Rachel Venniker has a soft spot for All The Time and has formed a fine partnership with this Gimmethegreenlight gelding (Candiese Lenferna Photography)
Rachel Venniker, who is currently in the news due to her exciting opportunity in Saudia Arabia in an International Jockeys Challenge on Friday, put her hand up as a ride of the month candidate at Hollywoodbets Scottsville on Sunday when saluting on the Yogas Govender-trained five-year-old Gimmethegreenlight gelding All The Time.
Judging from the sidelines it is all about guessing whether the jockey made astute decisions or whether they happened by chance, but in the best case scenario she made the right decisions in this race, some of them in a split second.
Great rides are also not always just the minute or two spent on the horse at the races, but also the work done off the track.
It was clear from the post race interview that she has built up a special partnership with All The Time.
She is always there to ride him in the mornings and allows him to do his thing on the way back to the ring.
The partnership has now yielded three wins and a short-head second in four starts.
All The Time is a horse who has a lot of zip and takes quite a keen hold, so ideally one needs to get him covered up early in a 1200m event down the straight.
Rachel executed the perfect start from draw 2 , not slow but just slow enough to slot in behind the inside drawn horse.
She kept All The Time glued to the back of that horse through the first half of the race.
However, the latter had wandered over to the rail and didn’t have the cruising speed of All The Time, so it was wise to switch him outward into fresh air at about the halfway mark to 1) avoid being boxed in as the field often drifts over to the inside in the closing stages and 2) to allow him to stride more freely.
After switching him into fresh air, she kept him perfectly relaxed until the 350m mark and then asked the question.
All The Time responded and then, with the joint favourite El Draque looking dangerous towards the outside, she gave him a smack at the 200m mark. He duly repelled the challenger and Rachel just had to keep him going straight in the last 150 metres.
He emerged a comfortable 0,90 length winner.
That was his third win in succession and sixth overall.
As commentator Sheldon Peters said after the race, “This is a horse who needs to be ridden very cold” and Venniker executed that strategy to perfection.
