POPE TALKS ABOUT SWISS ACE'S SUCCESS

A high-point of any jockey’s career is winning a Group 1 event. Ken Pope added that distinction to his resume when he partnered the Mick Mair trained Swiss Ace to victory in the Oakleigh Plate at Caulfield last Saturday. Horseracing Only spoke to the Group 1 winning rider.

Chasing the Group 1 dream:
“The only time I ever thought about riding a Group 1 winner was when I rode Swiss Ace at Doomben in the BTC Cup. We ran third to Apache Cat, but the horse gave me the feeling he could win a Group 1 and I hoped I could stick on him. That was when I first seriously thought about the fact that I could win a Group 1.”

Winning for trainer Mick Mair:
“The partnership with Mick added to the pleasure of the win. It was a pity Mick wasn’t down there. It would have been terrific to share such an experience with him but, having said that, I’m probably happy he wasn’t down there because I probably would have burst into tears.

“Mick was just so laid back about it. He didn’t even phone me on Saturday night. I was talking to him on Sunday morning, but that was only because we were talking about some other horses. Otherwise there was nothing. He didn’t even mention the race. He was going blah, blah, blah about something else. He just took it on the chin like everything else and moved on. For me though, the Group 1 win is a subject I like to talk about."

Stable loyalty and the relationship between horse and rider:
“I am obviously very grateful to Mick and the owners for staying loyal and keeping me on the horse. For me to be asked to go away with the horse, when obviously you’ve got a lot of other jockeys and their agents ringing up for the ride, it was really good. They were phoning from all over the place, you know, and there’ll be a lot more phoning after Saturday’s result. It’s not normal for connections to stick with their jockey when they’ve got big names with local knowledge after the ride. It’s an exception and I am very grateful they gave me that show of confidence and stuck with me. They had no qualms at all about it.

“The advantage of course is that I do know the horse backwards. I’ve ridden him in all of his wins. A lot of people did say that if anybody else had been on the horse he probably would have been beaten. I like to think the same thing, but obviously we don’t know that and I can’t say that. All I can say is that I know the horse. The horse knows me – I mean I’ve ridden him a million times in work and that – and our relationship certainly helped when we kicked again in the closing stages of the race.

“Character and temperament-wise, Swiss Ace is just beautiful ... perfect. He is a bull of course and he can get bullish when he wants to be. I took to him straight away. I allow him to get away with some things and I guess he does the same with me. I give him a little bit and he gives me. The important thing is that he does as he’s told when things get serious. We really do have a good understanding.”

Celebration:
“I didn’t celebrate too much. I had an eight o’clock flight booked back on Saturday night. I did have a cigar or two, but I would have had that anyway.”

The comeback trail:
“Swiss Ace was off for eight months prior to his return in the Lightning Stakes. There were no issues with the horse. He’s had a fairly long winter campaign and Mick was always going to give the horse a fair time off. I got badly injured on May 20 last year.” (Pope fractured the C4 and C5 vertebra in his neck). “At the time the injury cost me the ride in the Stradbroke. After the Stradbroke the horse was put out. Mick said I shouldn’t worry because I would beat the horse back.”

“I’m lucky I did, because it’s only been the last three weeks of my riding that I’ve come back to where I was before my injury. I rode two doubles in the two Sunday meetings leading up to the Oakleigh and it was only in the last week that I felt really spot on. It took a very, very long time. Even though I’ve been riding for a couple of months, it just sort of it took me that long to get back into it, you know. It really had been a long time, but we were both ready when we needed to be.”

“People kept saying beforehand that he’s only won this, he’d only won that. He’s only won in Queensland etc. But everything he’d ever done he’d done well. He won a Weetwood as a three-year old and that was a fair achievement in itself. Not just any horse could do that, you know."

Swiss Ace’s distance prowess:
“He’s an interesting horse distance-wise. After his spell, he came back well in the Lightning Stakes. That was over 1000m. Now in Queensland he could be a 1000m horse, but in that sort of competitive Group 1, 1000m field you get in Melbourne, he would need more ground to have his best shot. His trip would be more the 1200m (the distance over which Swiss Ace has secured five of his ten wins). He has won over 1350m and can squeeze out that distance. I don’t know if he can win over 1350m in the top grade, but we might be able to find out later on.”

The Lightning Stakes and the Oakleigh Plate:
“The Lightning Stakes was an ideal warm-up for the Oakleigh. He did get a bit lost down the straight in the Lightning - and so did I – but it was a sound effort and it brought him on well.

“In the Oakleigh, he jumped into the lead. Several people watching the video thought he didn’t, but that was the angle at which the film was taken. I would say he was always half a length ahead of anything else. We got across from the draw and he came back to me nicely. I rated him well. I was very aware of the work that I had done early, so I didn’t want to just get to the top of the straight and then go for him. I was lucky enough to be able to hold him up for quite a way in the straight.

“The first time I went for him was about ten metres before the 200m mark, when Lucky Secret headed me. But the strange thing was I wasn’t worried about him. I was worried about the swoopers. I was just thinking that if D. Brereton ... one of the best riders in the country ... if he had to go for his bloke (Lucky Secret) that hard before I had to go for mine, I thought I was a bit of a chance. I always had him in my sights but, like I said, I didn’t know what was happening with the horses on the outside, which is why I was worried about a swooper.

“I guess if you’d asked me before I would have said that if ever I found myself competitive in a finish in a Group 1 race, I’d probably be whipping the fur off the horse to get there. As things turned out though, I couldn’t believe I put my whip away at the 100m when I wasn’t even in the lead! You can call that instinct, experience ... whatever you like. I was just very aware at the time that my best option was to put the stick away and ride him out with the hands.”

Pope had selected a winning option and so it that Swiss Ace responded to Pope’s kinder urgings and fought back to come again and trump Lucky Secret in the final strides to score a famous victory for Queensland and put the names of Ken Pope and Mick Mair into the Group 1 winners directory.

The final word:
While the expert riding and training feats of Pope and Mair take centre stage, It would be seriously amiss not to mention the role played by owner Darryl Rogers and his wife in the above scenario. Rogers selected Swiss Ace at the point of purchase, sitting through a long day at the Brisbane Bloodstock Sales to pick up the colt for the bargain-basement price of $6000,00. It was Rogers who took the original punt before placing the horse with Mair at his stables at the Sunshine Coast. The counter on the return dividend on his investment now stands at a little over $650 000,00 – and it’s still rolling.

“No, I never had anything to do with the purchase of the horse,” said Mick Mair.

But did he have an opinion of the horse before hand?

“No, never even had a look at it. It was all the owner’s doing. I think I’ll have to let him buy some more for me.”

Swiss Ace will be a hard act to follow.