Amid the glamour of Australia’s best jockeys riding at the Gold Coast on Saturday, journeyman Justin Stanley made the most of his one ride.
Stanley was aboard Worthy Cause, an impressive winner of the Group Three Gunsynd Plate (1800m).
Trainer John Zielke plans to run Worthy Cause in the Sunshine Coast Guineas (1600m) on May 16 and then the Queensland Guineas (1600m) on May 30.
Zielke’s long range plans include a trip to Melbourne in the spring.
And Stanley, who mainly rides at Queensland provincial and country meetings, will be there every step of the way.
“Justin and I go back 20 years to when he was riding as a non claiming apprentice. We have been friends that long and he knows this horse very well,” Zielke said.
A former star apprentice, Stanley’s career has been stalled on occasions by injury but he has ridden 45 winners this season.
As an apprentice he finished sixth in the 1999/2000 Brisbane senior jockeys’ premiership with 43 wins.
He is also no stranger to success with some of his biggest wins including the 2010 Gold Coast Guineas on Beethog and the Listed Breakfast Creek Hotel Handicap on Enquare three years later.
But in the past 10 years he has struggled for recognition from the top stables and the city rides have dried up.
Stanley hopes Worthy Cause can push him back into the metropolitan limelight.
“Worthy Cause has a great turn of foot. I knew he would run them down in The Gunsynd because few horses can match his turn of foot,” Stanley said.
Racing is in Stanley’s blood with his father Peter a former jockey who now trains at Bathurst and his sister Kasie also a jockey based in the NSW Northern Rivers
