Last season's champion apprentice and dual Lester award winner Josephine Gordon has relocated from Lambourn to Newmarket, where she is now employed by Hugo Palmer.
Speaking in the Sun newspaper, the trainer confirmed, “I'm going to pay her to work for me. Josephine will be riding out at Kremlin Cottage Stables every morning, in a similar way to how Pat Cosgrave does for William Haggas and Robert Havlin does for John Gosden.”
Gordon rode 3-year-old Garam (Ire) (Pivotal {GB}) to a first-time-out success for Palmer at Wolverhampton on Jan. 5 and currently enjoys a 27% winning strike-rate with the trainer, including two victories each on the 105-rated Baydar (GB) (Rock Of Gibraltar {Ire}) and To Be Wild (Ire) (Big Bad Bob {Ire}), who is now rated 104 with two wins from three starts.
Palmer continued, “Skilled people make good horses. She will get lots of opportunities, and lots of my owners want to use her. She's not going to be my stable jockey or what I would describe as number one, but she will be a major part of the team. Now she's ridden out her claim this will make things more official. She's fully aware that on big days someone like Pat Smullen could take over on a horse she has won on previously, but that might not always be the case.”
Formerly apprenticed to Stan Moore, Gordon rode out her claim on Nov. 11 last year and notched 87 winners throughout 2016. She said, “This is a big move as I'm now living in Newmarket and I'm giving up a lot of trainers who have been really good to me. I've got to where I am by hard work. I'm riding out for everybody I can, sometimes two trainers a day, and it will be different now.”
The 23-year-old added, “Of course I hope to ride for whoever wants me in 2017, so those people who have got me here will hopefully still use me. But this job will make things a bit different.”
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