Racing
Metro premierships: a look beyond the winners
A number of riders enjoyed breakouts seasons in the past 12 months
Some usual suspects were to the fore in a number of Australia's metropolitan riding awards, which wound up on Wednesday's second-last day of the 2024/25 season.
James Mcdonald won a seventh-straight Sydney title, and ninth overall, William Pike snared a 15th Perth championship and Blake Shinn reclaimed the Melbourne crown.
But there were first-time winners in Queensland and South Australia with Angela Jones becoming the first woman to win the Brisbane title, while Rochelle Milnes was the first apprentice to win the Adelaide award since Jamie Melham in 2013.
Jones and Milnes were among a host of riders who rode to prominent premiership positions off career-best seasons.
Jason Collett, Braith Nock – Sydney
Collett finished the season with a flourish, following up his quartet of winners at Randwick last Saturday with a treble at Warwick Farm on Wednesday to get within nine wins of McDonald, who rode 83 Sydney winners for the season.
The Kiwis second placing was his best finish in a Sydney premiership and his tally of 74 was two up on the previous season, when he finished third.
No one improved their metro tally by as many wins in New South Wales as Braith Nock, who entered the season with one metro win but added 40 winners in 2024/25 to secure a place in the top 10 on the premiership and claim the Sydney Apprentices' Premiership.
Daniel Stackhouse, Jamie Mott – Melbourne
Stackhouse was no threat to Shinn, but the New Zealand native secured his first podium finish in the Melbourne Jockeys' Premiership.
The 35-year-old rode a winner at Sandown on Wednesday to take his Victorian metro tally to 48 and lock down third spot on the premiership, behind Shinn and Craig Williams.
That is a new personal best for Stackhouse, who backed up a breakout 2023/24 season when he rode 43 winners for a fourth-placed finish.
Jamie Mott was the other rider towards the pointy end of the table to enjoy a career-best metro season, finishing equal fifth with Jamie Melham on 41 wins, which was a significant improvement on the previous season's 13th placing with 25 wins.
The biggest of Mott's wins came on Schwarz in the Group 1 William Reid Stakes at The Valley earlier this year.
Emily Lang – Brisbane
Lang might have been pipped by Jones for the Brisbane award, but Tony Gollan's apprentice elevated herself as one of the best in Queensland during the season.
The 24-year-old, who did not make her metropolitan debut until the last couple of months of the 2023/24 season, rode 64 city winners for the 2024/25 racing year to fall short of Jones's tally by just two.
Lang was a runaway winner of the Brisbane Apprentice Jockeys' Premiership.
Lucy Fiore – Perth
It is under a name new, but the 2024/25 season marked the reemergence of Lucy Fiore as a major force at metro level in Western Australia.
The 27-year-old finished fourth with 70.5 wins in the award that was once again dominated by usual suspects Pike and Chris Parnham, which was a significant uplift on 2023/24 when Fiore rode 18.5 winners.
Fiore rode 23 the season before that and 32 in 2021/22 when she went by her maiden name, Lucy Warwick.
Her best result under that name was a second placing to Pike on 66.5 wins in 2014/15, while she was also runner-up with 57 the season after.
Pike won this season's Australia-wide metro award with 106.5 wins, 5.5 more than James McDonald with Parnham third on 98.
Taylor Johnstone – Adelaide
Milnes was rightly feted for her career-best season, when she joined the likes of Jamie Melham, Clare Lindop and Raquel Clark as women to win the Adelaide Jockeys' Premiership, while it was another female rider who tied for the spot immediately behind her.
Taylor Johnstone rode 40 winners for the year, the same number as Lachlan Neindorf.
It was Johnstone's first full season in South Australia, after relocating from her native Tasmania where her previous best season tally was 32 wins in in the 2021/22 season.
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