Racing: Record a bonus for premiership winner

A record total of 197 winning rides for the season was a described as bonus by jockey Lisa Cropp, the first woman to win a New Zealand jockeys' premiership.

The 33-year-old Waikato jockey wound up the season with three wins at Oamaru yesterday after three wins at the Taumarunui meeting at Te Rapa on Saturday.

"It was my goal to win the premiership and it is rewarding to accomplish what you set out to achieve," Cropp said yesterday.

"The record was not a goal until I had the premiership wrapped up so it is nice to achieve that too."

Her tally surpassed the previous record of 193 wins set by Lance O'Sullivan in the 2001-02 season.

Cropp also set a record high for the number of race rides during a season with a total of 1254.

Her achievements are remarkable on several counts.

It was last July that she made a comeback to race riding after breaking her neck in four places in a race fall in Macau. She was on the sideline for 18 months after the injury.

She had already made her mark internationally by riding winners in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Macau, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Mauritius.

Cropp was launched on her career by an apprenticeship with her father, Ron, at Cambridge. Consequently it was fitting Saturday that her father led her back to scale after each of her wins at Te Rapa, where he is clerk of the course.

She rode her first winner, Morven Don, at Te Awamutu in April, 1987.

Cropp, however, is not the first woman to win a national jockeys' premiership. New Zealand jockey Kim Clapperton topped the Malaysia-Singapore premiership in 1993.

Cropp today begins a deferred suspension, which sees her barred from race riding until after August 11. She received the suspension at Paeroa last Wednesday but because acceptances for the weekend meetings had already closed she was able to have the suspension deferred.

Cropp could face a more trying time this week. A judicial hearing over her positive drug test to methamphetamine is scheduled to begin in Auckland on Wednesday.

Her record comes 27 years after the licensing of women to ride in totalisator races in New Zealand. The demand that women be licensed to ride, gained momentum during the 1970s, with Linda Jones at the forefront of the battle with the authorities.

A change to the rules of racing was made in July 1977. The first woman to ride in a totalisator race was at Te Awamutu three months later - the Canadian rider Joan Phipps, who won on Daphalee. Phipps came to New Zealand at the invitation of Linda and Alan Jones.

Women have twice headed the apprentice jockeys' premiership.

Lee Rutherford (now Tiley) was top in 1993-94 with 76 wins. Sarah Campbell was the leader the following season with 69 wins.

Linda Jones said Cropp's feat was a just reward.

"She's dedicated, she was focused and she just went for it. Good on her," Jones said. "A lot of people would never get back from those injuries to ride again, let alone to do what she's done."

Cropp broke her neck in a racefall in Macau. It was only last July that she returned to riding after spending three years on the sidelines.

Cropp becomes the first woman to win the New Zealand jockeys' premiership - her nearest rival Hayden Tinsley was 73 wins in arrears - and Jones said she was delighted to be around for it.

"I knew a girl would win the premiership, it was just a matter of time. But to break that record is just phenomenal.

"It just had to happen. I'm just glad it happened in my time. It's been a while but we have got there."

Jones, who first ride in 1978, had retired after only about 18 months and because of injury only rode for about half that time. But she made a big impact in that.

- NZPA