The Changing of The Guard

[Diamond Geezer]

Some of our senior jockeys now within two or three years of retiring from race riding and we have a real promising crop of young jockeys coming through fast.
During this season jockeys like Brian Cooper, Brendan Powell, Sam Twiston Davies and Harry Derham have made enormous progress and we have those that are beginning to look the real deal like Nick Scholfield whilst Ryan Mania now has the opportunity to move forward a career that once looked like stalling.
No doubt the Irish lads would be able to highlight some talent on their side of the water

Is it too soon to be heralding a new golden dawn of NH jockeys?

 

[Muttley]

I think that potentially the biggest problem for the youngsters is that the "old guard" shows no signs of going away just yet. I think we've seen a few promising jockeys over the last few years who have reached a certain level and then either plateaued or regressed. I'm inclined to think that one reason for this is that they haven't had the opportunities to develop.

 

[Desert Orchid]

I think generally the standard of jockeyship, not to say horsemanship, has never been better than it is now. One or two of the established lot I still see as a negative if I see them booked and I have to think twice about backing their mount, but by and large I think the standard is very good.

It's also nice to see some smart claimers breaking through.

 

[jinnyj]

Agree but I seriously wish they'd all redevelop their styles to stop this banging around on the horses loins whilst riding a finish. They never used to do it and it really can't be good for a horse.

 

[sunybay]

Townend and Cooper are the ones to dominate in coming years