Racing: Shaun Fannin to grin and bear it during New Zealand's longest race

Shaun Fannin shows his delight after guiding It's A Wonder to success in the Waikato Steeplechase. Photo / Trish Dunell

Shaun Fannin's fake smile at Ellerslie sums up the cost of being a jumps jockey.

Not that any emotion from Fannin will be fake if he wins either the $125,000 Great Northern Steeples or the Great Northern Hurdle, in both of which he rides the favourite.

No, the emotion would be real from Fannin but his smile will have a couple of recent arrivals.

Fannin lost his two front teeth when Laekeeper fell in the Hawke's Bay Hurdle four weeks ago, with two other teeth needing to be removed soon as they were also fractured.

Fannin had a plate fitted today with two false teeth while he waits for more permanent dental surgery which will leave him with four false teeth.

"It hasn't been very comfortable, having a mouth full of stitches," says the Taranaki jockey.

"I have lost 3kg and am the lightest I have been since I started riding because it is so hard to eat.

"But I'd ride in the Great Northern with a broken arm if they let me. It is the biggest day of the year for us."

It is rare for any jumps jockey to ride the favourite in both the GN Hurdles and the Steeples but Fannin is confident with both Aigne (R4, No 1) and Magic Wonder (R6, No 4).

"Aigne has got up in the weights pretty quickly for a horse who has only had five starts," says Fannin.

"But he has real class for a jumper. He is quite free going so I hope I can get him to settle over the 4190m but if he does he will be the horse to beat."

As good as Aigne has been, both over the sticks and on the flat, Delegate and a few others got close enough to him when he won the Pakuranga Hunt Hurdle last start to suggest with the favourite rising 2kg in the weights he will be vulnerable if he doesn't relax and bring his A-game.

Magic Wonder won the Pakuranga Hunt Steeples that day and smashed many of the horses she meets on Saturday like a mare who will handle the extra 1300m of New Zealand's longest race. "She bolted in and the Pakuranga Hunt Cup form tends to stack up well in the Northern, it has for a long time," says Fannin.

Although Ellerslie may not provide the dead4 it did that day after some rain this week, it is almost certain to not stray into soft and definitely not heavy territory, which Fannin says will aid his eight-year-old mare.

"The better tracks definitely help her and probably affect a few of the others so she has to be the one to beat," he says.