The Jockey Angle with Paddy Flood: A Nightmare ride at Cartmel - ‘Who’d be a jockey eh?’ “You can see Oakley saying, "Whoa, whoa, whoa." And then all of a sudden the stride is there.” If you've ever ridden a horse, whether it be a pony or an Eventer or a racehorse, you’ll know what Oakley Brown experiences here is nothing short of frightening. This incident took place on the 31st of August at Cartmel. Oakley Brown rides the Adrian Keatley-trained Vietnorm. This gelding by Kessaar, believe it or not, actually has a lot of racecourse experience and even won a juvenile hurdle back in June! Adrian Keatley is an exceptional trainer and Oakley is a very talented jockey so there is absolutely no blame on the trainer of the jockey here. This is all the horse but it is a juvenile hurdler and these are the things that can happen in the juvenile races. Race replays are FREE to watch from all Irish tracks and a selection of premier British tracks sponsored by William Hill. Paddy Flood’s Analysis Oakley's body language here is all negative. His main ambition is to get to the first hurdle, get his horse to pop it, and get into a nice rhythm. With juveniles, you ride them a little bit differently than say a four or five year old in a maiden hurdle. You probably squeeze a four or five year old down to the jump, but the juveniles sometimes come off the flat so you don't want to wake them up too early. He goes to the first here and he jumps it absolutely perfectly. You can see Oakley saying, "Whoa, whoa, whoa." And then all of a sudden the stride is there. So the rider has to relax his hands and he has to let his horse actually roll down and jump it. Otherwise, you're nearly getting him to make a mistake and he could fall. But there is a problem with that horse jumping that perfectly, it might sound silly if you're on a young horse, you nearly want him to make a mistake early, so he actually starts looking at what he's doing. But he's gone down to this jump, he's in Oakley's hands, he's not concentrating on anything, and he's actually just by chance met the hurdle on a perfect stride. Oakley does everything right. It gives him a squeeze to get him out over the jump, but the horse actually wings the hurdle. And when he lands, you watch his ears and his head. He has no interest in looking in front of him. He's landed and he thinks now, do you know what? I'm just going to run flat out. And he's probably running away from that hurdle. Whereas, if he had given it a little touch, he would have started thinking about what was coming next. He is just running with the choke out. And this is what can happen with these juveniles. You see Oakley's left hand. He's going left, right, left, right. The horse spots a hurdle that's probably 50 metres away. And Oakley's thinking, "Oh, he's going to have a nice look." What does he do? He goes left. And I mean, it would be so much easier for this horse to jump that hurdle. By the time the second jump comes around and just watch him again, watch his head and watch his ears flicking. Oakley thinks, "Yeah, he's after having a look now at the hurdle, but no, he spotted the gap on the left out through the rail and went to take it on. Look, nobody was hurt. The horse was fine, Jockey was fine. But I mean, they're the things jockeys have to deal with. Who'd be a Jockey eh?
