When apprentice jockey Bailey Wheeler moved to Queensland early in February to further his career, he wasn’t shy in his assessment of what he was wanted to achieve moving forward.
“I think I can be one of the best apprentices up here and hopefully win the apprentice’s provincial jockeys title next season,” Wheeler told Racing Queensland News. “I may as well put my goals high and chase them.”
Whether that was a brave statement … or optimistic … or even arrogant, is open to interpretation but, in essence all of those attributes actually help form the core of a successful jockey who has to be bold, have a positive attitude and a focussed self-belief to the nth degree to be able to compete and succeed.
Either way, Wheeler was already ‘talking the talk’.
Now just a month later, he is well and truly ‘walking the walk.’
In fact, Wheeler’s results over the last three days would appear to fit like a glove with his stated aim of making his mark in the apprentice riding ranks in the sunshine state.
Listen to this.
On Friday at the Sunshine Coast, Wheeler rode a treble.
On Saturday at the Gold Coast, Wheeler rode a treble.
On Sunday at the Sunshine Coast, Wheeler rode a double.
That’s eight winners overall from eighteen rides … that’s a 44.4 percent weekend winning strike-rate.
Eighteen rides out of the twenty-two races that took place over those three meetings meant that Wheeler took part in just over eighty percent of the races on offer … highlighting the support he is already being given at what is still a very early stage of the next, unfolding chapter of his career.
Wheeler produced three of those eight winners for his boss, city trainer Chris Anderson, to whom Wheeler is apprenticed, three for the multiple Sunshine Coast Premiership winning trainer Stuart Kendrick, and one each for Lauchie Manzelmann and Scott Morrisey.
That already shows the fair spread of opportunities Wheeler is getting … and results like these are almost certain to open up more doors for the young rider.
Wheeler, who is only in his second season of race riding, will no doubt be aware of the long road that lies ahead … one which will almost certainly bring some downturns which will, in turn, test his resolve with a steep learning curve.
Similarly, he will know that one weekend … as exceptional as the eight-winner romp was … doesn’t make a career.
But, boy, you’ll take it when you can get it!
Wheeler will find it hard to maintain the early pace he has set himself, but riding is as much a confidence game as anything else and Wheeler wasn’t short of that before he kicked off in Queensland, so his confidence level is entitled to be off the charts now.
What happens next in racing comes with no guarantees but, whatever that is for Wheeler, he can look back on his first month of riding in Queensland with a great deal of satisfaction.
In truth, he could not have had a better start.
All credit to him for that!
