Kneller Claims Victory In Lingfield As A Substitute

Jockey, Rachael Kneller, who came in as a substitute, rode Ruacana to victory in Lingfield after a plea made on Twitter by Vaughan Lewis, owner of the horse.

Lewis had made an earlier arrangement with a rider from Ireland, Trevor Whelan, to lead the horse over the hurdles. But Whelan’s flight was canceled, and Lewis was in a state of jeopardy till Kneller took up the call.

For Kneller, the ride may just be one of the best of her career as it earned her her first win for 2019, despite having taken part in 35 rides before this. She had never ridden the horse before, but was quick to become familiar with it,m and even commented after the race that the horse “was pulling me round; I was just a passenger,” making an allusion to the rhythm between the horse and the jockey.

The timely intervention of Kneller was an immense relief to Lewis, who was already considering pulling his horse out of the race. It was with the last effort that he put out a tweet on Twitter, calling for a flat jockey for his horse. Kneller, through her agent, Anna Wallace, was able to get through to Lewis.

She got to the race track in time and was even able to get some time to go through old videos of Ruacana’s performance to see how the horse performed, and also got advice from its former trainer, Jamie Osborne, to know how to handle the horse. All these she put into great use to win the race. But she thinks it was the horse that did more of the work, commenting after the race, “He jumped well. He was a schoolmaster.”

Raucana’s performance was indeed noteworthy as the 10-year-old was in a race last week – which it won and still went on to win this. Lewis praised Kneller after the match, commending her for a job well done.

Written by: Leon Osamor