KINGSTON, Jamaica - “Considering there are only about three top trainers with some of the best horses in training, this milestone achievement of riding 300 winners in a 10-year span I think is commendable.”
So said an upbeat jockey Robert Halledeen after posting his 300th winner aboard the Gary Subratie-trained Uncle Vinnie at Caymanas Park on Saturday.
Uncle Vinnie rallied in deep stretch to beat Salah and Sebastian by half-length in a high claiming ($1m-$850,000) event over seven-and-a-half furlongs (1,500m). The winning time was 1:33.3.
“The achievement leaves me with a happy feeling as it shows that I am putting in the work. Let us face it, all work and no payment makes jack a dull boy. This, therefore, is good reward for my effort. The occasion leaves me so fulfilled I will just have to continue to put in the work.
“And, with any growth in the industry in the coming years, with some small trainers getting some of the better horses to condition, the prospect is that I may just achieve another milestone in the coming season. And by extension, with better management of my time and other aspects of my time in racing I would have by now reached about 600 to 700 winners.
“But it all boils down to the system in which we operate; there are, as I said before, there are only three or four top trainers in the system in Jamaica, so you would have only four jockeys riding for the four, top trainers. This therefore means the other jockeys would have to scramble around hoping that small trainers have a good horse to give them a chance for a winning ride,” Halledeen said.
Halledeen continued: “If we had 10 trainers with 10 good horses we would have had 10 jockeys in each camp and there would be more winners to spread across the jockey population. Except for Wayne DaCosta, Anthony Nunes and Gary Subratie no other individual trainer has the amount of horses each of these trainers have individually under their care.
“So basically those trainers will have three jockeys and those jockeys will be the ones who will win the most races. So those of us who do not have those connections will have to struggle through the system and do our best and feed our families. Under such conditions riding 300 is not an easy task,” Halledeen admitted.
