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Clarken Racing | Clarken Racing News 53964 Price Claims Top Gong At Sa Apprentice Awards

Price claims top gong at SA Apprentice Awards

Price claims top gong at SA Apprentice Awards

Rising star Ben Price has been crowned the Dux of the Racing SA Apprentice Academy after riding more winners than any other apprentice in South Australia in 2022. His consistently high standards including two metro trebles at Morphettville, earned Price the prestigious honour just ahead of the fast finishing Teagan Voorham.

“Ben is a natural born competitor and his overall consistency throughout the year riding winners has set the bar very high,” said Racing SA Apprentice Academy Master Briony Moore.

“He was one of our busiest apprentices and finished with 74 winners for the year. That combined with the fact that Ben was in the running to win the John Letts Medal up until the last month of counting just behind Kayla Crowther, Paul Gatt and Barend Vorster speaks volumes about the level he’s been riding at.

“Obviously with Will Clarken as his Master, Ben gets to ride for the state’s biggest stables and his execution around those bigger stables has been top notch making him a worthy winner,” she said. 

The other big winner on the night was third year apprentice Alana Livesey who won three awards. With a season leading strike rate of 15% she was honoured with the award for Best Winning Strike Rate, was named the Rising Star 2nd & 3rd Year Apprentice, and presented the Endeavour & Sportsmanship Award by the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Racing, Katrine Hildyard MP.

“Alana is the quintessential hard worker, who rolls her sleeves up and just wants to get better and better,” said Racing SA Jockey Coach Dean Pettit.

“You can only dream of having 15 Alanas in an Academy. Her work ethic, and her desire to get better is second to none. She sets a very high standard of critique for herself, but is very professional, speaks well, and I think she has got plenty of admirers in the jockey room and outside of the jockey room for how she conducts herself.

“Alana had a nasty ankle injury that forced her to have the best part of five months off to start the year, and beyond that she has almost surpassed everyone on numbers and figures. Each month her numbers got better and stronger, and she has put herself in a position where I can say the younger apprentices are looking and saying that’s what I want to be, and it’s a credit to her,” he said.

Also at the TAB Apprentice Awards evening at Morphettville on Thursday night, Jade Doyle won the SA Racehorse Owners Association (SAROA) Award, Sophie Logan won the Caitlin Forrest Memorial Award selected by the Forrest Family. A new addition this year was the Ride of the Year award which also went to Logan for her victory on Montign for trainer Stuart Padman.

Britney Wong won the Simone Montgomerie 1st year Apprentice Award, and Ellis Wong rode the Longest Priced Winner paying $71 on Case Closed at Port Augusta.

Along with being named Dux and riding the most academy winners, Price shared the Special Achievement Award with Voorham who finished the year on a high winning two listed races.

“We are coming off an incredible 2022, where our apprentices went from holding 20% of the average market booking to now averaging 39%, which shows the faith the owners and trainers have in our riders,” said Moore.

“Overall the 21 apprentices riding under the banner of Racing SA enjoyed 5800 race rides, and combined for 540 winners and 1100 placings.

“We have great depth in the Academy and there is every reason to be excited about this young crop of riders coming through,” she said.

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Big step up for Extremely Lucky

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Lucky in line for Goodwood honours

Training partners Will Clarken and Niki O’Shea will chase a hometown first when they saddle Extremely Lucky in The Goodwood at Morphettville. After starting his career in Adelaide, Extremely Lucky will be having his second run back for Clarken and O’Shea in Saturday’s Group 1 sprint over 1200m after a stint in Sydney with Chris Waller. Extremely Lucky won on debut for Clarken at Murray Bridge in December 2021, later on collecting the Listed Lightning Stakes (1050m) at Morphettville the following July and two starts later lined-up at Group 1 level. After finishing last in that contest behind Coolangatta at Moonee Valley, Extremely Lucky was transferred into the care of Waller, but went winless in six starts, and was returned to South Australia to continue his career. Clarken was emotional after Extremely Lucky scored a first-up win in the Group 3 John Hawkes Stakes (1100m) at Morphettville on April 27. “He loved the horse always and when he got taken away from him, it was hard to swallow, so to get him back, and to get him back going well, it’s great,” O’Shea said. “That was a good race and the race itself means a lot.” O’Shea has been the co-trainer with Clarken for roughly 18 months and said Extremely Lucky was the best galloper in the stable. “He’s the most quality horse that we’ve had, I think,” O’Shea said. “He doesn’t have the best feet on him, so getting to the beach is good for him, but he has the potential to win something like this race one day.” O’Shea said it was not ideal to be heading into a race like The Goodwood with just the one run back following a break. The stable wanted to see how the sprinter came through his first-up run before a final decision was made on whether he starts. “Will’s happy with him and the extra 100 metres won’t be a problem for him, but it’s going to be a different kettle of fish, a hard race,” O’Shea said. “Ideally you wouldn’t be going into it second-up off a fresh-up run, but it’s hard not to have a go at it when it’s on your doorstep. “He’s a quality horse and he beat some of the horses that will be in the market, so I suppose you have to have some hope for him.”Story from Just Horse Racing

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Extremely Lucky claims inaugural running of John Hawkes Stakes

Extremely Lucky ($7.50) has broken through for his first win in nearly two years, as the five-year-old gelding recorded a nice victory on her return for the Will Clarken & Niki O’Shea stable in the inaugural running of the John Hawkes Stakes at Morphettville. After spending 12 months with Chris Waller in Sydney, the son of Extreme Choice returned to the South Australian trainers to take his place in the Adelaide Racing Carnival over the next few weeks, and the change of scenery has paid dividends instantly. Master Eight ($71.00) made sure the race was run at a breakneck tempo as he took off mid-race to lead by three lengths over Celsius Star ($21.00) and Sghirripa ($6.00) who settled behind the leader, and by the time they hit the top of the straight, those two took over to lead the field with 400m to go. However, it was easy to see that the swoopers were going to run over the top of them in the concluding stages as they launched down the outside with their runs. In a tight photo finish, Extremely Lucky just held on from a fast-finishing Sans Doute ($4.80), with What You Need ($4.60) and Grey River ($9.00) finishing in third and fourth place, respectively.Will Clarken was clearly emotional after the win of Extremely Lucky during his post-race interview. “He’s a horse that we spruiked and and our stable really believes in data and he’s the benchmark, the best horse we’ve trained in that sort of stuff, but has never got there,” Clarken said. “Whether he will is yet to come. This was a Listed race and it was the right circumstances. “There was good speed. Jamie rode him and I’ve been a believer that when you’re working with a horse and things aren’t going right, it’s very hard to correct at the time. “I got a bit of time when he went to Waller’s just to think about things that I would do differently. I corrected every mistake I made and I’m able to train the horse a lot better now. “He might have lost a bit of time there in his life for a life, but he’s back now well and we’ll give him a bit of time to see how he comes out of that. “Group 1 horses win Group 1’s. What he can do is quite astonishing and they have to do it race day. “We’re a long way from that, but he ticks a lot of boxes that a lot of horses can’t do. “It’s great to haves the Hawkes’ on course today. They’re a famous South Australian racing family and it’s great to see them back here.” Jamie Kah was also very happy with the win post-race. “It’s good to see him back. He was a very, very smart horse, but so much went wrong with him,” Kah said. “He was feeling the pinch near the line, but it was deserved. “At the 400 metres I thought he was really smoking and I thought he’d easily win. “He got to the 100 metres and had nearly had enough. Will told me he’d only had the one trial, but it’s good to win on him.”

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