His fellow jockeys were left lamenting as champion rider Jim Cassidy handed out a galloping lesson aboard Legsman to win the Winter Cup at Rosehill.
Cassidy may not have written the manual on how to ride frontrunning stayers but he has certainly read it well.
His reputation has long been established and trainer John O’Shea had been trying for almost a year to get Cassidy aboard Legsman.
Everything fell into place ahead of the Listed Winter Cup (2400m) on Saturday and Cassidy took the race into his own hands from the outset with Legsman ($5.50) holding off Tullamore ($5) by a length with favourite Skyerush ($4.20) another 2-1/2 lengths back third.
“We have been trying to get Jim to ride the horse for about 12 months,” O’Shea’s foreman Bryce Heys said.
“There just hasn’t been the opportunity but today was the day.
“We were pretty confident and things went accordingly.”
Cassidy is one of just seven jockeys to have ridden the winners of the big four of Australian racing – the Golden Slipper, Cox Plate, Caulfield Cup and Melbourne Cup.
His 1997 Caulfield-Melbourne Cups double aboard Might And Power remains a testament to his riding skills with the big horse leading all the way in both events.
“When I’m in front I’m hard to beat,” Cassidy said.
“John has asked me a couple of times to ride this horse and when I spoke to the stable this morning everyone was confident.
“The horse is fit and tough and I stuck to the fence and kept him happy.”
Staying on the rail was in contrast to the other winners before the Winter Cup with jockeys steering to the centre of the track.
But Cassidy was unperturbed by the trend and rated the horse to perfection with the other jockeys unable to make ground.
Skyerush’s jockey Nathan Berry said the tactics had gone against the favourite.
“She went enormous, just the way the race was run was against her,” he said.
“She’s more a horse you have to hold up until the 350 (metres) and I was putting her under a little bit of pressure at the 800 and it dragged the sprint out of her.
“She’s got one of these wins in store for her but when horses run along from the 1000 it makes it harder, it breaks their hearts.”
Veteran Vision And Power, who Cassidy rode to the Group One double of the George Ryder Stakes and Doncaster in 2009, finished sixth of the nine runners with Nash Rawiller aboard.
“He has seen better days,” Rawiller said.
“He didn’t fire a shot.”
AAP TURF
