Kieran Shoemark lands city double

Wednesday 7 January 2015, 6:41pm

Visiting English apprentice Kieran Shoemark was hoping to make the type of impact his good friend and house mate Oisin Murphy did in Melbourne a year ago when he ventured the Australia for a summer stint.

And he is making a decent fist of it.

The 18-year-old notched his first city winner at Sandown on Wednesday and quickly backed it up a race later for a winning double.

Shoemark had already made his impact at the provincial races with two winning trebles in Victoria, at Geelong on Boxing Day and at Seymour on Tuesday.

"It's a privilege to get a city winner," Shoemark said.

"I'm loving my stay here."

On loan to the Danny O'Brien stable from English trainer Andrew Balding as Irish apprentice Murphy was a year ago, Shoemark brought up his milestone city win with an all-the-way success on the O'Brien-trained Zahspeed in a benchmark 70 (1800m).

In a contrasting ride, Shoemark settled midfield on the fence on the Nigel Blackiston-trained Heez Notorious in a 1600m benchmark 70 and arrived just in time to win by a narrow margin.

Shoemark's Australian stay was scheduled to end in mid-January but he revealed it had been extended until February 1.

Murphy, Britain's champion apprentice of 2014, rode 13 winners from 89 rides in Australia highlighted by a Listed win in the Bagot Handicap on the Blackiston-trained Outback Joe.

Shoemark said he had not set himself a goal of how many winners he wanted to ride during his stint but said it had been a brilliant experience so far.

"When I came out here I knew Oisin made such a big impact last year, I wanted to make a name for myself and make that impact like he did," he said.

"I thought it was quite impressive the amount of winners he rode and I thought it would be very hard to match.

"But as long as I made half the impact he did, I thought I'd be all right."

Shoemark, who rode 21 winners during his first season in the UK last year, will have his momentum halted for a week while he serves a seven-meeting careless riding suspension.

– AAP

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »