It wasn’t so long ago that Steven Parnham was sitting third on the jockeys premiership but before the meeting on May 18 the eldest son of the racing clan had slipped back to equal seventh.
Since winning a double on March 27 with the Fred Kersley trained pair Ihtsahymn and Purple Tiger, April and May have proved to be lean months.
However, Parnham turned it around on Saturday, in consecutive races, scoring with Black Magic Miss and The Blues, both trained by his father, Neville.
The father-son double came with gallopers that deserved victory after consistently being placed in their previous races.
The double winning feat by the Parnham patriarch puts him in a close duel with Adam Durrant, for trainers premiership laurels, currently trailing by half a point, (39-38.5).
While Neville Parnham certainly has prospects of a 14th premiership, Steven is not going to catch either William Pike or Paul Harvey at the top of the metropolitan jockeys league.
The leading duo are well clear (on 52 and 45.5 respectively) but after that the field is congested.
Jarrad Noske’s win, in the last, on Iseethingsyoudon’t, saw that young jockey move into equal third (on 30) with Troy Turner who has gone quiet in recent weeks.
Jason Whiting’s win on It’s A Bit Shady moved him to 29 joining Steven Parnham and Peter Knuckey, with the latter taking the feature, the Roma Cup, on quality mare Power Princess.
Behind them are Shaun O’Donnell (27), Pat Carbery (25), Brad Parnham (24), Ben Paterson (22) and Jason Brown (21).
Two of Steven Parnham’s mounts to watch in the near future, over more ground, would be Ask Me Nicely (second) and Playing God (third).
Parnham gave the grey every chance last Saturday but he couldn’t sprint past Nova Joe in the 1400m race; while Playing God was doing his best work at the finish behind Power Princess and Ranger in the 1200m Roma Cup.
20.5.13