In the article I mentioned the contrasting fortunes of Hayley Turner and Saleem Golam in the years after they shared the champion apprentice title in 2005. At the time Golam was 0/48 winners-rides in 2013.
At Windsor on Monday night Golam rode his first winner of the season in the form of Mungo Park at rewarding odds of 33/1 in the selling stakes (18.30).
The jockey gave a very honest and sobering interview to Matt Chapman on At The Races after his win. He doesn’t shirk from the fact that his career has not gone as he would have wanted. But he is fully deserving of admiration for the attitude he has adopted towards the situation.
Here are some of his comments:
"It has been a bit of a disaster really. But you've got to keep working away. It is all about keeping the mind right. If you let that go then you're in trouble.”
"Obviously it's disappointing for me. It's not disappointing for anyone else. But I've always had the faith in myself and it's all about the opportunities you get and the horses that you are riding at the end of the day.”
"This is what I do, this is my job, I go to work every day and it's embarrassing basically to say I haven't ridden a winner this season when others have ridden 70 or 80.”
“But mentally if you let it go then you start getting a bit despondent and you can turn to drink or start partying and all the rest of it, but if you get your head right and just say hopefully if you ride it out it will come good in the end. "Whether it does or not, at least you can say you tried.”
“I go to Qatar in the winter and that probably doesn't help me because I get forgotten about, but that's my decision and I have no regrets about doing that. I firmly have the belief in myself that I can get the job done as well as 90% of them in the weighing room."
