King bids for success in LONGINES International Jockeys’ Championship

By Daryl Timms

Australia-based jockey Rachel King is poised for another shot at glory in next month’s LONGINES International Jockeys’ Championship (IJC) at Happy Valley Racecourse on 9 December.

King will compete against a group of the world’s leading jockeys, including fellow Sydney-based rider James McDonald, Ryan Moore and William Buick, Mickael Barzalona and Zac Purton, who will represent Hong Kong, China, where he is a nine-time champion.

Fresh off her 10th Group 1 win with star three-year-old colt Warwoven’s Group 1 victory in October, King also rode So You Are to victory in the G3 Bendigo Cup (2400m), which paved the way for her to ride the five-year-old gelding in the historic G1 Melbourne Cup (3200m). So You Are’s four-race winning streak came to an end with a gallant eighth in the Cup.

King has competed in the championship since 2023, when she made a brilliant debut, winning on David Hall-trained Oversubscribed, and has since been competitive against the world’s leading jockeys and the best of Hong Kong.

With rides allocated by a model designed to keep the contest even for the 12 elite jockeys in four races, the rider who accumulates the most points based on the first three placings is crowned the LONGINES IJC Champion Jockey.

King said she is excited by the opportunity of competing again under the lights at the unique Happy Valley Racecourse.

“It’s just the uniqueness of Happy Valley,” she said. “It’s just different than anywhere else, with the atmosphere and racing at night, and the only thing from an Australian point of view it is compared to is the old Moonee Valley.

“The whole concept of the jockey championship makes it more exciting as well.”

With so many world-class jockeys and the mystery factor of the horse allocation, King said the Hong Kong Jockey Club had worked hard over the past few years to make it an even contest.

“It also comes down to a bit of luck on the night and barriers and things like that,” King said. “But they have made it as level a playing field as you can get.

“It’s a different sort of equation, getting to ride against all of those jockeys in one place, and I’ve been lucky enough to ride against them on separate occasions, but it’s definitely unique to ride against that class of jockey all in one night.”

British-born King has ridden in several countries, including Japan, where she is a Group 1 winner, Saudi Arabia and the country of her birth.

Calling Australia home since she decided to stay after a working holiday in Sydney in 2014, she has forged a deep working relationship with leading Sydney trainer Bjorn Baker, who said he had never regarded King as simply a female jockey.

King said she doesn’t give much thought to being the first female jockey to win a flat Group 1 in Japan or becoming the first female jockey to win the G1 Australian Derby (2400m), which she achieved with Green Spaces for Baker earlier this year.

“I don’t really pay much attention to that aspect of it,” she said. “We are all jockeys, competing on a level playing field and getting paid the same. Definitely the female aspect doesn’t come into it for me.”

She said talent had always been prominent in the female riding ranks and it was just a matter of getting an opportunity.

“It seems the rest of the world is catching up where Australia has been for a few years,” King said.

She said it was an honour to be invited to Hong Kong and admitted a winner or two would top it off.