Change of pace for Chad Ormsby at Flemington

If an adrenalin rush from riding racehorses is not enough, then try bull-riding.

Not content with a lower-level past-time like golf, New Zealand trainer Chad Ormsby has had a crack a bull-riding for a change of pace, with some success.

Ormsby, in Melbourne with his sprinter Master Fay for the Group 1 Newmarket Handicap (1200m) at Flemington on Saturday, is not only an accomplished jockey, jumps jockey and all-round horseman, but has dabbled in bull-riding at a high level.

“That’s my time away from racing,” Ormsby said.

“I got the adrenalin rush from it and really enjoyed it and found out that I was half OK at it.

“It’s a different scene, a different family outside of racing as well.”

At the age of 26 after a successful career in the saddle, Ormsby decided in 2016 to give bull-riding a shot after the training partnership with his father-in-law Mike Moroney ended.

Ormsby won a few New Zealand buckles (titles), but said it was pretty hard to make a living on the rodeo scene unlike in the US through the mid-west states of Wyoming, Colorado and Montana.

He tried his hand in the US qualifying for their biggest rodeo, Cheyenne Frontier Days in Wyoming.

“It’s the daddy of them all, the biggest rodeo,” Ormsby said.

“I’d like to say I won a buckle there, but I probably wouldn’t be in racing if I’d won a buckle there.

“I’d be treated like a king in the States.

“It’s phenomenal over there. It’s a way of life.

“We do racing, they do rodeo.”

Ormsby said bull-riding was a humbling sport as it doesn’t matter how good you think you are, they give you another bull to try and buck you off and drive you into the dirt.

He said he had never been scared of bull-riding just like his jockey days.

“I’ve had very few injuries doing it, although I did break my leg and that was more human error than anything,” Ormsby said.

“There are guys there that help keep you safe. They do their job and it’s all good.”