There are undoubtedly racing fans for whom Ascot’s Shergar Cup is a great time to go on holiday abroad but the populist competition, expected to draw a huge crowd to the track again on Saturday, continues to bring top-class riders from around the world to these shores. Gavin Lerena and Kenichi Ikezoe are the visitors this time, both in England for the first time and looking forward to a few spins around a circuit they have seen on TV many times over the years.
The other thing they have in common are narrow victories over Ryan Moore, Lerena having pipped the Brighton man to victory in a jockeys’ competition in Hong Kong in December, while Ikezoe beat Moore by a neck in the Japan Cup the previous month. Moore’s decision to go on holiday this week to recover from injury denies him the chance to gain a modicum of revenge.
“Just to ride at Ascot is an amazing chance,” says the Johannesburg-born Lerena, who has been champion in both South Africa and Zimbabwe. He was bred for success, coming from a long line of people who made their living in racing, and mentions with no little pride that his great, great grandfather was the first South African to have the bright idea of importing horses from Argentina, horses which he then trained with groundbreaking success.
Lerena also mentions his grandmother’s brother, who trained Migraine to win the prestigious Durban July in 1957. She was the last three-year-old filly to take the prize for more than 40 years.
So it is surprising that Lerena’s parents did everything they could to dissuade him from following almost everyone else in the family into the game. His father, Tex, now running the jockeys’ association after his own high-flying career in the saddle, explains he wanted Gavin to prove his appetite.
“There are some professions you’ve got to have a passion for,” says Lerena Sr. “If you’ve got a passion for racing, you can knock the doors down. That’s the only way it was going to be, that he wanted it.”
No amount of discouragement could dissuade Lerena Jr. “From a toddler, all I can remember is riding the couch, riding my yellow rocking horse,” he says.
Lerena could use a change of luck on the international stage. Following his success in December, he was offered the chance to continue riding in Hong Kong this year and readily accepted but partnered just five winners in as many months. He had moved there in mid-season at a time when the best horses had established riders and found good opportunities hard to come by.
“I’m used to riding five or six winners a week. To ride five winners in five months was mentally very testing. But I had a great time. It was a whole different experience, whole different world. I got to spend a lot of time with my boy. I would love to go back but only if they offer me to start at the start of the season.”
Lerena seems to have fared well in the random draw for Ascot mounts, Baadi and Danehill Kodiac giving him chances. Ikezoe may not have been so fortunate and will need to be somewhere near peak fitness, having landed a couple of hold-up mounts that tend to need driving in the last half-mile.
The Japanese man did not look the strongest in a couple of his high-profile rides aboard Orfevre a few years ago but Orfevre was a tricky beast and this is Ikezoe’s chance to show he should not be judged harshly on such little evidence.
