From lucky socks to winning silks

Footballers, racecar drivers, tennis players, boxers – often the biggest names in their sports – have long relied on superstitions and rituals whenever they step into the arena. It’s hardly surprising that the racing industry is much the same. Owners, jockeys, trainers, strappers, punters – almost everyone has a ritual, a superstition, or a belief in omens to guide them towards a winner.

For punters, the list is endless. One of the oldest is to back the first trainer or jockey you see when you arrive at the racecourse. Others swear by their “lucky number” saddlecloth, the rider wearing their favourite colour, or a horse carrying a birthdate that means something special. Despite paying the bills and turning up to the track, some owners are too nervous to even watch the race. 

Rich Ricci – owner of last year’s Melbourne Cup favourite Vauban – is one such example. The UK-based American banker stands in the parade ring and listens to the commentary, only turning to watch when he’s sure his pink-and-green colours are destined for victory.

Many racegoers have lucky shirts, ties, shoes, socks, jackets – even entire outfits. Debbie Kepitis, part-owner of champion mare Winx, famously wore the same purple jacket-and-skirt combination to the races, and only on race days.

“I’m superstitious, and it has always been lucky.

I wore it when Preferment won the Victoria Derby in Melbourne. I even had it on when she (Winx) started the winning run at the Sunshine Coast,” Kepitis once told the media.

“I won’t even take it to the dry cleaners because I’m scared they will lose it. I bought the material in Paris and the designer still has the off-cuts just in case it ever needs to be repaired,” she told the Sydney
Morning Herald.

Where omens are concerned, few are better than the one experienced by the late trainer Mike Moroney.

Moroney claimed Melbourne Cup glory with Brew in 2000, but he’d foreseen the victory years earlier.

“I’d dreamed that I trained the Melbourne Cup winner – and I dreamed it was Brew,” he recalled after the race, a story retold in tributes following his death earlier this year.

“I remember telling my wife that I’d dreamed that I won by two lengths with Brew who was Number 24."

My wife said, ‘Who is Brew?’ My dream didn’t make sense then though because at the time Brew was a three-year-old in work with Paul O’Sullivan, a trainer in Sydney.”

When Brew eventually joined the Moroney stable, he carried the second colours – a black cap – just as in Moroney’s dream. The stable’s other runner, Second Coming, wore the first colours with a
red cap.

Trainer Robbie Griffiths doesn’t worry about where he stands, though he has plenty of other superstitions.

“I’m really into socks and jocks being lucky. 

I like new stuff for starters, and if I have a bit of luck with them, I’ll wear them next time. If I buy something new and I have no luck with it, it gets thrown out quickly,” he says.

The superstitious approach can be costly. “If I don’t back one of mine and the horse wins, I won’t back it the next start. So, if it were to go on and win four straight, well, I would miss all those wins if I hadn’t backed it first. This happened years ago with Dandy Kid (a sprinter Griffiths trained early in his career) in his first start at Traralgon. I said, ‘I am not taking those short odds; he will drift out to a better price.’ But he didn’t, I didn’t bet on him – and then he went on to win his first four races. I had to wait until he got beaten to back him.”

Griffiths had another habit as a jockey: “If I had a quiet run, I would go and buy a new whip, so unfortunately, I had a big collection of whips. It’s probably a waste of emotion, but we all seem to hang on to
those things.”

Superstitions around equipment are common. Damien Oliver admits to swapping goggles or changing his whip during a lean spell. “I would maybe change my goggles if I wasn’t riding a winner, I would sometimes change my whip if I wasn’t having any luck. I would usually have a favourite whip which I felt really comfortable with, but would change it sometimes.”

Another jockey superstition, he says, centres on race silks. “If there was a new set of colours that wasn’t considered lucky, you’d stand on them. I think that was passed down to me – I’m not sure from where – but it was something that was said,” he says.

Craig Williams says he’s not superstitious but follows strict routines
and rituals. “I buy my own colours, but that’s not a superstition. I get them made up because I can then wash them how I like, they smell nice and fresh, there’s no holes or marks on them. I have a lot of processes I go through on race day. I put in hours and hours of homework on form and analysis,

I walk the track before racing, and I use four pens in my office colour-coded to help with my form.

I use different processes to help me get from one race to another, the reflex balls, the warming up, all those things. I use music, and I play
the same song over and over and over again. When I am riding Mr Brightside, it’s usually The Killers.”

And when the race is done, win or lose, he moves straight on. “Good or bad, the last race is forgotten.”