It was believed before the season that Richard Fourie’s biggest obstacles to breaking Anthony Delpech’s iconic 334 wins in a season would be suspensions as well as illness and injury.
However, a measure of his mental and physical skills in the saddle is he hardly ever gets caught in a tight situation and suspension seemes to be an ever more unlikely threat to his drive for the record and that Hollywoodbets R1 million bonus.
However, he is now so far ahead of the projected goal of 335 that he can afford a two week suspension and still be on track.
His projected number of wins for the season at present based on his rides per calendar day rate and his strike rate for the season is 358.
If he did not ride for the next two weeks his projected figure would only fall to 340 and if he did not ride for the next three weeks the figure would fall to 332.
And that is even if including those weeks missed to calculate his rides per calendar day calculation.
If he missed two weeks, but then resumed riding at his current rides per calendar day rate, a two week suspension would see his projected number of wins only drop to 344 and a three week suspension would see it drop to 337.
So, injury looks to be his chief concern.
He was vocal in his criticism of Fairview on Friday where Trent Mayhew became the latest jockey to fall in the pull up area, although care for his fellow weighing room colleagues appeared to be uppermost in his mind when speaking out during a post-win interview.
(Mayhew was discharged from hospital with a dislocated shoulder and will be out for a few weeks.)
Fourie said just before Christmas, at which stage he was slightly behind his goal of just reaching 300 wins for the season, that he believed his “purple patches” had not yet happened and he was aiming to ride “50 winners” in a month before the end of the season.
He believed the SA record for a month to be 47 and he believed it was held by Gavin Lerena.
It is a measure of his good sense that he took a break to go fishing for three days towards the end of March, missing a meeting at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth, a meeting at Hollywoodbets Scottsville and a possible meeting at the Vaal.
That break could have cost him the record for a month considering he had 44 wins in March.
On the other hand he ended the month with a double at Fairview, a treble at Turffontein and a double at Hollywoodbets Greyville, which could have been helped by the racharged batteries.
This month he has had 24 wins with eight days remaining so the record for a month does not look to be under threat.
