very lucky that we've ridden many winners
01:28and Dubai has been a fantastic place for me. I've been champion jockey three times
01:32and you know I'm still chasing a fourth one but I've got some catching to do.
01:36Tygo Shea is two in front of me. So a good friend of mine but on the racetrack
01:40he's not my friend. So hopefully we can we can peg him back. He's got a little
01:46lead on me so I'll keep fighting and hopefully as well at the end of the
01:50year you know in a few weeks time we've got the World Cup. The world's richest
01:53race day which is something we're looking forward to and hopefully we have
01:58a great chance in that with North America. You know he's won the first two
02:01legs of the MacDoom Challenge and in fact he's the actually only horse to
02:05hold all three legs. He actually holds the third leg already and he's won round
02:09one and round two and he holds round three. So no other horse has actually
02:13held all three rounds of the MacDoom Challenge. So he's a history maker anyway.
02:17Fingers crossed we get him in one piece to the big night because I think he's
02:20got a very good chance and you know all being well we get there and we're
02:25looking forward to it. It's the biggest race day you know in Dubai. It's the
02:28biggest race day around the world. So fingers crossed we make it and we have a
02:33life chance of winning it this year. Inshallah as they say.