On Sunday, MickKinane will ride Hotstepper — a colt who ran favourite Bourbon King very close in their previous outing.
MUMBAI: They say experience matters. So when a 49-year-old jockey takes the stage at the Indian Derby as the oldest in the field, age should be just a number. On Sunday, MickKinane will ride Hotstepper — a colt who ran favourite Bourbon King very close in their previous outing.
Hotstepper will go head-on with Bourbon King for Sunday’s blue riband event too.
The Irish jockey is one of the professionals invited this year to spruce up the profile of the event and bring in the crowds. Interestingly, Kinane began his nearly three-decade-old career in India. “I think it was in the 1979-80 season... soon after I had completed my apprenticeship,” he recalls.
Kinane is back in India after a long sabbatical. His memory fails him to an extent when he is asked to recollect his two wins. That’s understandable considering that the likes of Kinane have to flit across the world by the day. Incidentally, Kinane rode Sir Bruce and Cordon Bleu to glory in 1986 and 1988 respectively.
Since then he has been first to the post in many top races. The only jockey in the world to have won the English and Irish derbies, the Belmont Stakes, The Japan Cup and the The Melbourne Cup, Kinane is an authority in himself. It is every jockey’s motto and Mick Kinane also averred, “I ride to win every race.” It is not just plain confidence that the Irish jockey holds up his sleeve when he saddles Hotstepper.
But Kinane didn’t set the racecourse on fire in the only event he ran on the eve of the big day. He finished a poor last among a field of nine in the sixth race. Kinane doesn’t give any excuses nor does he put it down to frayed nerves.
“A good jockey on a bad horse is still a bad idea,” comes the witty reply implying that there is nothing much one can do if the horse is bad. The only other weakness in his armour could be that Kinane has spent most of his recent past in Dubai where racing happens in the night and race courses take the left course of direction instead of the right side in India.
“It is just that I will have to look back (at the rivals) on my left instead of right. That’s the only adjustment I have to make,” Kinane says.
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