KING OF LIGHT TO SHOW PIKE CHOSE RIGHT

With 3YOs’ solid record in Northerly, Perth ace hoop hopes he has pulled the right rein

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When William Pike was weighing up who to ride between King Of Light and Watch Me Rock in the A$1.5 million (S$1.28 million) Northerly Stakes (1,800m) on Dec 6, he pointed to the great record of three-year-olds as a reason to partner the former.

The multiple Perth champion jockey’s two wins in what is now Australia’s final Group 1 of the year were aboard three-year-olds, Perfect Reflection (2015) and Arcadia Queen (2018), while Kay Cee (2019) and Amelia’s Jewel (2022) are others of that age group to win in the past decade.

That quartet are all fillies - the only fillies to have won the race - and are among 19 of that age group to have won the weight-for-age contest named after one of Western Australia’s most famous racehorses.

Three-year-old boys dominated the early editions of the race first run in 1976, winning four of the first five and eight of the first 11, but one has to go back to Ihtsahymn in 2013 for the latest male three-year-old to win it.