Koby Jennings knows it’s part of the job for apprentices to be replaced by senior riders but sometimes it hurts more than others.
So he took great delight in getting back on Niccolance at Randwick on Saturday, steering him to an all-the-way win over 1400m in a benchmark race for three-year-olds.
As the stable apprentice to Kevin Moses, Jennings did all the early work on Niccolance until his boss was outed for a cobalt offence.
The colt was transferred to Jim and Greg Lee for his debut in which he ran second to Astern when ridden by Jennings.
Niccolance was then moved on to Peter and Paul Snowden and after Jennings rode him to another second behind new stablemate Capitalist, he was replaced by James McDonald and then Blake Shinn in his next three starts.
“It is heartbreaking when you get the drag off as an apprentice,” Jennings said.
“I did a lot of work with this horse from the time he came from the breakers.
“But the owners put me back on and hopefully I’ve given them no excuse not to put me on again.”
Both Capitalist and Astern have gone on to win Group One races but Paul Snowden wasn’t aiming that high with Niccolance.
“Who knows what he could do. He could bounce off this and pop up in a nice race,” he said.
“”Maybe late Flemington week something like that.”
Tower Of Song brought up a race-to-race for the stable.
The five-year-old is now likely to step up to open company over longer distances.
“He’s always a horse we have thought a lot of potential-wise,” SNowden said.
“He’s got good staying potential. If we give him something a little bit harder that will be the gauge for him.”
