This weekend's racing again emphasizes the lack of riders in this country. There has been steady decline of numbers for all statistics in New Zealand, but the small number of jockeys is alarming.
We again, have a situation with a top trainer saying he's having difficulty finding a suitable jockey for his promising horse. Cambridge trainer Stephen Marsh's Sydney's Shot is due to race at Tauranga today, but not before Marsh stated, "The Tauranga race would be a really suitable race for him, but there might not be enough riders there. When we have three meetings on a Saturday there's a real problem trying to get jockeys - in my opinion one of the meetings should be on a Sunday. With both the Hastings and Riccarton fixtures boasting black-type events, riding options at Tauranga will be limited," Marsh said.
In late February, Trent Busuttin had difficulty finding a rider for Caorunn for the Group 3 Phoenix Park Stakes because of the Avondale Guineas and Avondale Cup on the same day.
The departure of New Zealand's leading riders, Opie Bosson, for his short term contract in Hong Kong and Mark Du Plessis two month stint in Japan will leave a huge gap in the jockey's room soon.
New Zealand jockeys room is filled with foreign riders that come here for the opportunity they don't get in their homeland. This is not a bad thing, but there is a huge lack of home grown numbers coming through.
In Japan, JRA noticed the grey hair spectators and thought of ways to attract younger spectators. JRA allowed Nanako Fujita to become the first female jockey in 16 years. At the age of 18, young audience are now flocking to the track there. JRA marketing slogan is, where young girls are - boys will follow. And it has worked, with many young girls now attending the race tracks to watch Fujita.
In Hong Kong, former New Zealand apprentice Kai Chiong Ka-kei carries the flag for women riders, and also has a huge amount of new race fans there.
Although this country has the highest ratio of female riders in the world with 36%, it about time our governing body look at different ways to market youngsters to our industry.
NZTR has begun a new marketing campaign in 'Love Racing' but this is only attracting an audience that is already involved in racing and not new fresh young audience.
To any young person, the dream is to be a professional sportsman or sportswoman. In this country, that is limited to rugby, league, netball but also applies to a jockey.
Rugby maintains this country's number one sport and the NZ rugby union (and since the professional era - sponsors) do a brilliant job taking their prized assets to schools. Sonny Bill Williams, was recently touring this country schools as a teenage rugby ambassador for New Zealand Rugby and for Random Rugby TV. All the way to Kerikeri High School.
These visits inspire the next generation like our own Waikato Chiefs captain Sam Cane, born in Reporoa. We could apply the same marketing to our sport. There are youngsters that don't know where go, and our industry could apply to them. We may find another Michael Walker.
Jockeys from this country that have gone to overseas success is staggering. In the past there was Brent Thompson, Shane Dye, to recent success stories like pin-up James McDonald and also Michael Walker, Damien Browne, Jason Collett. And further afield in Asia, there's Harry Kessim, Lisa Allpress when in Singapore, Andrew Calder in Macau and recently returned Masa Tanaka in Korea.
There are not many sports in New Zealand that can provide the financial reward like being a jockey, yet the short supply of jockeys is worrying. We shouldn't be having this problem.
New Zealand is not only becoming just a breeder of top race horses overseas, we are now educating increasingly foreign jockeys. Its time our homegrown jockeys numbers grew and our governing body addressed the problem of getting more young people involved in our industry!
