By MIKE DILLON
David Walsh does not want to think past June 29, the day his career goes on the line.
The ex-pat Kiwi jockey sees the appeal in Brisbane against a six-month riding ban as the crossroads of his life: a life that has produced nearly 1800 winners and a New Zealand jockeys' premiership.
But that will count for nothing if he is unsuccessful in beating the sentence handed down after he was found guilty of not allowing New Zealand mare Delightful every opportunity to win at Eagle Farm on May 10.
Delightful got back early in the 1000m race and made ground in the final stages.
Walsh doesn't talk about walking away from racing if unsuccessful, but it is clearly a considered option.
He moved to Queensland this year, having ridden and trained in New Zealand, to ride out the last five years of his career.
"If you are 25 then six months is not life or death. When you are 40, it's a different matter."
Walsh is upset over what he believes is a case of being wrongly accused of giving a horse "a quiet one", but is even more distressed because of what he sees as the grossly unfair attitude of Queensland racing stewards.
"They are hell-bent on dealing to horses that get back and run on - obsessed that those horses are not trying.
"They don't seem to understand that if a horse wants to settle early it will not run on if you bustle it too soon. They have a stock saying when they take you into the inquiry room: "When did you put the horse in the race."
"If you're riding a horse over a distance which is too short and you let it relax early, of course it will run on past the beaten horse in the closing stages. That's not to say it would have won if you kicked its ears off early."
Delightful had no form over 1000m.
"Since then she went to the Gold Coast and finished sixth or seventh over 1300m and then could finish only third over 1400m at Beaudesert, which is getting really bush, on about a par with Wairoa.
"Then she ran unplaced over 1600m and last start finished third in a C6 race at 1800m. She's gone 1300m, 1400m, 1600, to 1800m and still can't win, so she was never going to be a hope over 1000m."
Walsh understands the stewards' job is to have racing seen to be clean, but says it goes too far.
"What they're trying to do is impossible. If you do what they say you wreck your chances.
"It's heart breaking. They force you to ride bad races to show you're trying.
"I've actually turned down rides because you know they will get back and run on. You can't afford to ride that sort of horse."
Walsh literally will not think one day past the 29th.
"How can I? This sort of thing is life-changing."
Racing: Veteran jockey at crossroads
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