More journalism.....

My writing has really been kicking off and I am really loving the opportunity to interview some amazing folk doing extraordinary things.

Recently I interviewed the legendary Jim "Pumper" Cassidy, Kiwi Jockey, 49 years old and still at the top of the game. He is a former two-time winner of the Melbourne Cup amongst the other big trophies in Australian Racing. He is famous for his rhyming tag- lines such as "clickety clack, the Pumper is back" and is the punters favourite here in Oz. Article below.

Jim “The Pumper’ Cassidy - ring a ding ding, long live the king!

At the age of 49, champion jockey Jim “The Pumper” Cassidy is still at the top of the game. A larger than life character, he is one of the few jockeys to win the Grand Slam of Australia’s biggest races - Caulfield Cup, Cox Plate, Golden Slipper Stakes and the Melbourne Cup. 

“I never wanted to do anything else” he said when we caught up with him at the end of a training session. “I always loved doing what I do. I only had two ambitions in life, to be an All Black or a jockey”. Incidentally, his first time in Australia was to play rugby union when he was 11 years old, however, given his 5 foot frame, the All Black dream ended. Nine years later he came back as a champion jockey in what he described as the highlight of his career when he won the Melbourne Cup in 1983 as a Kiwi, riding a horse named Kiwi, that had never run on Australian soil. They came from behind to win and as Cassidy says “rewrote the script”.

He is thirty years senior to some of his current rivals and is still a force to be reckoned with. In the last ten years he has had to contend with more and more wear and tear injuries associated with long hours in the saddle. The question is, how can someone of that age still be so successful?

He is disciplined, he works on conditioning every day and doesn’t let three or four days pass without doing anything. He also has work-life balance. Cassidy is a family man. “I put family first and racing second, racing is my job”. He enjoys the simple things in life and cherishes time with his wife and three daughters. He has no formula or blue print for victory, rather he goes with the flow of life and does the best he can with what is put before him. It is an approach gleaned from years of experience. He says “I am enjoying it, still riding winners, maybe not many big winners. Not everyone can ride the top echelon of horses. In that respect I have been lucky, I have ridden some great horses over the years and another one might come along tomorrow, and that keeps me going”

He maintains that one of the traits of a top jockey is being able to sum a horse up in a few minutes and then getting out there and doing the business. He says there are three types of jockey: some are born to ride, some try to ride and some want to ride. “On Might and Power (Melbourne Cup Winner 1997) I allowed him to relax, I was just a passenger. Got his breathing right. It’s not easy to do and a lot of jockeys can’t do it”.

In his spare time he likes to play golf and tennis and uses swimming to keep his fitness up. With his family, he dines out at his favourite Japanese, Chinese or Lebanese restaurants. More often than not, he cooks at home and enjoys it. Jockeys have a brutal regime of weight loss and sweating to stay light. The first thing he reaches for at the end of a long days racing is a cold beer, switches off his phone and heads straight home for some family time. Sunday is his eating day, “the fridge is my best friend when i am not riding” he says with a chuckle.

It is his balanced and simple approach to life, his supreme talent and resilience and a genuine love for what he does that has ensured his longevity in a tough industry. But how long will “The Pumper” continue? “I will wake up one day and say “no more” and that will be it. It has not come into my mind to stop. I will miss it, the adrenaline rush, but all the other stuff that goes with it I won’t miss.