Jace McMurray is a man on the move … quite literally.
The young apprentice will be trading Brisbane for Sydney in the immediate future where he will be taking on a second riding stint at the Michael Freedman stable, an experience which served him well when he originally headed south earlier this year in April.
“This Saturday was my last meeting Queensland, and I’ll head down next week,” confirmed McMurray.
“I’m going back to Michael Freedman. I was there for just over three months before. It was great.
“Everybody knows the jockey’s room in Sydney is very competitive … but it is also very respectful, and they are willing to help too.
“I came back around four months ago, and I think I have certainly improved.
“In the last couple of months in Queensland I’ve grown in confidence and having Michael’s backing helps with that.”
A very logical method can be traced which outlines McMurray’s timing of his movement in-between states.
In the first instance, he moved away from the Sunshine State in mid-April, at the start of the Queensland Winter Carnival … a wise move if he wanted to keep riding the maximum number of rides possible … and that option tends to disappear for apprentices at Carnival time when top tier, high profile jockeys flood the riding market with their proven talent.
“When I came back to Queensland after those four months … I did that because the Everest Carnival was about to take place in Sydney and, now again, it’s the Summer Carnival here and I’m heading to Sydney.”
And there is another potentially big part still to be played out for McMurray this season, although his upcoming time in Sydney will have an effect on that.
When McMurray partnered the $21 bookies outsider Ser Joh to victory at Doomben on Saturday, the win saw him join Emily Lang at the top of the Brisbane Apprentice Jockey’s Premiership with seventeen winners apiece … albeit with two-thirds of the season still left to run.
So is that prestigious Premiership part of McMurray’s thinking?
“It was when I moved back to Brisbane,” acknowledged McMurray, “and with Emily losing her claim … but I’ve just been letting the winners come through until now when it has got to a point where I have caught up with her.
“It has come up in the last month or two, but I haven’t sort of focussed on it too much. The end of the season is a long way off.”
