It could have been one of the all-time spring carnivals for Ethan Brown.
He’s not complaining given his bank balance looks very healthy but, in some alternate reality, the star jockey might have won the Melbourne Cup, The Everest and the Golden Eagle all in the space of a few weeks.
He placed in all three and, for a fleeting moment in each race, he thought he was on the winner.
Sepals pocketed $1.8 million for his gallant second to Autumn Glow in the Golden Eagle, Middle Earth picked up $560,000 for his third placing to Half Yours in the Melbourne Cup and Jimmysstar earned $2 million for connections thanks to his Everest placing behind Ka Ying Rising.
“It was a good spring and, although it could’ve been better if a few results had fallen my way, I’m certainly not complaining one bit,” Brown said.
“I thought I had the Melbourne Cup won at one stage in the race, I thought Sepals was going to kick back and win the Golden Eagle but he just ran into a superstar.”
“On Jimmysstar in The Everest, I loomed up with Ka Ying Rising and thought we were a sniff but again, we ran into the best sprinter in the world.”
“You always sit there at the start of spring and talk about having a good few months but for it to actually eventuate, I’m more than happy with the way it played out.”
“I was lucky with suspensions because I didn’t miss out on too much and I got really good support.”
Brown has won four Stakes races this season but his biggest win during the spring came aboard Jimmysstar in the $3 million Russell Balding Stakes in Sydney on Derby Day.
He will continue his association with that horse in Saturday’s G1 C.F. Orr Stakes at Caulfield and he agrees the brilliant Ciaron Maher-trained galloper is the top seed in the race.
Brown has combined with Jimmysstar eight times for two G1 wins and two G1 placings, as well as the Russell Balding Stakes success.
“I think he’s the horse to beat for sure,” he said.
“He galloped great on Monday, he’s done nothing wrong this preparation and, to be fair, he’s never really run a bad race in his career, he’s always so honest.”
“I do we feel we click together but I was also lucky to get on him when I did after he’d had that preparation under his belt.”
“Fortunately for me, he took the next step.”
“After riding him so many times, it makes things easier that we know each other so well.”
Despite riding in Sydney on several feature racedays during the spring, Brown is maintaining a hot pace in the Victorian Jockey Premiership, where he sits second to Mark Zahra.
Since the start of the season, the 29-year-old has ridden 36 winners in Victoria at a 22.4% strike rate.
While he might not yet boast the CV of Zahra, Lane and Shinn, Brown’s name is often raised in conversations about Melbourne’s premier riders.
“I feel like I belong there,” he said.
“It’s taken time and I’ve still got a bit to go, don’t get me wrong, to reach the heights of those guys but I think I’m well and truly on the way.”
