Money riders and Perth racing, once the wild, wild, west, takes centre stage currently while whistle blower allegations surrounding Racing NSW, aired in State Parliament, can be put on hold until the mud sticks.
Anyway horses, and those that make them, always concerns me more than politics, bean counters or accountants, delving into figures beyond weights, measure and times that effect the outcome of a race.
Thus the presence of champion James McDonald in Saturday’s the Group one Railway Stakes at Ascot, spiced up by speedy New Zealand mare, Belclare, good previously but sprouting wings under Bjorn Baker, holds pride of place.
Baker horses thrive in the West. Consider Overpass, successful in two majors under Josh Parr after crossing the Nullarbor.
Recently Keith Banks died and recalled the title “money rider”, previously much acclaimed. Maybe the definition varies but looking for a modern exponent Parr gets close.
Once it was a jockey who shone in pressure situations: his mount being subject of significant betting support. At times it would be the fruition of six-month plan. “Luck” wasn’t accepted. The jockey seat was red-hot with the strong measure of desperation.
Most greats were “money riders” but the accolade referred more to those who didn’t shorten the odds. Warning signs flashed when George Moore, like James McDonald now, were engaged. And they blazed for Greg Hall, a master in a desperate situation.
Another requirement was giving a mount a beneficial run without detection. Not pull a horse up. Cajole it more like a barrier trial than a race. Certainly, they were not pursued by the cameras that now confront riders. More official barrier trials, too, have basically made it a lost art, emphasised by the Banks story.
According to his obit by Harley Walden on the Racing NSW website Banks “earned a reputation of the legendary Ted Bartle as a money rider”. Record books don’t hum with strike rate of Banks but if successful coups, winning when the money was on, were taken into account they would.
Always very light Banks had a painful introduction to races. During his first ride at 16 he was involved in a fall at Warwick Farm that broke his thigh, pelvis, an arm and dislocated a shoulder. He was hospitalised for six months.
While a successful apprentice he had to go bush after losing his allowance in town, but had 13 winners out of his 14 attempts.
Still the country didn’t have the returns of modern-day jockeys. Banks found it more fulfilling working for the Water Board until enticed back by Kevin Hayes, a Rosehill trainer, another memory lost to all but bookmakers who paid dearly for his expertise. It was a lethal combination, taking the Doomben 10,000 in 1976 with Burwana who carried only 47kg.
“When Kevin backed one the bookies shuddered,” Banks, who rode most of them, maintained.
Much of the desperation and colour has gone, but Parr, a heavyweight restricting opportunity, still appeals as hoop, who gets the job done, a suggestion Baker would support.
Baker sent Parr West with Overpass but will use Nash Rawiller on Belclare. Parr, though, has prime mounts at the strong Kembla Grange meeting, including Fleet Commander (Food Services) and Disneck (Elite Sand) for Baker. Still Joe Pride’s Lekvarte (Gong) is the standout for mine but the jockey has other top prospects.
There was a time when Baker could be concerned about the tactics used against the front-runner Belclare, being from interstate. Locals would have made sure she didn’t have it easy.
Once asked by stewards regarding an incident in an Ascot event, Gavan Duffy, a visiting jockey, replied: “Get them before they get me.”
It was the era of the hotshot corporate renegade Laurie Connell, who spread thousands like confetti on the turf, and George Way, a trainer regarded as too hot to be allowed on the eastern seaboard. Allegations abounded about the use of elephant juice that had a reputation for fuelling horses to gallop fast and relentless. Rocker Race 1987 Perth Cup comes to mind.
So Belclare and Rawiller will be confronted by a more placid situation: JMac on Light Infantry Man, a member of the Ciaron Maher marauders, gaining a reputation as having a wider spread and more horses than Genghis Khan.
Alas Banks had to endure a situation that will never be a problem for Parr. Banks had ridden five winners on a six race Gunnedah program, and couldn’t make the weight for the final event. There was not enough lead on the course and a heavier sit-in was found for the favourite who scored.
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Thanks for this Max. I was unaware of the passing of Keith Banks. I have taken the liberty of posting here my research notes on Keith. While they contain much of the same information as your article, there are one or two additional points that may be of interest.
Banks, Keith
Sydney jockeys’ premiership finishes
1969/70 27th (5 wins)
1970/71 29th (6 wins)
1971/72 34th (5 wins)
1972/73 24th (7 wins)
1974/75 21st (8 wins)
1977/78 30th (8 wins)
1978/79 22nd (10 wins).
Seventies signature horse: Cast Iron.
Born 1943, Keith Banks was schooled in the West Pennant Hills area. His family was friendly with Jim Caffyn the leading trotting driver. Banks started his apprenticeship with Colin Papworth, before transferring to Bert Evans; both trainers were based at Rosehill. His first race ride, at Warwick Farm on 23 September 1959 quickly became a nightmare: Banks had lost both stirrups early in the race and fell heavily. He broke his thigh in two places, and also his left arm Banks was in hospital for several months; and was still an inmate when he won a whip at the AJC Apprentice’s School awards of December 1959. His inauspicious debut might have been enough to end the career of a less determined character, but Banks stuck it out, though first city winner did not come until 29 April 1961, on Atlantic Silver.
When he resumed riding he and his master Evans went bush, travelling through much of New South Wales.
When he resumed riding Banks and Evans ‘went bush’ over New South Wales. His second ride brought a winner at Narromine. He returned to Sydney in April 1961 and his won first city race for Evans at Rosehill on 29 April on Atlantic Silver. He continued in the bush, learnt how to shoe, and became a proficient ‘horseman’. Near the end of his apprenticeship, he transferred to Bede Horan then Fred Hood at Rosehill. Banks rode 24 city winners and finished second apprentices’ championship behind Bernie Goddard in 1964, though he failed to ride a winner at Randwick. Banks was stable jockey for Rosehill trainer Ray Miller in the 1960s.
Banks was generally regarded as a ‘battler’. He faced the lightweight jockeys’ basic ‘Catch 22’: because he could ride so light; a large percentage of the horses he was asked ed to ride were ‘no hopers’. That was the downside; the upside was occasionally he got onto good young horses in the major handicaps: for example, Cast Iron in the 1969 Caulfield Cup (which finished twelfth), and sixteen years on Handy Proverb (twelfth 45.5kgs) in the same race. Rode Fair Patton (fifteenth, 8.9 and Cool Alibi (fifteenth, 7.4) in the 1964 and 1971 Melbourne Cups, respectively. (check).
When Banks finished his apprenticeship, he struggled for rides in Sydney. He rode for three months in northern New South Wales. In this period, he won the 1966 Challenge Stakes on Tar Girl, beating Farnsworth, but limited opportunities saw Banks forsake racing to work for the NSW Water Board for a short time.
In 1967 Kevin Hayes offered him job as his stable rider. Banks on numerous races on Cast Iron for Hayes, the pair landing many plunges. He also rode for Clarry Connors senior and junior and john Poletti. He rode relatively few feature race winners. Despite his batter status Banks was noted for his ability to land plunges.
Banks lived for a time at Wentworthville. He enjoyed regular fishing trips with fellow jockey Billy Burnett and owned one of the last working farms in the Blacktown. He possessed diverse animal husbandry skills.
In 1972 Amen Ra carried Banks and his hernia to a victory ‘too good an opportunity to miss’. The hernia was operated on later that year.
Banks won on Duke Wayne at 33/1 for JH Bond at Warwick Farm over 2400 metres in June 1978 in what journalist Ian Manning described as ‘brilliant tactical ride’. Banks shot around the field at the 1400 metres to take the lead and the pair just held on to win by a neck. In the next race he ran last (all the way) on a 140/1 shot.
The Nadir of his career was the Mr Digby affair of 1981, for which he was suspended for 12 months.
2002: Banks had a breaking-in business in Toowoomba. 1995: was training in Brisbane.
(Bill Whittaker Sydney Morning Herald 14/10/1985)
MELBOURNE: No jockey in horse-racing history has made a more agonising start to his career than Keith Banks, who is to ride the second favourite Handy Proverb in the $502,000 Caulfield Cup on Saturday. Gold Grove, the first horse Banks raced, crashed half-way around at Warwick Farm, putting his tiny boy rider in hospital with a fractured pelvis, a broken arm and elbow and many minor injuries. He did not have another ride for IS months and, to those who saw his condition after that accident in 1959, it seemed a miracle he ever bounced back as a jockey. When he did, the young Banks was in the shadow of his apprentice colleague at Fred Hood’s Rosehill stables, Kevin Langby, the champion boy rider of the time. Now, at 42, Banks has the chance of his life to win a major handicap on Handy Proverb. Everyone in Sydney racing knows Banks is a competent jockey, yet at the same time he is known as a “battler”, pushing second raters around the tracks and rarely getting a chanc e for the big money.
“I think its because Im so light. “I’m always on the lightly weighted horses and they are usually the worst scrubbers.”
But Handy Proverb is no second rater. He is in the Caulfield Cup on the featherweight of 45.5kg, because he is only a three-year-old without a major classic success.
His Sydney three-year-old rival Easter has to concede Handy Proverb 3kg – provided Banks can make the weight at 45.5kg. “I’ll make it all right. All I have to do is prune 1.5kg off and that is no great problem for me,” Banks said. The 3kg difference gives Handy Proverb a tremendous advantage over Easter, although some keen students of race form contend that weight is of little consequence when horses are low in the handicaps. Recalling his disastrous introduction to racing, Banks said: “Hilton Cope’s stirrup broke a couple of horses in front of trie in a packed field. “Noel McGrowdie came down over him and my horse went over Noel’s. “It was a horror I’ll never forget.” Banks is virtually unknown in Melbourne, yet he has had considerable experience there, which is one reason why trainer Brian Mayfield-Smith has selected him for the important ride on Handy Proverb. Banks rode work for two months at Caulfield early in his career, winning a race there on Dark Suit before the gelding won the Sydney Cup. He rode Cast Iron in the 1969 Caulfield Cup, getting a good view of the interference that led to Nausori (Des Lake) losing the race on protest to Big Pbilou (Roy Higgins).
As well, Banks rode Fair Patton and Cool Alibi in Melbourne Cups, gaining a brand of experience that will be critical when he takes Handy Proverb to the post on Saturday. For experience has no substitute in race riding, where split-second decisions can mean the difference.
Banks has never won a group one race, yet has sooled home hundreds of winners on all manner of tracks. “I reckon it’s more difficult to ride the scrubbers than good horses,” he said. “Yes, it will be great to get on a good horse for a change.”
(Bill Whittaker Sydney Morning Herald 25/05/1987)
‘Keith Banks, the injured jockey they couldn’t locate in the dark as he lay unconscious under a bush at 6 o’clock one chilly morning at Rosehill a year ago, is considering an alternative career as a trainer.
A horse threw Banks over the outside rail at the back of the course and it was almost an hour before they found him just as he regained consciousness.
The accident left one leg an inch (2.5cm) shorter than the other and he says such a disability would make it virtually impossible for him to take to the saddle again.
“All I know about, as far as work goes, is the horse, so I hope to put a small team of horses together and start out as a trainer,” Banks told me at Rosehill on Saturday. ‘
Thank you Wayne.
Cheers,
Max
Keith wasn’t a Headline Jockey , but a pretty good one who’d get the job done .
Had a bit of an association with a horse called Mr Digby
Kevin Mitchell best money rider in my time ?
One of your best pc