The 41st Breeders’ Cup is precisely what the founders aspired to in the early 1980s when they set it up under the then slightly optimistic and, at the time, dubious slogan “World Thoroughbred Championships”. In terms of depth, with about 80 pre-entered horses from five continents, this is the most international race-meeting ever run anywhere in the world.
No one person quite embodies the international nature of this year’s Breeders’ Cup – 14 races worth $34 million over Friday and Saturday – than Rachel King, who bids to become only the third female jockey to ever land a Breeders’ Cup race after Julie Krone and Rosie Napravnik, and will be the first Australia-based jockey to ride at the annual American event.
A bit like the Chuck Berry song It Wasn’t Me when he meets a German girl in England who was at school in France and danced with her in Mississippi, King is the British born, Australian-based jockey riding, Satono Carnaval, a Japanese horse in an America race, Friday’s Juvenile Turf; one person, four continents.
King, 34, is the one-time struggling amateur and point-to-point jockey who worked as a secretary for Alan King (no relation) and Clive Cox before heading down under on a working holiday one winter before she was meant to join Eve Johnson Houghton as an apprentice.
She stayed, Johnson Houghton gave up waiting, and flick forward a decade, she is now in an elite band of female jockeys to have won multiple Grade Ones and next week she will ride The Map in the Melbourne Cup.
A flying visit to her Oxfordshire home to get married in June saw her finish second on a spare ride at Royal Ascot and then return in August to ride a winner at the Shergar Cup. Hitherto her only ride in the US was in an amateur flat race but Friday is, she agrees, a different ball-park.
She is now, also, big in Japan where she became the first female jockey to win a Group race. “I rode in a jockeys’ challenge they have in Sapporo and when I was there it was flagged up to me that I was qualified to apply for a short-term licence so I thought I’d have a go. They approved it and I spent January and February there this year based in Tokyo with Noriyuki Hori [who trains the unbeaten Satono Carnaval].
“He is the trainer who Ryan Moore is attached to when he is there. It was an incredible experience. I rode 16 winners including a couple of Group Twos, worked very close with Mr Hori and that’s how this ride came about. Obviously having just turned two he didn’t run when I was there.”
Having ridden Satono Carnaval in an impressive spin round the turf yesterday she continued: “I touched base with Damien Lane [who won on him first time out] and have watched the replays of his two wins but got a good feel of him this morning. His attitude was incredible. A good horse has to have the attitude to cope with this sort of thing and he was amazing going round there on his own having just travelled for the first time away from home. That attitude will take him a long way.”
Del Mar is where Japan tasted its first Breeders’ Cup breakthrough successes three years ago and it returns to its happy hunting ground with 17 runners, including Satono Carnaval and one of City of Troy’s principal rivals in the Classic, Forever Young, their every move followed by 50 Japanese media.
Back in Australia King has enjoyed a good start to the new season winning a Aus $1 million race at Randwick on Saturday on Iknonowastar for Bjorn Baker and though she misses the Group One Coolmore Stud Stakes – which she won on Ozzmosis last year – this weekend to ride in the US, she will be back for her 50-1 shot in the Cup on Tuesday.
“She’s better than a 50-1 shot. She’s got no weight and she’s one of the few genuine Aussie-bred two milers which hasn’t been bought out of Britain. She just got chopped for a bit of room at the wrong time in the Geelong Cup.”
Before that King has Del Mar to conquer. She is already one of the world’s elite female jockeys and victory on Friday would take it to another level internationally.
“It’s great just to be part of it,” she says. “To win it would be even better.”
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