Season Almost Comes to a Close with Tony Gollan's Leading Jockey's in Fine Form!

Written on the 14 July 2017

There's no doubt that leading Queensland trainer, Tony Gollan, who himself is in the lead to win his Fourth Metropolitan Premiership in a row, has some fine riders in his team.

Jim Byrne sits in second place behind Jeff Lloyd with 69 Metropolitan firsts out of 541 starts, giving him a 12% win per start rate and 24% place per start rate and earning $4,536,117 for owners.

His last win was for Sydney trainers Peter and Paul Snowden with his first time ride on 3yo Calandra in the Ramornie Handicap at Grafton on Wednesday.

The Snitzel-sired gelding was the $3.80 favourite for the 1200 metre Ramornie Handicap, with topweight The Monster ($5.50) coming in second place by a short head with Flippant ($6.00) another Snowden-trained horse, 1 1/4 lengths behind in third place.

"Jim rode him well today. He poked through on the part of the track where everyone was trying to get off," Paul Snowden said.

Prior to this, Byrne had a couple of wins with Gollan-trained She's Our Star and Khalarma at Doomben on Saturday, bringing his total wins to date this month of seven.

Jockey Robbie Fradd sits in third place for the Queensland Metropolitan Jockey's Premiership with 62 wins from 442 starts, giving him a 14% win to start rate and 22% place to start rate and earning $2,632,450 for owners.

Fradd is also the third Queensland jockey to pass 100 winners for the season when he delivered a first time win for Gollan-trained All Pluck at Doomben on Wednesday at the Grantawish Plate (1100m).

Fradd reached the 100 wins mark when Toby Edmonds-trained Impregnable won at Grafton on Sunday at the Grafton Ally Fabrication (C1) over 1006 metres.

It is rare for three Queensland based jockeys to pass 100 winners in a season but Fradd joined the likes of Jeff Lloyd and Jim Byrne to achieve this prestigious milestone.

"Seeing I missed seven weeks with a wrist injury the season has worked out well. It has been my best season since I moved here (four years ago)," the South African-born Fradd said.

Along with Jim Byrne, Fradd has become a regular rider for Tony Gollan in recent months and All Pluck was Gollan's fourth winner for the week after a treble at Doomben last Saturday.

"We had a bit of a flat period but the team is getting back to its best now we are finally in our stables in the middle of Eagle Farm," Gollan said.

"The stable had eight winners at the Doomben trials on Tuesday so there are hopefully more racetrack wins to come."

Three time premiership winner Tony Gollan currently sits at 74 metropolitan wins with two more weeks' left to better last year's wins of 86 1/2.

(Photo: Robbie Fradd, photo source, The Courier Mail)