Australian jockey escapes catastrophe at Pukekohe

A number one Australian jockey having her first day using in New Zealand narrowly escaped catastrophe in a $175,000 race at Pukekohe this afternoon.

Victorian apprentice jockey Celine Gaudray is without doubt one of the most promising younger riders in Australia and flew to New Zealand this week to experience on the Pukekohe thoroughbred assembly due to a scarcity of native jockeys by means of different using obligations or suspensions.

After profitable Race 4 earlier within the programme Gaudray was properly on her approach to profitable the $175,000 Jamieson Park Soliloquy Stakes when Luberon raced clear on the 300m mark.

However Luberon, who is just a three-year-old filly and nonetheless studying find out how to race, swerved wildly on the 200m mark and ran proper to the skin of the observe.

Along with her head dealing with to the within of the observe Luberon didn’t see the skin rail and bumped into it after which by means of a bit of it earlier than she was in a position to be straightened.

Working rails, each on the within and outdoors of most racetracks, are manufactured from plastic and designed to interrupt into items if struck with an excessive amount of power so that they don’t injure horses or jockeys because the older aluminium rails may have.

So Luberon solely suffered some minor pores and skin loss within the incident whereas Gaudray was additionally unhurt and returned to the observe to experience the winner of the very subsequent race.

Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally revealed racing articles whereas nonetheless at school and began writing about horse racing and the playing trade for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He turned the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s greatest horse racing carnivals.