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Not a big follower of flat racing and I don’t know the quality of horse Shoemark has ridden but how many consecutive losing rides has he ridden at Royal Ascot?
Good to see Kieran win a race at Royal Ascot today. And who trained the second and who owned the third?
Well done to the fella.
Shocking amount of abuse he has apparently received on social media.
Really hope that his career kicks on now.Another Royal Ascot winner – fair play to him as he has done the right thing in keeping his head down and just riding his races.
Seems like Ed Walker will continue using him and with the form his horses are in at the moment his confidence must be on the rise again after what happened.
Considering he only had one ride at single digits, the rest in the range between 18/1 to 100/1, he did extremely well. As punter you’d be making a 35 points profit during the Royal meeting.
Royal Ascot produced 2 from 12 for Shoemark, and, if I am counting correctly, 1 from 24 for Colin Keane.
A travesty that KS lost his job over the Guineas ride, but Gosden needs his scapegoats.
Royal Ascot produced 2 from 12 for Shoemark, and, if I am counting correctly, 1 from 24 for Colin Keane.
True, but whose a**e gets kissed the most?
Everybody loves and is full of praise for Keane, but let’s see how he delivers in the long-term.Its a results orientated business, maybe people are blaming Gosden Snr for the move when it could just as easily have been pressure from some of the more powerful owners he trains for that left him no option but to go the route he did.
Jockey’s are only as good as their last ride and sadly Shoemark hadn’t built up anywhere near enough cache as Gosden stable jockey to take a further hit like the 2000g ride brought about…….especially given that he was already on shakey ground from the previous season where things hadn’t gone great for him either.
Shoemark is a good jockey but his timing of going to Gosden was a bit unfortunate as the stable were going through a transitional stage with notable big name’s form tailing off on their way out and seemingly not having anything obvious coming through to replace them……I doubt anyone saw Field of Gold (a decent but not top of the tree 2 yr old) going on to do what he has done at 3. It just goes to show just how fine margins there are for jockeys – had Kieran kicked on FOG at the same time as W. Buick did at Newmarket, he now would have English & Irish 2000g and a St James’s Palace wins on his CV and we all would have been singing a far different tune about him as a jockey.
Kieran is currently in 20th place in the jockey standings with 37 winners from 245 rides (that is 6 wins behind the 10th placed jockey and only W.Buick (191) has had less rides in that Top 20, Shoemark’s S/R is at 15% which is a comparable S/R to all the 19 jockeys above him (not named O.Murphy and W.Buick). To a £1 stake he is at +£29.28 and he is one of only 6 jockeys in the Top 20 that have a positive return and only Finley Marsh is higher at an amazing +£85.97!.
I feel a bit sorry for him for the actual level of stick he got but he has behaved in a very mature and professional manner in how he has dealt with it all and hopefully with two Royal Ascot winners for Ed Walker under his belt (and a potential link up with more of that stable’s horses as mentioned by the trainer) hopefully he can put all that behind him.
LD73, he was maybe 2 seconds behind Buick in asking for an effort. It wasn’t the timing of the moves by the jocks, it was the radical difference in response. Buick’s picked up right away and surged clear. Field Of Gold took an absolute age, almost 2 furlongs before he seemed to find any purchase and accelleration. If you watch Keane at RA, you could conclude he waited even longer than KS did at Newmarket (he was also farther out of his ground through the early part, another criticism KS got).
One of the first post-race comments made by KS at Newmarket was ‘I expected him to pick up right away. He just didn’t’. Keane expected the same pick up, but he got it. Such is the luck of the game.
2 seconds for a racehorse travelling at 35+mph is all it takes though so timing does play a big part but he was just passing the 2F pole and going into the dip when he was really asked and it resulted in him getting unbalanced which was the reason why to Shoemark it felt like he didn’t pick up as quickly, which given the two races circumstances and sectionals is actually a rather misleading comment.
If you look at the Craven which we know (compared to the 2000g) was a slowly run race he was still actually hard on the bridle going from the 2F to 1F pole until being asked to quicken up just as they got to the 1F pole and that is reflected in his sectionals for the final 2F in both races, in the Craven he ran 11.45s (7F) and 12.20s (8F) whilst in the 2000g he ran 11.32s and 11.92s.
Even though in the 2000g he was somewhat unbalanced going through the dip, he still clearly gained more momentum because he was already being asked for an effort (whilst he was still being held onto at that same point in the Craven) and that said momentum actually propelled him faster up the hill too but because in the Craven he was actually asked to quicken on the rising ground it might have felt that he picked up quicker because he wasn’t unbalanced when responding to his jockey.
Keane simply got a better pick up from the horse because at both the Curragh and Ascot at the point where he was asking him to go it was on rising ground instead of going through the dip.
Quite noticeable Shoemark didn’t want to talk on camera on SSR last night ( to be fair it was Matt) looks like he just wants to ride and let the Gosden saga quieten down
I don’t blame him it is done with but the media likes to maintain the drama. They need to move on from it Field Of Gold did not win the Guineas and will be no different to other horses with bad luck stories through the season.
The more I know the less I understand.
Agree entirely with LD’s comments.
In all honesty, I don’t know what else there is to discuss. Juddmonte and Gosden were clearly not satisfied with Shoemark’s ride and decided to replace him. That is their right.
It is clear to me Juddmonte never really rated Shoemark. At Royal Ascot last year, the Gosden/Juddmonte filly Laurel was ridden by Ryan Moore despite Shoemark being available. An early sign of where Shoemark stood.
If, as I suspect, Juddmonte has told Gosden after the Guineas that it doesn’t want Shoemark on their horses, is anyone seriously suggesting Gosden should have died on a hill for him? He has trained for Juddmonte for nearly 40 years. That relationship is far more important to his business than a jockey.
Think back to Royal Ascot two years ago. When Desert Crown was entered for the Prince of Wales Stakes, owner Saeed Suhail made it clear he wanted Dettori on board. Did Stoute go out of his way to defend Kingscote? Of course not – why would he risk antagonising his most important owner? As it happens, the horse was a non runner but Stoute knew which side his bread was buttered!
The way some commenters are talking here and elsewhere, you might think Shoemark is the first jockey to ever be jocked off. He isn’t and he certainly won’t be the last. It happens, it is part and parcel of the game.
As LD said, it didn’t help Shoemark’s cause that he had delivered a few indifferent rides last year. He had not built up any capital. The Guineas was his first big test and he flunked it. He should have won by his own admission.
It was no surprise when he was sacked, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Since then, Juddmonte/Gosden have won three Group 1s together, so they will argue their decision has been vindicated.
I don’t feel sorry for Shoemark or any jockey who loses their job. I am only a punter. Do any of them care about punters when they have ridden a poor race? I can recall interviews when jockeys have apologised to owners but never a word to punters.
Shoemark will be OK. He has just ridden two winners at Royal Ascot. He is still in demand. When he hangs up his riding boots at some distant point in the future, I bet he will have had a more successful career than most jockeys.
I used the analogy earlier in the thread of Daryl Jacob taking over the Nicholls job from Ruby Walsh. It didn’t work out but Jacob picked himself up and went on to have a successful career. Shoemark may well do the same thing, although I stand by my opinion that he is a decent jockey but not a top flight, Group 1 jockey. Several other posters here have said the same, not just me.
“Looks like he just wants to ride and let the Gosden saga quieten down”.
Which is the entirely sensible approach and very much to his credit. If he started whining about how he was badly treated, it would make a lot of people in racing less well disposed towards him.
The best thing he can do is keep quiet, work hard and ride winners – which is exactly what he is doing. Another door may open for him eventually but the Gosden job was too much too soon.
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