English jockey to ride at Westport

Press, 26 February 1987, Page 39

English jockey to ride at Westport

By

J. J. BOYLE

Jimmy Carter, an English jockey trying his luck in New Zealand, will come south to ride members of John Thurston’s Cambridge team at Westport this week-end. Runners for the Thurston stable on the first day of the meeting are Arcadus Star, Bold Angel, King Arthur, and Highland Knight. Laurie Laxon, another Waikato trainer, will have one of the strongest teams for the Westport meeting. Runners for his stable on Saturday include the last-start winners, Ballane, Oakbum, and the Vice Regal filly, Versatile, all last-start winners. Mrs Sheila Laxon, wife of the trainer, will ride Oakbum in the Nelson Moving Company Three-Year-Old, and R. Saxton will ride other members of the Laxon team. Dean Morel, a Canter-bury-based apprentice,

will return to his birthplace this week to resume a race riding career which appeared to be imperilled after he was seriously injured in a race fall at Hokitika last November. Morel, who was in intensive care in a Christchurch hospital for a time, has received a clean bill of health from his doctors and will ride Nuclear Rocket, Aussie Bound, and Misnomer for his employer, Ray Harris, on Saturday. All three horses are double acceptors, but it seems unlikely that Aussie Bound and Nuclear Rocket will meet in the D.B. Draught Handicap, second leg of the T.A.B. double. The North Islander, Ah magelee, was scratched yesterday for the D.B. Draught Handicap, and his stablemate, Anny Bridge, dropped out of the Buller Hotels Maiden.