Master apprentice Zac Lloyd, the best in four decades
Meet the rookie who thought he was the best young rider for the year only to beat a 12-time winning legend to claim the sport’s greatest individual honour.
Zac Lloyd is riding Nadal in the Golden Rose Stakes. If the horse is true to his name, he’ll be fidgety in the gates. Curl his hair behind his ears. Touch his nose. Go for the towel every five seconds. Wear a purple muscle shirt. Pick his undies out of his bum. Celebrate his highest moments by doing the lawnmower. Roar across the line while punching the Rosehill sky and screaming, “Vamos!”
“I do love my tennis,” Lloyd laughs while sitting in his apartment at Warwick Farm. “The owners must be into the sport, don’t you think? That has to be where the name comes from, right? I’m more of a Rafa man than a Federer man. I like the fire in Rafa. I like the Nadal I’m on, too. I sat on him for the first time on Monday. Galloped him. He was a bit cheeky, as colts always are. Still got their nuts in. He wanted to get on with the job a bit early but once he was on the track, he really was professional. He went about his work really well. I’m filled with a lot of confidence going into Saturday.”
Lloyd right now has something in common with Rafa from the early 2000s. If the two-legged Nadal was the next big thing in Spanish tennis, Lloyd is the next big thing in Australian racing. Sitting in his living room, chatting away, he’s a bright-eyed, intelligent, engaging 20-year-old who’s become the hottest apprentice jockey in decades. He signed with the mighty Godolphin stable a year ago, akin to getting a gig as a development driver with Ferrari in Formula One. His 76 Sydney winners in a season were the most by an apprentice in more than 40 years and earning him the prestigious Bart Cummings Award after superstar trainer Chris Waller had won it for 12 consecutive years.
Nobody saw that gong coming. Lloyd was a roughie at best. It was like the rookie of the Year at the Dally Ms walking off with the main award as well. He rocked up to the gala awards night at Royal Randwick with a speech prepared for his Theo Green Award, as NSW’s top apprentice, then got the shock of his life when he beat the elite training duo of Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott, followed by Waller and champion jockey James McDonald, for the state’s racing’s premier individual accolade.
“I didn’t even know what it was,” he says. “I was looking at the book on the table when I got there. You know, the book that has all the awards for a night like that, and I asked my brother, who was next to me, ‘Do you know what the Bart Cummings Medal is?’ He said no. Then throughout the night, they were doing updates on the leaderboard – and I was on it. I was fourth at one stage and I was like, ‘Hell yeah! I’m fourth!’ The next update I was second and I was like, okaaaaay. And then I won it. I mean …”
He doesn’t know what he means. Still looks flabbergasted. He adds: “I’d been given the Theo Green Award and done some photos with it and gone back to my table and thought, ‘Sweet. Now I can dig into my dinner.’ It was a nice juicy steak. Then they called me up again. I had a speech ready for the apprentice award but this one, I just winged it. I absolutely had no idea I was even a chance to win it.”
What’d he say in his second speech while a half-eaten steak sat on his plate? “Not much!” he grins. “It was much shorter than the other speech, believe me. I was prepared for that one. I was in no way ready for this. It’s a great honour now that I understand it all. It was a shock to the system at the time but it was unreal, it really was, and I’m extremely grateful.”
A wafer-thin jockey was tucking into a juicy steak? I thought you blokes lived on lettuce leaves and water? “I can eat whatever I want,” he says. “Which is very lucky. At the moment I’m walking around at 50-and-a-half (kilograms). Just had a bowl of cereal! I’m a hopeless cook. It’s all bread and pasta and I can do myself a steak. That’s about it. I’m a light rider, which helps a lot and gives me a chance to get a ride at something like the Melbourne Cup. I can ride light and that really puts me in a different category. Most riders can only ride at 53, 54, but a lot of horses at a Melbourne Cup get 50, 51, 52. That puts me in good stead to try to get a ride. Fingers crossed.”
Zac was sired by Jeff Lloyd, the esteemed hoop who rode more than 5,500 international winners, including 94 Group 1s. Zac will take Rafa – sorry, Nadal – into the Golden Rose on the back of four Group 2 triumphs, including three in the last two weeks. Horses aren’t the only creatures who take a step up in class and when he pilots Rafa – sorry, sorry, Nadal – in the Group 1, $1 million, 1400m race, he’ll be lining up against the best in the business, including 38-year-old Brazilian superstar Joao Moreira (Militarize), 40-year-old English legend Ryan Moore (Shinzo) and three hotshot Australians in Kerrin McEvoy (General Salute), Damian Lane (Charm Stone) and Nash Rawiller (Cylinder).
Bring ‘em on. “I want to be around the best of the best,” he says. “It’s like the A division of a soccer championship, you know what I mean? You want to be in the top league and this is it. I rolled the dice by moving from Brisbane to Sydney last year. It’s going really well and to be getting opportunities in races like this like this – I’m not overawed but honestly, when I first came here, I wasn’t sure how I would go.”
Why? “You need a horse to perform if you’re going to show your talents,” he says. “If you don’t have a fast horse, well, you can’t carry it over the line. Early on was a bit dicey but I guess that was to be expected. Once I got a bit of momentum going, I knew I could match it with those A-grade guys. Confidence is a great thing, don’t you think? It changes everything. When you’re feeling confident, the horse feels it too, and it becomes more confident with and because of you. It’s not like I’ve established myself yet but within myself, I do have that feeling of full confidence now. It’s making life a lot easier.”
We’re in the living room of his Sydney apartment. Mum’s decked it out pretty nicely. A beautiful painting of an even more beautiful horse is on the wall. The Bart Cummings Medal and a couple of trophies are on his TV cabinet. It’s Thursday morning. At noon, he’ll jump in his car and drive to Hawkesbury for a couple of rides. He’ll have a win for Godolphin’s James Cummings on Rhettara, and a third on Mural Crown in a tidy little build-up for his shot at a maiden Group 1 triumph on Rafa – sorry, Nadal.
“A Group 1 has to be near,” he says. “Hopefully. It’s an exciting path to be on at the moment. Everything’s going good. Everything’s picture-perfect at the moment but I know things can change. You can’t take anything for granted. You have to keep performing. You have to keep learning. You have to keep improving. I’m just working as hard as I can and taking each meeting as it comes and making sure I don’t get ahead of myself. But I’m counting down the days to Saturday.”
His dance card will be full. He’s on Take The Kitty in the first at Rosehill; he’s on Marquess in the third; he’s on Stanislaus in the fourth; he’s on Verona in the fifth; he’s on Flying Crazy in the seventh; he’s on Rafa- sorry, Nadal – in the eighth; he’s on Pereille in the ninth; he’s on Portray in the last.
Lloyd moved from Brisbane to Sydney last year to take up his apprenticeship with Godolphin. He remembers the meeting that changed everything. “So, when I first came to Sydney, I was just riding provincials,” he says. “I went into the midweeks, the Wednesday racing, and started doing well there. Building a few more connections. Then the big day was Golden Eagle Day last year. My first Saturday metropolitan meeting. I was jumping out of my skin for it. I had a winner for the Hawkes team, very good trainers, on Mars Mission. And then I won The Four Pillars on Oakfield Arrow, which is a half-a-million-dollar race. The crowd was big and the atmosphere was great. Like nothing I’d experienced before. It was the biggest race I’d won up until that point. You have a win on a day like that and you get a lot of confidence and it sort of puts your name out there for the first time. That was a great and slightly surreal day for the emotions that came out – and didn’t come out.”
Go on. “Well, on Mars Mission, I was sort of boxed in,” he says. “I pushed out William Pike, who’s obviously a great rider, and got up on the line. I was so pumped. I was like, yes! A Saturday winner! Yes! I wanted to salute but you can’t really salute in a benchmark race. In the Four Pillars, though, and this is the unusual part, I was just totally numb when I won. The whole way up the straight and even after the line, there was no emotion in me. I wasn’t excited. I just felt … nothing. It was weird. I went past the post and I was just, what is happening? Is this really happening? When I got back to the jockey room, it sank in and there was a bit of, I did it! But there was nothing but shock when it was actually happening.”
Perhaps victory in The Four Pillars was so big your brain couldn’t comprehend it. “That’s how it felt,” he says. “It didn’t feel real. It felt like I was going through the motions whereas with the other win, on Mars Mission, I was incredibly pumped. Fascinating, really.”
Nadal is a long shot in the Golden Rose. Unpredictable. Still got his nuts in. A $23 chance behind Cylinder (4.20) and Shinzo ($5.50). But you never know your luck in the big smoke.
“I actually think it’s a pretty open race,” Lloyd says. “Cylinder is obviously a very good horse. He’s a super colt but he’s never stepped up to seven furlongs, the 1400m. There’s obviously a query. Shinzo beat Cylinder in the Golden Slipper so there’s another very good horse, but again he’s first-up in the 1400m. I think whatever gets the best run might win the race. Nadal drew (barrier) 13 out of 13 so I might need a bit of luck if we’re going to be shouting vamos.”
Counting down the days until Saturday. “I love it,” he says. “To start with, the build-up. You’re going into a big meeting knowing you have good rides on good horses for good trainers. And then you get to really enjoy the challenge of the races themselves. Challenging yourself to make quick decisions. You either get them right or wrong and live with them. Tactically, every race is different. It’s a rollercoaster as the day goes on. You can have a great ride or you can get a big spray. You can be a hero in one race and then a zero in the next. That was me last Saturday. I had a horrific day. My first four rides, I couldn’t get out. I probably should have won on three of them. I was filthy but I knew I had Tiz Invincible (which won the Darley Tea Rose Stakes) coming up, so it was a great lesson in how you’ve got to stay focused and keep looking ahead.”
It really is a beautiful painting on the wall. Well done, mum. He puts the Bart Cummings Medal round his neck and poses for a happy snap and then he packs his bags and then he goes like the clappers to Hawkesbury, where he goes like the clappers on Rhettara, on another day in the life of a young bloke who’s riding higher than anyone would expect of a 20-year-old apprentice.
“It’s a dream come true,” he says. “Honestly. When I got the job with Godolphin, I couldn’t believe it. It’s really propelled my career and put me on the map. Being in Queensland, you don’t get quite the same recognition, no matter how many winners you ride. To come to Sydney and work with them has been amazing. Just to be around horses like this – I’ve grown up with them, from my dad being a jockey, and I love the thrill they give me. Every time.”
While the painting on the wall listens in, the Bart Cummings Medallist and masterful apprentice says: “They’re really kind animals. Some of them can be a bit naughty but they really can be so sweet. If I’m having a bad day, I can leave real life behind and ride a horse around for 15 minutes in trackwork or something like that, and it puts you in a completely different mindset. They can have such a big effect on you. You look at their eyes, some horses have such a gentle eye and you’re like, oh you’re absolutely beautiful.”
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