The Western Australian-owned Cosmic Crusader will have ‘The Wizard’ Willie Pike in the saddle for his upcoming assignments in the Group 2 P B Lawrence Stakes on August 15 and the Group 1 Memsie Stakes on August 29.
Owner Bob Peters and Pike have enjoyed many successes together over a long period of time so, in essence, the change of jockey following Cosmic Crusader’s thumping win in the Group 3 Bletchingly Stakes, over a distance short of his best at Caulfield in his first run on the East Coast last Saturday is not overly surprising.
What is a touch surprising is that Pike has not partnered Cosmic Crusader in any of his eighteen starts to date … seventeen of those coming in Western Australia where the Maurice gelding’s regular jockey in recent times has been Clint Johnston-Porter, who partnered the rising six-year-old in seven of his eight runs during the 2025/26 racing season … for five wins, including a Group 1 success in the Northerly Stakes.
It is not known whether Johnston-Porter was ever in calculations for the ride on Cosmic Crusader moving forward but, with the Pike booking now confirmed, it appears the long-running Peters / Pike association has trumped all other riding options.
That, of course, means that Daniel Stackhouse, who rode Cosmic Crusader to victory with such aplomb in the Bletchingly, has lost the ride and steps down, for the moment at least, into no-man’s land. He does that knowing that he did absolutely nothing wrong, and he can at least take away the consolation that Cosmic Crusader did give him a useful Group 3 victory to add to his resume.
The Bletchingly was contested over 1200m with Cosmic Crusader tackling that assignment first-up after a seven-month break from race action and a stable switch from Michael Grantham in the West to Andrea Leek at Pakenham.
Cosmic Crusader’s next assignment is the $300,000 P B Lawrence Stakes, a Group 2 race over 1400m … a step up in both class and distance … and then it will be on to the $750,000 Memsie Stakes and the significant step up to Group 1 company, again over 1400m, with both of these races being contested on weight-for-age terms.
Cosmic Crusader will carry forward with him a very impressive winning strike-rate of fifty percent (nine wins from eighteen starts) with $1,637,620 already banked in prize-money.
