It hasn’t been the easiest of paths for Blaike McDougall, but the fact that the rider overcame a major hiccup in his career and continues to put his best foot forward stands to his credit.
McDougall won the New South Wales State Jockey’s Premiership in the 2020/21 season with 185 winners, a total which also put him in second place behind Chris Parnham in the overall Australian Jockey’s Premiership for that season.
In September 2021, McDougall made the move to Victoria and he now is enjoying following a familiar path as he leads the Victorian state-wide Jockey’s Premiership, currently sitting on sixty-five winners.
Things are all nice and rosy.
But, some eight years ago, it was going to be a close call if McDougall was even going to have any career in the saddle.
He had in fact decided against it, in the firmest of terms, when he left the David Payne stable, where he was apprenticed, with the lure of an easier outside life tempting him away from the game.
“I just took off,” was the way McDougall put it, speaking to the Daily Telegraph. “I couldn’t be told what to do, I wasn’t thinking straight at the time and I just threw it away.”
He went back home to Portland … to do nothing!
Some six months later, the racing gene was reactivated. McDougall wanted back in and he knew what a hard road it might be, but he set out to rectify what he now believed to be a mistake.
Even with the best of intentions, McDougall couldn’t do it by himself. He needed opportunity and support and, in the first instance, that came from trainer John Thompson.
“I walked in (to John Thompson’s stable), shook his hand, and said ‘I’m Blaike McDougall and that I was an apprentice who stuffed up, but I’ve learnt from my mistakes and I want to ride again’,” McDougall told the Daily Telegraph in that same December 2016 interview.
Thompson’s response was a positive one with the trainer admitting that it was McDougall’ openness and honesty about his past that won him over.
While anyone’s progression up the jockey’ ladder … which has to be climbed one rung at a time .. will always have its twists and turns, setbacks and challenges, McDougall deserves a nod of approval for coming back from the edge of the abyss to forge a successful career.
There was no ‘gimme’ here, it was a status that had to be hard-earned.
There is still plenty for McDougall to work towards … like establishing a greater presence in the Melbourne Metropolitan ranks … but, all things being equal, you would like think it will only be onwards and upwards for him from here.
