Tasmania’s most successful jockey of the modern era Brendon McCoull is making a late bid to try and win his 15th premiership.
McCoull landed a treble at Spreyton last Friday to take his season tally of wins to 62-1/2 to edge closer to David Pires who leads in the race for the premiership with 69 wins.
With dead-heats or half wins now classified as whole wins when calculating jockeys’ premiership standings in Tasmania, McCoull doesn’t seriously believe he can catch Pires being a half-dozen wins away.
But he confirmed at Spreyton last Friday that claiming his 15th title would most likely be dependent on Pires failing to ride more than three more winners.
“Realistically David (Pires) has the premiership in the bag because you would expect him to ride a few more winners over the next five meetings,” McCoull said.
“But as we all know racing is a weird game and anything can happen,” he said.
McCoull has been able to creep closer courtesy of his amazing success on the synthetic track at Devonport where he has dominated over the past four meetings.
The Devonport club will host two of the remaining five meetings and that is where McCoull needs to make an impact as two of the other three are in Hobart where heavy tracks are almost certain to prevail with apprentices dominating those meetings of late and it also has been a happy hunting ground for Pires.
McCoull has some good rides at the Launceston meeting on Sunday and the fields are expected to be strong for the Devonport meeting next Tuesday where McCoull should again sit aboard some genuine winning chances.
Anthony Darmanin also has had a great season as he sits in third spot on 58 wins while Ismail Toker has the apprentices title wrapped up with 43-1/2 wins clear of Tasmanian-based Victorian apprentice Boris Thornton on 28.
By Peter Staples.