Paul King (pictured) who's now riding plenty of winners in NSW has the biggest, most comprehensive book of excuses you've ever seen. It's a veritable compendium of every 'excuse for not winning' that a jockey could possibly come up with...

As a matter of fact, because he was our number one rider for a few years there, and because I've heard them all more times than I care to remember, Kingy and I got to the stage where we numbered his excuses, so that rather than go through the whole lengthy exercise, whenever he got beat, he'd just come in and say 'number 7' for example-which just happens to be 'missed the jump, went out the back and never got into it after that;. 'Number 45' as another example is 'got caught three and four deep from the barrier-nothing I could do, forget he went around'. So, when he got beat, he'd ride it back in, say the number, and I'd relay the excuse back to the disgruntled owners. Some of them event got to know the numbers themselves! HOWEVER...

There was one ride I remember, it was just a couple of days before Christmas a few years ago that Kingy came up with a corker-an excuse in fact that even I'd never heard before and it was after one of our horses really was the best of good things beaten.

Without giving me a number post race like he usually does, Kingy said that just after turning for home, he was travelling strongly with a handful of horse and he was positioned to win when all of a sudden out of nowhere someone in the crowd threw a turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce on it which hit him right on his wrist and knocked the whip out of his hand!  

He had to steady the horse but in typical Kingy bulldog style, he got going again and at the 200m mark he was just regaining his momentum and starting to charge home making a sure fire winning run when all of a sudden out of nowhere, a Christmas cracker blew up onto the track and landed right in his face.

He couldn't see a thing for a few strides and had to steady the horse again but after he'd brushed the cracker away he made a late charge to the line and was flying home going two to their one, when all of a sudden out of nowhere, someone in the crowd threw a fruit mince pie which hit him right smack bang in the eye.

Well, poor old Kingy couldn't see a thing for the icing sugar but he still rode desperately hands and heels for the last few strides but the horse just missed out narrowly in the closest of photo finishes-a certainty beat if ever there was one.

When the Chief Steward questioned him as to what happened, Kingy looked him right in the eye and said he was 'hampered' in the straight....