Jockey back where she feels most comfortable
If it was not for horses, a returning Cairns apprentice jockey is not exactly sure what she would be doing.
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If it was not for horses, well, Cairns apprentice jockey Emily Cass is not exactly sure what she would be doing.
Perhaps she would be a teacher’s aid or work in a gym as a personal trainer, but as the 27-year-old says at the Cannon Park stables where she starts work before the sun goes up every morning: horses are almost all she knows.
“I just love the horses. I am not a big people person, they keep me pretty mellow and happy,” she says.
After almost exactly 25 months on the sidelines from race riding, which started with a five-month suspension from race riding after testing positive to amphetamine and methamphetamine in late 2017, Cass is back this afternoon up at Cooktown.
The return to race day has been on the cards for months, with local trainer Alwyn Bailey guiding the apprentice rider through the process from racing wilderness back to the saddle.
Even when Cass got the final tick of approval from the Queensland Racing Integrity Commission earlier this week, she said it would not feel completely real until she read her own name in the form guide.
A long term drug ban from racing is likely to stick with Cass and her reputation for the rest of her career but she said the time away from riding had changed her.
“It was a big eye-opener of what I have lost, I did everything I could to come back,” Cass said.
“I went through a few personal problems, it went downhill from there.
“I lost one thing and thought I lost everything, I started to depend on the wrong thing.
“The next thing you know, it is all over and it just got worse from there, after I lost my job – it was really bad for about six months but I picked myself up again.
“It has been a long process, I feel like I am much stronger now.”
Cass looks like a regular smiling girl in her late 20s but she is an excellent rider, considered one of the best in north Queensland before the ban, riding winners for fun with her claim once arriving in the north.
Through her personal issues that led to her ban, Cass bounced from trainer to trainer in a work capacity in 2017, riding regularly for Trevor Rowe and Stephen Massingham, among others.
But she has found an ally in local horseman Alwyn “Bones” Bailey.
Bones has backed the sidelined rider as she had to jump over QRIC and Racing Queensland’s hurdles to return to race riding.
“He has stuck by me the last six months until I have got back,” Cass said.
“If it was not for Bones, I probably would not be here.
“I cant wait to do well for Bones.”
Cass takes a full book of rides in her return this afternoon at the Cooktown Amateur Turf Club.
Originally published as Jockey back where she feels most comfortable
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