JOCKEYS UP!

re: JOCKEYS UP!

horsenut23 — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 21:50:43 GMT

I've watched this series from the start. They do seem to evenly spread out the camera time for each jockey. So far, the spills & injuries have been okay. I would have liked for them to show more of their interaction with the horses. Knowing that they CARE about the horses, not just the winning purse, would endear me to them more.

re: JOCKEYS UP!

Barry — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 05:30:13 GMT

I think its "SAD", to see the top jockeys at the major tracks, riding in Claiming races, with purses from $10-$15,000.

The other jockeys don't get to ride in Allow.,Stakes, Graded,Triple Crown, or Breeders Cupraces. Most all of them made from$500,000-over $2 million lastyear.

Where is their sympathy, pity, and compassion for their fellow [not as lucky] jockeys. Is it all about greed ?

re: JOCKEYS UP!

J McM — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:05:41 GMT

Yay for finally having a show about Jockeys! I've always thought them to be great athletes. Their rides are 1/2 ton animals with a mind of their own, traveling pretty fast,close to several others, all wanting to win! A lot bolder,I think, than large guys crashing into each other(football) Way too much TV coverage of that sport to me. I've watched Jockeys and am glad to meet the people I've read about. Thanks Animal Planet

re: JOCKEYS UP!

da3hoss — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:43:31 GMT

o, knowing this sounds like a wet blanket statement, I asked my horse friends (non-racing) if they had/were going to watch it and every single one said "No"...the reason...breakdowns being shown...I guess we're squeamish and don't need more real life in our real lives.;-)

re: JOCKEYS UP!

Carolyn in ND — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:24:37 GMT

I agree with R. I was very dissapointed with Animal Planet with how they scheduled the shows.

re: JOCKEYS UP!

Abbie Knowles — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 01:07:40 GMT

Glad that jockeys seems to have been enjoyed and well recieved. Did not like the sound of the programme about all the spills at all and agree with what was said about that!

Who are the best, or peoples', favourite jockeys riding today? I miss Jerry Bailey and Gary Stevens!!!! But do very much like Alan Garcia, Javier Castellano, John Valesquez, Garret Gomez, Mike Smith, Alex Solis, Joe Talamo, (their pranks sound fun!), Ramon Dominguez and Rosie Homeister from what i have seen of them on ATR and read about them on BloodHorse.com, The Brisnet Racing Journal and NTRA websites. But Cash Asmussen was and is my favourite jockey of all time!!!!

i very much admire all jockeys who obey the rules and love the horses. Racing is a dangerous sport and they risk their lives every time they ride. So hopefully Jockeys will gain them renewed respect and recognition and win more fans for horse racing.

Have a good day!

God Bless

Best wishes

Abbie

re: JOCKEYS UP!

Catherine — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 22:20:37 GMT

My mom and I sat down and watched the first two episodes this past Friday when the series debuted. We were very, very impressed.

re: JOCKEYS UP!

Abbie Knowles — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 00:29:29 GMT

I hope everyone enjoyed Jockeys! I have been enjoying my favourite horses winning!!!!

Wow my favourite horses have certainly excelled themselves today in the US.

Firstly, Diamond Tycoon was a favourite of mine when he raced over here in the UK; so the fact he has now won his first Stakes race is just great!

Tapit's daughter War Echo (Pyro's 3/4 sister) is obviously another favourite; was so thrilled she won readily and impressed her connections! She looks lovely judging from her photo, although does sound fizzy to say the least!!!

Friesan Fire sounds to have blitzed his rivals to win impressively. It goes without saying that I would love him to win the Kentucky Derby for A P Indy and Larry Jones!

Then my adored Stardom Bound winning her 4th Grade 1! What a filly she is!!!!

Just waiting to find out how Shafted and I Want Revenge got on; also Well Armed and Champs Elysee! But am so happy about the aforementioned four!!!! They have made my weekend!!!!

Just printing off the photos I took in the snow today, on the walk Harley and i took over to Lower Slaughter! A very beautiful walk but very cold!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! However the photos have come out pleasingly! Still 6 more to print off!

Have been enjoying your archived articles, Adam, especially the ones about the horses, for example Alysheba and co and Wild Again!

Hope everyone had a good weekend!

My racehorse friends ensured that I did!

God Bless

Best Wishes

Abbie

re: JOCKEYS UP!

R- — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 14:46:24 GMT

I watched the show. I did notice the race calling included jockey names (voiceover)... because it is about jockeys.

It was informative and entertaining.

I was disappointed that JOCKEYS was followed by a show highlighting horse racing disasters and spills. Factual, yes... but too negative in a time when horse racing needs to be broadening the fan base.

JOCKEYS was positive, however, the following show undermined it for me.

re: JOCKEYS UP!

Daniel Hufnagel — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 14:13:51 GMT

Saw the show Jockeys on Animal Planet. An interesting life they have. Certainly, Chantel Sutherland captured my attention. What an absolute beautiful woman she is... a true rare breed.

re: JOCKEYS UP!

Abbie Knowles — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:57:14 GMT

The other blogsites are interesting and Jockeys does sound a good show! However think it must have been replaced with something Britsh over here which is rather annoying!!!! Especially as the lady I spoke at Sky when i asked for the Discovery Package said it would be on over here! She did seem the sort that was trying to get the phone call over rather than be helpful though!

Had the opposite experience this morning when my satellite signal went and the TV therefore would not work. The lady i spoke to at Sky could not have been more helpful and tried to sort the problem out before coming to the conclusion it was snow on the satellite dish that was causing the lack of signal. Conditions were blizzardous at the time!!! (we have 6 inches to a foot of snow and chaos is the word! It is the worst it has been here since 1963 apparently and reminds me of what it used to be like in Yorkshire where i lived until i was 22)) I have digressed as usual. In fact this is totally irrelevant!!! The lady at Sky felt once the snow melted the signal would then come back which it did! So ATR is on and I am awaiting the next race at Nad al Sheba!

Asset and Frankie have already won impressively for Godolphin amidst much cheering! Mike de Kock's (Brilliant trainer who seems pleasant) Diana's Choice won the first race.

Equally thrilling for me was my old friend The Tatling (12 years young!) winning his 14th race at Southwell!!! He has won over £650,000 and 2 Group 2 races in his time. His trainer Milton Bradley adores him and rightly will not allow him to be knocked about so it was a mainly hands and heels ride!

Have no objection to the whip if it is used correctly. That is as a last resort! The whip is an artificial aid to be used only when the natural aids of hands, heels, seat and voice have failed. And then in moderation rather than used to whip the living daylights out of a horse or as a windmill! Sometimes a horse needs a tap or two. I have ridden horses who would not go from trot to canter without a flick from the dressage whip or a tap behind the saddle! Some would give a slight buck of protest even then too! But no one wants to see them walloped unmercilessly and it gives the sport a bad image.

In the UK the whip laws are very strict and young jockeys are sent to racing schools to learn how to use the whip properly. There are even hands and heels only races which are a very good thing!

I am hoping that Romans Run keeps the race he has just so bravely won for Doug Watson and Fernando Jara in Dubai. Romans Run is a son of Tiznow. He looks quite like him and races with the same courage. He was passed and looked beaten but fought back to be in front again at the winning post. But he did impede a runner behind him ever so slightly and the official result has not been given. The horse in question, Jack Junior, looked beaten at the time and not as though he would have troubled Romans Run. So hopefully he will keep the race! He has, at 20/1!!! I can select winners easily but not if I put money on them. Then they lose!!!

Well i hope everyone enjoys Jockeys (I'd better be a bit relevant!) and that it proves a helpful show for the industry!

Now going to cheer Godolphin's Alexandros on! My animals are reaching for their ear plugs!!!!

God Bless

Best wishes

Abbie

re: JOCKEYS UP!

aspradling — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 13:40:07 GMT

I've been surfing around some and have been given a few other blogs that have put their thoughts on the show out for us to read. Nothing as early as my April 2008 review though =)

A couple come from our friends at the TBA:

saratogatrack.blogspot.com/.../jockeys-review-of-episode-one.html

grevelisracing.blogspot.com/.../jockeys-series.html

re: JOCKEYS UP!

Abbie Knowles — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:34:55 GMT

As you like Indygo Shiner thought you might be interested to know that his son My Indy won the second leg of the Maktoum Challenge today following his already impressive win of the first! My Indy had to work harder today with both Happy Boy and Asiatic Boy making him fight for it but he rose to the occasion magnificently and looked to win a shade cosily. Mind you he is one of my favorites of the current Godolphin horses along with Music Note and Cocoa Beach so may be biased! I was certainly being loud and cheered him home very enthusiastically! (My poor neighbors and animals were getting a tad deafened!) He did look to be puling clear close home though, having taken a while to get past Asiatic Boy! Frankie rode him beautifully though and there ws no tail swishing today so hopefully no more crabbing of his temperament!

i worked at Timeform House, (Horse Racing Publishers and The Punter's Friend) in their Editorial Office in 1980 to 1983 and they give horses squiggles or double squiggles if they think they are ungenuine. Never liked that and thought they should rate the people not the horses with them. There are all sorts of reasons why a horse may not run up to form;and it is not necessarily that he/she is ungenuine or a rogue!

But the rest riding performance of the day was from the UAE apprentice Ahmed Ajtebi who bought the rehally bred (Singspiel - Kazzia (who won the Epsom Oaks for Godolphin among other races!

Eastern Anthem was brought with a swooping late run up the inside, coming from last to first and getting up close home to win going away! Ahmed Ajtebi has now won 4 races at The Dubai Carnival on Third Set using similar tactics, on Gravitas and making all on Gladiatorious. He seems sporting and pleasant and undoubtedly horses run for him. Happy Boy had been very disappointing since winning a leg of the Maktoum Challenge last year but he was back on song today and think Ahmed had a lot to do with that. If there is a better apprentice riding in the world today i have yet to see him/her!

Hatta Fort won for Godolphin too and he will be familiar to US racegoers. Also Fernando Jara won on the very impressive Reem by Dalakhani! So American interest there. Fernando Jara was brilliant on Invasor wasn't he?

Sheikh Hamden also had a winner called Snaafy by Kingmambo!

I was more than happy with all the results at Nad al Sheba and am looking forward to My Indy possibly running in the Godolphin Mile. They have reservations about him staying the trip in the Dubai World Cup!

Good racing from Nad al Sheba tomorrow too! Do you ever get the chance to watch it?

Sorry about the muddled first comment. If I do not check them very carefully all sorts of errors are there and I had not checked that at all, at the point I mistakenly submitted it!

We are now badly affected by snow with traffic problems, road closures and basically everything grinding to a halt! Even the postmen got sent home today and the dustbinmen never came so there is rubbish everywhere! It is the pretty, powdery snow which is ok for walking so Harley and i are fine but very disruptive for traveling by car; my Sister and her family cannot at the moment get out of the Village where they live!

I like the snow but not the disruption it causes!

God Bless

Best wishes

Abbie

re: JOCKEYS UP!

Abbie Knowles — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 00:49:56 GMT

Just read 2008 0r 1999. Very good article and interesting comments. Quite agree yet another photo of Frankie doing a flying dismount is probably not a good choice for the winner. It's a great photo and i am a big fan of Frankie Dettori but his flying dismount is a very common sight!

An Irish jockey riding at Cheltenham did a flying remount, when nearly falling off his horse and having both legs on the same side of her but he somehow scrambled back on board. The jockey in question, Barry Geraghty, had had two earlier falls and obviously did not wish to hit the ground a third time! A brilliant piece of riding and at speed!!!!!! Not sure if anyone got a photo but it made great TV viewing and for those who saw it happen live it must have been something else! Our Jump jockeys are incredible and sure yours are too! So are the brave horses of course!!!

Loved the photo of the horses racing against the background of the mountains with the rainbow. A good combination and i always love to see a rainbow anywhere! I always enjoy all the photos on Bloodhorse.com and do not think i could pick one out even off just that website! Always difficult to judge a competition like that but you would have to give them nil points for originality!

Maverick (my keyboard) and i are going to fall out in a minute as he is not doing what i tell him!!!! Some of his keys are a little stiff and I do think he has a mind of his own and types words I have not! When I first got him he was awful but he is better now! Checking is essential though!!!! Though as you have noticed mistakes slip through!

God Bless

Best wishes

Abbie

re: JOCKEYS UP!

Abbie Knowles — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 19:47:59 GMT

Really enjoyed Claire Novak's blog (but can find no sign of Jockeys on our Animal Planet listings. Did find Horsetails though so will watch that Sunday morning) and am delighted to find another fan of The Black Stallion books. Not sure whether it was them, Dahlia or Seattle Slew who chiefly fired my longtime interest in US racing but they certainly helped!!!! The Black Stallion books are still among my very favourite books! A great read! Loved the two films as well!

I enjoyed other articles on NTRA too; it is a site I spent a lot of time on last year as it had a blog site dedicated to my favorite racehorse of 2008 and 2nd favourite filly/mare of all time the great and exceptionally feisty Rags to Riches! Dahlia was much the same in a different way! She was reputedly very difficult to control on the gallops at times apparently, but whether or not she liked to take chunks out of people or kick them a la "Rags" I cannot remember. Don't think so! Think she was just a handful when ridden, "bucking and going completely mad at times" according to her trainer Maurice Zilber! Must go through my old scrapbooks that i kept as a teenager and look up the cuttings and photos of her and my many other favourites!

Which has nothing to do with jockeys and is yet another digression (by Seattle Slew!).

Besides I am probably about to burn my dinner so will close now.

God Bless

Best Wishes

Abbie

re: JOCKEYS UP!

da3hoss — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 17:13:49 GMT

Hmmm, Ms Novak says the breakdowns are seen from afar and shouldn't bother any but the squeamish...

re: JOCKEYS UP!

da3hoss — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:11:59 GMT

Thanks for the heads-up that the horses are not injured..when I watched the promo clips I just told my husband I wasn't going to watch...television is my escape, not a venue to the realities of catastrophic breakdowns..I'm still going to email the show to see if they have an episode with a breakdown, because I'm not watching...no, I'm not a baby...real life has enough challenges without my looking for it on tv as "entertainment"...I didn't watch the movie "Ruffian" either...I saw the real thing...

re: JOCKEYS UP!

aspradling — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:32:01 GMT

My good friend Claire Novak has a blog about her thoughts on Jockeys, it can be found here:

www.ntra.com/blog.aspx

re: JOCKEYS UP!

normajean81258 — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 04:17:10 GMT

I'm looking forward to the show immensely now. I do feel they need to show all, the good and the bad. If it is done right, it should be a good thing for the industry. Hopefully people that only heard the bad publicity over the past few years, will grow to understand the different aspects of this sport. It will never be black & white, right or wrong, but maybe the sport will be seen in a better light now. I love this sport, the people (most of them) and the horses, and the thrill of it all.

re: JOCKEYS UP!

Abbie Knowles — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 00:47:33 GMT

Went through the schedule for Friday but could not find Jockeys, so maybe it is not been shown over here or maybe I looked it up wrong which is entirely possible.

No matter i am enjoyig several of the shows on Animal Planet and also The Dog Whisperer on National Geographic but cannot figure out why it should be on National Geographic???

Hope everyone enjoys Jockeys and that the show does the Racing Industry some good!

God Bless

Best wishes

Abbie

re: JOCKEYS UP!

Jane — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:19:04 GMT

Does anyone know if episodes will be hosted on Animal Planet's website, or somewhere like Hulu.com after airing?

re: JOCKEYS UP!

Abbie Knowles — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:19:31 GMT

Have got the Knowledge mix so can watch Animal Planet which will be good, not just for "Jockeys", but am sure i will find other interesting documentaries there, and probably also on the likes of National Geographic et al.

It will also stop me just using Sky to watch At The Races!!!!!

God Bless

Best wishes

Abbie

re: JOCKEYS UP!

Abbie Knowles — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 00:48:38 GMT

Enjoyed the video- minus sound as Data does not do that!- lovely shots of Zenyatta! Great photography. Jockeys sound good from what you said Adam; so maybe i should contact Sky and get Discovery channel added to my package so i can watch it!

God Bless

Best wishes

Abbie

re: JOCKEYS UP!

Dreamer's Mom — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 02:58:21 GMT

I am, unfortunately, one of those folks that still live in the dark ages and do not have cable-yet, two coupons for converter boxes at my house-so will not be able to see the show, but I love the print ad! The helmet in the flying hooves-WOW!!!! Just thankful none of the jocks where I race are featured! I'm afraid PG-13 would not even come close!

re: JOCKEYS UP!

txhorsefan — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 15:10:27 GMT

Thanks for your insight after seeing a couple of epiosdes, Adam. I have seen the promos and have been hoping it would be a good show, inspiring people to watch racing, but with the spills highlighted in the short pieces shown, I was apprehensive. You have made it a little easier for me to look forward to watching. Thanks!