He is the master from the West.
Willie Pike has ridden more than 3,700 winners for an astonishing $174 million in prize money.
Add a recent Cox Plate to the mix, and any doubt that Pike belongs among our riding elite should be dispelled.
And don’t punters love him. Usually a fixture in Western Australia, where races finish later than in the eastern states, Pike has inspired the old saying ‘Pike in the last’ to save many a punter’s day.
Pike has lived up to that reputation during Cup week too, winning the last race on both Cup Day and Oaks Day.
So the question everyone wants answered is: how does he keep riding so many winners in the last?
“I just go down to the theory that it takes me all day to figure out how to get a win on the board,” he joked on Friday.
“I really don’t know. I have no secret recipe. I don’t change anything I do. I go out and I try my best, and maybe there is a little bit of like I’ve figured the track out. But I don’t know. If I had a magic recipe, I’d change it up and apply it to some of the others, but I just go out and do my best, and it just seems to be that by the last it’s my turn.”
Pike has had a spring to remember on another raider from the West in Cosmic Crusader. The pair have won two Group 1s and a Group 3.
None bigger for Pike, of course, than the Cox Plate.
Pike says his riding confidence is a “weekly battle”, but his Melbourne stint has delivered a greater sense of self-belief.
“Internally, it’s probably a bit more self-belief when I walk into the races here at Flemington,” he said.
“On a day-to-day basis, nothing really changes. I struggle to get out of bed, and I have too much tea and chocolate, and I have that daily battle with food, as jockeys do.
“But I think it feels a bit nicer walking in here knowing you’ve got a Cox Plate under your belt. You’re kind of walking with your head a little higher.”
The jockeys’ room in Melbourne this week is full of elite talent, including James McDonald, Mark Zahra, Damian Lane and Zac Lloyd.
Pike says his spring success makes him feel like he too belongs – for now.
“I think this season I do, but next season is always different,” he said.
“You never get to hold your spot-on past laurels, so I’m very much a firm believer that you’re only as good as your last ride, and I suppose Ray Magnierio made me look all right.
“So I walk into Saturday feeling pretty good, but no, it’s definitely, I suppose, that mental battle that you have. For me, it’s always a weekly battle.
“Last week was good, but will this week be good? Who knows?
“But I definitely wear my heart on my sleeve and go out and do my best. And sometimes that’s pretty good, and sometimes not.”
Pike is set to reunite with Cosmic Crusader in the 2000m Champions Stakes, meaning the six-year-old gelding will have his eighth race of the spring.
And Saturday is unlikely to be his last.
“He’s got that iron horse about him, hasn’t he? I know there are some plans for him to have a few starts back in Perth, so hopefully tomorrow is a good result, and then we’ll face each challenge as it comes,” he said.
“But he actually is improving. With the more racing he’s had, he’s improving. So while he’s racing well, I think he’s enjoying it too. So we all are as well, enjoying those wins that he’s putting on the board for us.”
As an aside, Pike also revealed why he didn’t fly to Melbourne to ride to ride Cosmic Crusader in his first Victorian start at Caulfield in July, with Daniel Stackhouse securing the win in the Group 3 Bletchingly Stakes.
‘’ Bob Peters being the pessimist he didn’t want me to come over for the first run just in case it didn’t go to plan,’’ he said.
‘’I wanted to come for all his runs because of what he did in our carnival [in Perth], I was pretty sure he was special.
‘’After that first run he wasn’t keeping me away.
‘’The races he has won are pretty special and races you dream about.
‘’But being from the West makes it a bit more special because are representing home. I wouldn’t be riding in these races without him, so he is very special horse to me now.’’
