Inside a jockey's race plan: How speed maps and homework shape the ride before the parade ring
A former champion jockey explains that race planning starts days before the meeting with form guides and replays, not in the parade ring. Speed maps predict pace and position, but trainers' knowledge of the horse can override a jockey's plan, as shown in the 1991 Melbourne Cup and the recent Everest
Anyone who has been to the races knows the scene in the parade ring before each race. The trainer, the jockey and the owners stand together for a minute or two, talking quietly before the rider is legged up. People wonder what is being said in those conversations, and plenty of them assume that is where the race plan is made. For a good jockey, most of the work has been done long before then. Race planning starts at home, days before the meeting, with the form guide and the replays.
When I was riding, I watched the replays of every horse in the race, not just my own. I wanted to know how each one liked to be ridden and what it did under pressure. If I was going to be sitting behind the leader, in the 'box seat', I needed to know what that leader would do in the straight when it started to tire. Does it hang in towards the rail, or drift out? Does it try to run away from the whip? By the time we came around the home turn, I already knew which way I was going for a run, in or out.
Jockeys have their own habits too, and you study your rivals in the same way. Some like to push forward early, while others ride quietly and come from behind. All of that goes into your picture of how the race will be run. That picture is what people mean when they talk about a speed map. A speed map tries to predict who will lead, who will be near the pace and who will settle back, and from that, how fast the race will be run. The pace and your horse's style decides where you want to be. In a slowly run race, it generally pays to be close to the lead. In a fast run race with plenty of pressure up front, it is usually better to sit further back and save energy while the leaders tire. Of course every horse has its own pattern as well. Some need to be ridden forward, some go best from the back and some very good ones can adapt.
Speed maps are a relatively modern innovation – in the 1980s and 1990s when I was riding speed maps weren't as available and people weren't as focused on them. These days they are everywhere and because of that every trainer is referring to them. The influence speed maps have can show up in some surprising ways. Let's take a scenario where a speed map predicts there will be a lack of pace in a race. The trainers all look at the same map, and because there is no speed on paper, they instruct their jockeys to go forward. All of a sudden, the race is flipped on its head and the pace is on. This is what happened in The Everest last week – people thought the map was simple – but more horses were pushed to be on-pace than expected. That meant Ka Ying Rising could not cross as easily as Zac Purton thought he could.
The last piece of pre-race information comes on the day and how the track plays. For me the track bias was always a big factor to look for. I would watch the first couple of races, see which part of the track the winners and horses finding the line were coming from, and adjust. Some jockeys, especially in Australia, like to walk the track before the meeting. I never really felt I needed to. I learned more on the way to the start, sometimes taking a slightly different line to feel the ground, or sitting behind another horse to watch how far its hooves were sinking into the turf.
By the time I walked into the parade ring, I already had a plan. There are two types of trainers when it comes to instructions. Some like to give them, while others don't bother because they know you have done your homework. I always told the trainer how I thought the race would be run and how I wanted to ride the horse. Most of the time they agreed, and if they didn't, they had to give me a good reason. Gai Waterhouse came to the races with her maps and her own view of the race, and we were nearly always on the same wavelength. John Size was interesting because he had spent time as a form analyst – so that made it easy for me because we had a similar way of thinking about racing.