Exclusive video tour of the Meydan race track

Gulf News

Exclusive video tour of the Meydan race track. A view of Dubai's Meydan racecourse, from a camera mounted on veteran jockey Royston French's helmet, as he shares his knowledge of how to ride the all-weather track. See more at: http://gulfnews.com/gntv

Transcript

00:00And World Cup night, there's a lot of money at stake.

00:10This is the biggest event of the flat racing industry, so things can go wrong, things can

00:18go right.

00:19The main thing is when we sort of turn into the straight, every jockey's jockeying for

00:23position to make sure they get a clear run and hopefully to do the best they can so there'll

00:29be no hard luck stories.

00:30Worst case scenario is you're in on the rail, boxed in, nowhere to go, obviously there would

00:35be a hard luck story.

00:37But then again, you don't want to be going all the way wide on the outside from the duration

00:43of the race because you're going the longest way round and you need to reserve energy.

00:47So a happy medium in between not getting boxed in on the inside and not going too wide and

00:54hopefully no hard luck stories.

00:55If you're on a front runner, you need to judge the pace right because if that's not

01:01right you won't be winning.

01:03And also if you're riding a horse from in behind, you need to be aware that there might

01:08be traffic problems and split second decisions will win or lose you the race.

01:13Some horses like to be up front, some horses like to be in the middle, some horses like

01:17to be at the back.

01:18So as a jockey, you've got to know your horses and be aware of what other people are doing

01:24in the race as well.

01:25You know, it's no good just thinking, well, I know where I need to sit.

01:29You also need to know where all the other runners, what they're going to do, where they're

01:34going to sit and also what they like to sort of do.

01:38So it's basically, you've got to know what you are doing and all your opponents because

01:44it doesn't matter if you're a rank outsider, it's horse racing, anything can happen.

01:50So you've basically got to be on the ball.

01:51Each track's very different.

01:53We've got the Tapeater and the Turf.

01:55They tend to go a little bit faster on the Tapeater.

01:59You can sort of get away, if you judge your pace right, can get away with riding a canny

02:03race up front.

02:04And vice versa on the Turf, you know, I think it all comes with experience and also course

02:09knowledge.

02:10They're both very, very good surfaces, you know, the grass is in tip-top shape, the Tapeater

02:14is great.

02:15So, you know, from a jockey's point of view, it doesn't really make a great deal of difference.

02:19You know, you've just got to adapt to whatever surface and whatever course you're riding.

02:23It's horse racing, nothing's impossible, you know, things, the strangest things happen.

02:27If you're in it, you've got a chance of winning it.

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