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Apprentice jockeys win big on Saturday: Behind the numbers
Duncan Perkinson • July 13th, 2026 2:35 pm
Hayley Hassman won 3 races at Ruakākā on Saturday. One of five apprentices who won races on the day. Photo Credit: Race Images
The quality of New Zealand’s apprentice jockeys is outstanding at the moment, and punters can look closely at these riders as they make their investments.
Across the sixteen races on Big Saturday, it was a brilliant day for the apprentices, winning eight of the sixteen races at Hawera and Ruakākā.
The other eight races were won by some of our most senior and experienced riders.
Let’s take a look behind the numbers...
Five apprentice jockeys won races on Saturday. Hayley Hassman won 3 races, Tom Wigram won 2 races, while Jim Chung, Jack Taplin and Amber Riddell all won a race each.
The senior jockeys who won on Saturday included George Rooke, Jasmine Fawcett, Ethan Jones, Sam Collett, Craig Grylls, Lisa Allpress, Jonathan Riddell and Leah Hemi.
While it was an even split of wins between the apprentices and the senior jockeys on Saturday, the difference in race starts is phenomenal.
The five apprentice jockeys have a combined 3,746 starts between them, while the eight experienced jockeys have a combined number of race starts totalling over 60,000 races.
The five apprentices have 365 wins between them. The eight senior jockeys have won a combined 6,345 race victories.
The strike rate for the eight apprentices is similar to this select group which includes some of our the country's most experienced and talented jockeys.
The average strike rate for the five apprentices is 9.7% (approximately one win from every 11 races) while the strike rate for the group of eight jockeys is 10.5% (approximately one win from every 9 races)
