There’s a spring in his step

By Brad Kingsbury
FROM a Group 1 champion to an unraced breaker on its first outing, Cranbourne track rider Robbie Scarlett has experienced it all.
Scarlett, 43, is the most senior track rider at the Cranbourne training complex and makes the trip from his home in Tooradin to be at the track by 4am every day.
The pinnacle of the former star hoop’s 30-year riding career came in 1983 when he booted home Sans Rival to win the Group 1 Oakleigh Plate as an apprentice for just retired veteran Cranbourne trainer Laurie Cleary.
However, after almost two decades in the saddle, the bane of most jockeys – weight – finally caught up with him and he now spends his time preparing the next batch of equine stars that will battle to take centre stage this spring.
“I gave it away in 2001,” he said.
“I went to Singapore for two years and rode work there. I got my weight off and came back and was ready to go again, but it had passed me by and I was just wasting too hard to make it.
“I’m happy at about 72 kilograms now, but when I was walking around at 52 or 53 I wasn’t feeling too good and I just said ‘that’s enough’.
“I’ve been coming here since I was 13 and I won the local track rider award this year. I still miss race riding though.”
Scarlett said he had probably ridden for every trainer at the huge complex over the years but divided most of his time between three stables at present.
“I’ve been riding for Colin Alderson’s stable for about 20 years now and he and Cindy have looked after me. I also ride for Alan Williams, (champion jockey) Craig’s father and Enver Jusovic. They’re my main stables at the moment.”
He nominated Caulfield Cup winner Sky Heights as probably the best horse he had ridden but added that there were plenty more over the years.
Among the easy-going rider’s highlights is the time he almost achieved victory in the 1994 Cranbourne Cup, but finished second on much travelled stayer Paxmat Will for the Aldersons.
He remembered that time with mixed emotions because, although he rode a good race, he passed up the chance to get aboard another up-and-coming stayer in the stable and that decision proved costly.
“I had the chance of jumping on Grass Valley for Colin, but chose Paxmat Will,” he said.
“I went the wrong way as it turned out because, even though it ran fourth that day at Cranbourne, Grass Valley ended up winning the Mornington Cup, the Geelong Cup and running in the Melbourne Cup.
“This caper can be a bit of a lottery at times.”
Scarlett has also seen, close up, the dangerous side of racing when his son Brent, a promising apprentice, was involved in a horrific fall at the Cranbourne training track just over 12 months ago.
A horse he was working broke its two front legs and went over the top of him, breaking three vertebrae and ending his fledgling riding career.
“I was here and I always dreaded something like that happening,” said Robbie.
“I went over and I thought he was dead. It was bloody hard.
“Brent’s got two steel rods in his back now and he’s only just got back to work. He’s training to be a steward. He was lucky.”
Scarlett said he held no aspirations to train horses and was happy to ride them for others for as long as he could, before moving on to another challenge.
“I’m riding 14 or 15 every day now and I’m probably working harder that I ever have,” he said.
“I’ll keep going until my body tells me to stop but I won’t train them. That’s a harder caper than sitting on them I reckon.”