Busy weeks ahead for Lance O’Sullivan

Press, 31 May 1986, Page 30

Busy weeks ahead for Lance O’Sullivan

By

ALEX McMILLAN

A North Island jockey who has yet to ride in either Canterbury or Otago will be a regular visitor to the South Island in the next few weeks as he attempts to capture his first ever national jockeys’ premiership title.

Lance O’Sullivan said from his Matamata home last evening that he would be making an all out effort to maintain his advantage this season over the currently Brisbanebased David Walsh, and would be travelling the length of New Zealand in his bid. O’Sullivan advanced his season”s tally to 119 with a win on Anharon at Pukekohe on Wednesday, with Walsh (116) and Grant Davison (99) his

closest rivals. “My effort this season is quite a form reversal,” the highly talented rider joked last evening when revealing that his previous best total in one term was 65.

The first day of the Great Northern meeting at Ellerslie today will signal the begninning of a demanding week of riding for O’Sullivan. He will be in action on the second day of that rich carnival on Monday, will ride at Te Rapa on Wednesday, will travel south to ride at Washdyke next Friday, and will return to Auckland for the final day of the three day carnival next Saturday.

Other South Island meetings this season definitely on O’Sullivan’s itinerary are at Oamaru

on Monday, June 16, Ashburton on Tuesday, June 24, and Washdyke on Friday, July 4, while there is a distinct possibility that he will also ride at Gore on Tuesday, June 10.

O’Sullivan is no doubt hoping that he can experience a successful Great Northern carnival so as to lessen the pressure slightly at this crucial stage of the season. He has six confirmed rides today — Lofty Blomfield, Tasteful, Idaho’s Secret, Dreamawin, Banderol and Mister Peria — rating Lofty Blomfield and Banderol as possibly the best winning chances.

Later at the Auckland meeting he will continue his association with the promising three-year-old, Bourbon Boy, which he rates very higly and will

partner the top mare, Eastern Joy, in the $40,000 Fay, Richwhite Cornwall Handicap on the final day of the meeting. It will be Eastern Joy’s final outing for the season.

O’Sullivan who has ridden at Hokitika, Omoto and Invercargill in recent years for just two wins from “rather limited opportunities,” is looking forward to his trips to the “mainland.” If successful in his bld to become the country’s top jockey, Lance O’Sullivan will be in the somewhat unusual position of having achieved the goal without ever having ridden at Riccarton. To compete on the course is something, incidentally, that he would “dearly love to do.”