Apprentices dominate midweek at Kensington

The depth in Sydney’s apprentice ranks has again been underlined with one of the newer kids on the block, Jett Stanley, posting a midweek double to move within three wins of outriding his full claim.

Indentured to Annabel Neasham, Stanley opened his account aboard for Ciaron Maher and David Eustace in the opening race at Wednesday’s Kensington track meeting before adding another on the David Payne-trained Allasandra in the TAB Handicap (1400m).

The brace takes Stanley to 17 metropolitan wins and when he reaches 20, his city claim will decrease from the full three kilos to two, a milestone that is looming more quickly than the young jockey expected.

“There’s only three winners left,” Stanley said.

“It’s good I’m going through the (full) claim, but I was kind of hoping to hold onto it for a little bit and be able to use it properly into next season to try to go for the leading apprentice.

“But my manager is doing a good job and with all the help from Miss Neasham, we’ve been able to get some good rides for big trainers.”

Kapunda’s win had plenty of merit, the three-year-old blundering shortly after the start then over-racing when Stanley asked him to muster speed.

He eventually settled but the pair then had to sweat on a run in the straight and when a narrow opening finally presented, horse and jockey showed courage to surge through it and nail the Neasham-trained Immortal Island by a head.

“He got charging on me quite a bit, but after about a furlong of me arguing with him, he came back and accepted it and was really nice travelling up into the straight,” Stanley said.

“I was just praying for that run and luckily I got it through tiring horses.

“He’s very green. He needed the win for the confidence but he’s a very nice horse underneath that skin.”

Stanley produced another rails-hugging ride to score aboard promising filly Allasandra, who has now won her past three in a row.

Payne says the three-year-old is far from the finished product and can continue to go through her grades.

“I think she will be better next prep,” Payne said.

“She is a big filly and I think she will be a decent type.”

Apprentices took out four of the six races at Kensington with Tyler Schiller picking up a victory aboard Strombus for John O’Shea and Dylan Gibbons following up his four-winner haul at Randwick on Saturday with success in the final race on Bubba’s Bay for master Kris Lees.