It could be a big day out for Cejay Graham at the Gold Coast on Saturday.
The popular rider, who is currently sitting in fourth place in the highly competitive Brisbane Jockey’s Premiership, continues to show all of the grit, determination and willingness to learn, to improve and to get ahead which has carried her to her current formidable position in the riding ranks … the same attributes that served her so well as a core factor in helping her overcoming serious injury setbacks when others might have called it a day.
Adversity comes in different forms … some physical painful, like the compression fractures Graham suffered to her C3, C4 and C5 vertebrae early in her career, while others are of a more mentally challenging nature, like losing the ride of the favourite in a $3 million race … but the real pros just shrug off that disappointment and get on with it.
That is what Graham will be doing at The Gold Coast, focusing on the things she can do something about rather than let the loss of the ride on Grafterburners, the ruling favourite for the $3 Sunlight, cloud her thinking.
Graham, who partnered Grafterburners in four of his five career victories, has been replaced by James McDonald.
But Graham’s chance at securing a win in the $3 million race is not gone.
She has a ride in the race for Brisbane’s most dominant stable, that of Tony Gollan, in the form of the chestnut filly Foreign Press, who Graham has ridden in all but one of the daughter of Invader’s eight starts, winning four times, including in the Listed Mode Plate at her last start, so she is certainly not out of it.
Foreign Press is currently a $23 chance … a price that is exaggerated because of the dominance Grafterburners ($2.35) has in the betting market.
And Graham’s range of opportunities does not end there.
The demand for her services is such that, in spite of a significant number of top visiting jockeys plying their trade at the Gold Coast on Saturday, Graham has secured seven rides on the ten race card, including the ride on a top chance Miss Joelene in the $500 000 Magic Millions The Wave.
Miss Joelene, who, like Grafterburners, is trained by Kelly Schweida, won The Wave last year when ridden by Damian Lane.
Since then, she has won three times, twice with Graham in the saddle, including the win in her penultimate start in the Listed Tails Stakes.
Miss Jolene and Graham only just missed last time out, rattling home out wide from a seemingly hopeless position and only ever-so-narrowly failing to snare Amor Victorious on the line. She as a winner a stride past the post.
Miss Joelene is a clear $2.80 favourite for The Wave.
