By David Gilbert
THE profile of locally born and raised jockey Jacob Opperman continues to rise.
This is despite him coming out of his apprenticeship and becoming a senior rider earlier this year.
For many jockeys, that can be a setback, with rides often harder to come by. but Opperman has handled the transition brilliantly.
So much so he is now firmly entrenched in the top four jockeys in Adelaide, as the premiership ladder shows.
With 27 winners so far this season, Opperman is 12 wins behind the leader Jake Toeroek, with Jason Holder (35) and Todd Pannell (31) also in front of him.
However, he is six wins clear of fifth placegetter Kayla Crowther.
Not only did Opperman ride a winning double in Adelaide last Saturday, he also won the jockey’s challenge conducted on the meeting with two wins, a second and a third for the day.
He won the feature race, the Listed $120,295 Nitschke Stakes aboard the second favourite Material Dreams for Flemington trainer Nick Ryan.
“What a great ride, he read the play very well, she jumped well and that was the main thing,” stable representative Zoe Ryan stated post race.
Opperman rode the daily double ($23.80) when successful on Jazz Affair in the final event for co-trainers Richard and Chantelle Jolly who are the leading trainers in Adelaide this season.
He did not ride at Mount Gambier on Wednesday or Gawler on Thursday after stewards outed him for a careless riding charge at the recent Bordertown meeting.
DREAM COME TRUE
BORDERTOWN’S Lindsay Cadzow has been in the training game for a long time and has always harboured a desire to win a race in Adelaide.
That finally occurred last Saturday at Morphettville Parks when the four-year-old mare Sharma Princess ($19) upset the applecart for punters by taking out the 2250-metre BM 64 handicap.
Cadzow saddled up two runners in the race and bookended the race when Space Equity finished 14 lengths behind his stablemate.
It was not Cadzow’s first metropolitan winner, as Wurlies Lastchance won for the stable at 100/1 at Murray Bridge in August 2021.
Sharma Princess had won a lowly maiden at Penola on Easter Sunday at her previous run and was not expected by most people to handle the substantial rise in class last Saturday.
“She’s always shown me at home that she’s got the goods, but it’s just been teaching her about staying,” Cadzow explained post race.
“A couple of others said I would never get her to the racetrack, but I’m a stubborn old bastard and I kept working with her.
“I got her second hand unraced and I paid $600 for her, and I always knew there was going to be time before she hit her straps.”
There have been 13 Limestone Coast trained winners this season at metropolitan level and 10 of those have come from stables at Naracoorte and Bordertown.
EXTRA HARNESS DATES
AN extra three meetings have been granted to the Mount Gambier Harness Racing Club in the next couple of months.
The first of those comes up next Wednesday night (May 1), followed by Friday, May 17 and Sunday, June 2.
It has been well documented how South Australian harness racing has been in the doldrums for a few years now, with poor stakemoney (the lowest in Australia) and racing conducted at only five venues.
Now it has come to surface that harness racing in Victoria is also suffering hard times financially.
A proposal has been put forward that, if it comes to fruition, will have major ramifications on country clubs.
It is my understanding while there will be no cuts to the number of meetings, they will become centralised.
For the western half of Victoria, the proposal is the Terang club (which has had plenty of money spent on it in recent times) will become the hub for the region.
It is envisaged established clubs like Horsham, Stawell, Ararat and Hamilton will have their meetings slashed to just one per year, presumably their cup meetings.
Expect plenty of water to flow under the bridge before everything is set in concrete.
MONEY ALMOST WITHIN GRASP
THE connections of Thrill Kill are looking at a windfall of $6,000 soon, even if the galloper does not race again in the South East until next season.
Thrill Kill has an almost unbeatable lead in the 2023/24 Limestone Coast cup series with six of the seven local cups already decided.
The stayer has won the Coonawarra and Mount Gambier cups this season and his owners are staring at a collect of $2,000 and trainer Peter Hardacre $4,000.
Farooq and Scenic Hero are the only two gallopers within cooee of Thrill Kill and the final cup of the series is the Millicent cup to be run here at Glenburnie on Sunday, May 26.
SUPER IMPRESSIVE
IT was Legends Day at Glenburnie on Wednesday when four stars of the local scene (Mick Medhurst, Frank Dean, George Kay and Edmond “Essy” Thompson) were inducted as legends of the Mount Gambier Racing Club.
Thompson is the only one of the four still alive and he was on track to receive his recognition, while the other three were represented by family relatives.
Racegoers saw a youngster with plenty of talent win the opening event, the 903-metre maiden plate.
The three-year-old filly Stokke ($3.10-$2.10 fav.) from the Patrick Ryan (junior) stable at Warrnambool looked all class on debut, winning untouched for jockey Harry Grace.
“She seems the real deal and it is good for the ownership group who have had a couple of setbacks of late,” Ryan said.
“She was outstanding in a recent trial and hopefully she can go to town and win a race.”
Grace was equally impressed, stating “although she was a bit slow out, she was still too classy”.
It would not be a Mount Gambier meeting these days if trainers Wayne Walters and Peter Hardacre did not have a winner.
Walters was in the winner’s stall after Any Luck, ridden by daughter Kate, led all the way in the 1555-metre BM 56 handicap.
Hardacre had success earlier in the day when the well-backed Longwarry, a newcomer to the stable, found fresh air near the furlong pole to surge between runners and win the 1205-metre maiden handicap.
