Apprentice Alisha Donald makes history winning at three tracks in 18-hour marathon day

Toowoomba apprentice Alisha Donald has overcome a serious brain bleed and made history as the first apprentice to ride winners at three separate tracks in a single day in the space of a few months.

Toowoomba jockey Alisha Donald rides the last of her three winners at different tracks in a single day. Picture: Grant Peters — Trackside Photography.

Apprentice jockey Alisha Donald produced a history-making performance winning at three separate tracks on Saturday, pulling off a rare feat which required military precision and 18-hour endurance.

The feat, which hadn’t been achieved since Brad Stewart in 2014, saw Donald drive from her hometown of Toowoomba to Ipswich, where she won the second race at 11:49am, before making her way to the non-TAB meeting of Esk, where she rode in races three and four, kicking off at 2:30pm, winning aboard Gypsy Power before jumping in her car to return to Toowoomba for the last five races of the night.

Victory aboard That’s An Extra capped off the marathon day, with Donald saying it is one of the highlights of her career.

“It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, I think,” she said.

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“I had never even ridden at three tracks in one day, let alone won at all of them.

“We get up at 3.30am each morning, so I woke up on Saturday and thought ‘this is a massive day coming up’.

“I had the first two at Ipswich, which is about an hour and twenty minutes from my home in Toowoomba, then I was in races three and four at Esk, which was only 50 minutes from Ipswich, then I had races three to seven back in Toowoomba, which was only an hour away for the night meeting.

“It was a bonus living in Toowoomba, so at least I got to finish here which made it easier because I was pretty tired by 9pm.

Alisha Donald completed a marathon day in the saddle on Saturday which netted three winners. Picture: Steph Allen.

“It was a massive day and I was by myself, so I was doing all the driving, so I was getting a bit over it.

“It was very exciting, it is those sorts of days that makes it all worth it and being the first apprentice to do it is cool.”

Even Donald, apprenticed to veteran horseman Rex Lipp, admits the feat pales in comparison to her comeback to the saddle after suffering a serious bleed on the brain from a nasty fall last year.

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“I have been race riding for about three years now, I have had time off between injuries and I have only really just come back full time because I had two months off after a fall in December,” she said.

“I fell off at Toowoomba when I clipped heels, I had a bad head knock, a bit of a bleed on the brain and some concussion which took a while to get over.

“I came back too early, I had one ride between falling and coming back and I wasn’t right in the head, so I pulled the pin on the meeting and took another month off because as soon as I jumped I knew I wasn’t right.”

In what is a simple trip down the highway compared to her exploits on Saturday, Donald returns to riding at Warwick on Tuesday with four rides.

Originally published as Apprentice Alisha Donald makes history winning at three tracks in 18-hour marathon day