Last week’s Friday Flashback featured a horse called Pablo’s Pulse who carved himself a small piece of racing history when he won the 1987 Warwick Stakes at odds of 500/1.
This noble deed made him the equal longest priced winner in Australian racing history - a distinction achieved five years earlier by a filly called Anntelle at Canterbury. Suffice to say, that joint record remains intact to this day.
By an astounding coincidence both winners were ridden by the same jockey. Jamie De Belin was apprenticed to the late Albert McKenna when he won on Anntelle and was one of Sydney’s lightest jockeys. He was a fully fledged jockey by the time he rode Pablo’s Pulse, but was still feather light. He’s the first to tell you he “fluked” both rides.
I mentioned in the Friday Flashback blurb that Jamie De Belin had disappeared from racing circles years ago and had it not been for the Pablo’s Pulse photo he may have remained incognito.
I was thrilled over the weekend to receive an email from the man himself. Somebody had alerted him to the Friday Flashback segment and he set about making contact with the same sense of purpose that enabled him to get Pablo’s Pulse home in the Group 2.
Jamie De Belin is now 56 years old, many kilograms heavier than he was in the days when he was mixing it with some of the best jockeys in the land. He’s been living in Darwin for over twenty years and has tried his hand at many jobs some of which we’ll outline shortly.
Back to Anntelle. The date was July 3rd 1982 and the Loosen Up filly was one of six runners Tommy Smith saddled up in a two year old event. “My boss Albert McKenna got a phone call from Tulloch Lodge who wanted another of his apprentices Graham Robson to ride Anntelle”, recalls Jamie. “Albert explained Graham had a ride in the race but kicked up for me to ride her and the Smith representative agreed. They obviously thought she had no hope and it really didn’t matter who rode her”.
It was Anntelle’s first start. She had blown from $100.00 to $500.00 and early in the race Jamie thought she was under the odds. “Ron Dufficy and I were joint tailenders in a field of 16 coming to the turn’, recalls De Belin. “I remember saying to Duff that he and I were on a couple of slowcoaches but all that changed when we straightened up. I saved a heap of ground between horses and the runs just kept coming. You couldn’t believe the luck that came her way”.
Anntelle (White bridle one horse off the fence) gets a miracle run through to win at record odds. Canterbury 1982.
On the line Anntelle was one of several to figure in a blanket finish. Jamie really didn’t know who’d won and got a pleasant surprise when his number went into the frame. “I thought I might get at least a “good onya son” when I came back but there was stony silence from the Tulloch Lodge camp”, said De Belin. “I never rode Anntelle again and I never got another ride from the stable. Draw your own conclusions”.
In retrospect it appears that Anntelle was a lot better than she’d been showing the stable and caught them completely unawares. She finished up having twenty nine starts for eight wins and ten placings - a pretty handy mare.
A little over five years later Jamie De Belin figured in another massive boilover. He was sitting in the jockeys room at Warwick Farm when a steward walked in asking if there was anyone who could ride at 49 kgs. “Ron Dufficy had been booked for Pablo’s Pulse but requested a release when he felt ill after an earlier ride”, said Jamie. “I put my hand up and next thing I’m outside talking to trainer Craig Oldfield. We were getting a lot of weight off the fancied horses and I asked him if I could just let the horse roll along. He agreed, we rolled to the lead soon after the start and the rest is history”.
The track was the equivalent of a Soft 7 on that fateful day at Warwick Farm. Jamie let Pablo’s Pulse drift out into better going around the turn, while Campaign King and a couple of others got into the worst of the going.
The despised outsider held on grimly to just stave off the noted wet tracker Targlish.
Pablo's Pulse clings on to beat Targlish (inside) in the 1987 Warwick Stakes.
The jockey rode the gelding on only two other occasions finishing second to Campaign King in the Chelmsford Stakes, before an unplaced effort in the George Main Stakes. Pablo’s Pulse never won again after that shock Warwick Stakes success. At his 41st and final race start he finished last, twenty five lengths from the winner at Taree.
Jamie rode quite a number of winners at 100/1 or better and firmly believes there’s a reason for this. “When most jockeys get on a long priced one they tend to go back and ride it like a weak horse”, he says. “Before long that horse gets cunning and loses interest in the race. “My theory was that you’re probably going to get beaten anyway and there’s little to lose by changing tactics. Every now and again you can snap a cunning horse out of that mindset”.
Jamie De Belin was one of six children born to Connie and David De Belin in the Sydney suburb of Marrickville. His mother is of Maltese stock, his father is Australian born of French descent. When it was time for young De Belin to find a job he elected to become an apprentice chef, but lost interest in that vocation after only six or seven weeks.
He was fourteen years old and weighed twenty seven kgs. Despite an absence of racing background in his family it was a no-brainer that he should try his hand as an apprentice jockey. He was way too small to follow the lead of his great mate Jeff Fenech who was already looking to a career in boxing - a career destined to take him to world titles in three weight divisions.
A quick phone call to the AJC led him to an interview with respected Randwick trainer Albert McKenna, a true gentleman of his generation in Sydney racing. At the time Albert was rivalling Theo Green as a master tutor of apprentices with Gavan Duffy and Graham Robson already in his care. An interview followed with the veteran trainer and a day or two later Duffy and Robson had themselves a stablemate.
Anntelle and Pablo’s Pulse may have propelled De Belin into the subject files of the Guiness Book Of Records, but there was another horse in the McKenna stable who remains his favourite to this day.
Mintaka was the first winner he strapped and his first barrier trial ride. The same horse provided the lad with his first winning ride and his first metropolitan winning ride. “I rode many better horses than Mintaka but he was very special to me”, says Jamie.
Image courtesy Steve Hart Photographics - A vigorous J De Belin drives Jogger to the lead close to home in the December Handicap at Randwick 21/12/1985. Runner-up is Border Raid (Mal Johnston) with Ken's Fortune (Kevin Moses) in third place.
Almost certainly the best horse De Belin rode in a race was the hugely talented Black Shoes who won the 1981 Blue Diamond for McKenna and apprentice Graham Robson. He won a race on the Osmunda filly at Randwick in 1982. “You couldn’t believe how laid back she was as a two and three year old”, reflected Jamie. “The day I won on her at Randwick she put her head down in the barrier and started to pick grass. Naturally she missed the kick but zoomed through to join the leaders. She kicked away at the 200m and went on to win. She was very fast and very genuine - a terrific filly”.
Jamie De Belin’s riding career was halted in its tracks on New Year’s Eve 1988. He was involved in one of the worst pile ups in Australian racing history, when ten of sixteen horses came down approaching the hometurn in the Inverell Cup.
He regards himself lucky to have escaped with a single crushed vertabra - a serious enough injury, but a reasonable result given the magnitude of the accident and the number of horses involved.
Eighteen months later twenty five year old Jamie de Belin resumed race riding and quickly picked up the threads. The winners were starting to flow when an unruly two year old at Kembla spoiled the party. “I was cantering down to the barrier when it dropped its head and pelted me halfway to Wollongong’, he recalled. “I landed on my tailbone and gave myself a decent twist at the same time. I’d crushed the T5 vertabra again”.
Jamie’s specialist strongly advised him not to ride again, warning that a similar injury could result in more dire consequences. With heavy heart he quit the game he’d loved so dearly and immediately entered the restaurant business. He worked in his brother’s restaurant at Padstow for some time before establishing his own business on the Central Coast.
Almost seven years later the racing bug bit once more. He was only 34 and decided to give race riding one final fling. He began an intense exercise regime and got his weight down to an acceptable level, before regenerating his career on the Gold Coast.
Image courtesy Steve Hart Photographics - Jamie De Belin returns to scale on Jogger after a Randwick win in 1985.
Jamie worked harder than he’d ever worked before but progress was slow. He found that riding a lot of work didn’t necessarily guarantee race rides, but that was only a part of the problem. For the first time in his life he was finding it difficult to keep his weight in check. “Suddenly I found myself skipping meals and spending a fair bit of time in the sweat box”, he said. “Weight had caused me no grief in thirteen years as a jockey, so this was a hell of a shock to the system”.
The weight problem got worse and so did the shortage of decent rides. “It was time to call it quits. I’d ridden around 750 winners, made some great friends and enjoyed my time as a professional jockey. I just quietly slipped away from the racing game”, reflected De Belin.
Never one to let the grass grow under his feet, Jamie De Belin reinvented himself and got on with life. He hasn’t wasted a minute of the last twenty years. Many people in racing have wondered what happened to the jockey who contributed to racing history. His CV is well worth a quick perusal.
Tour Guide NT Adventure Tours 3 years.
Restaurant owner/manager Oscar’s Cafe and Restaurant Alice Springs 18 months.
Restaurant owner/manager and Sous Chef The Mediterranean Restaurant Palmerston NT 5 years.
Remote Vocation and Educational Trainer Taminmin College. 2 years.
Hospitality and Commercial Cookery Lecturer Charles Darwin University Palmerston NT- 18 months.
Kitchen Operations Manager Ausfuel Gull NT and SA.- 2 years.
Principal trainer for Hospitality and Rural Operations Dept. Of Education and Children’s Services at Darwin 18 months.
Food Production Manager/Executive Chef Gate Gourmet Darwin at Darwin 2 years.
Remote Employment Specialist GTNT -Darwin 2 years.
Casual Chef De Partie Darwin Turf Club during Cup Carnival 2014/15 2017/2019.
Currently self employed as a Hospitality and Training Consultant in Darwin.
In recent years Jamie has swapped the silks and satins for a chefs uniform.
De Belin’s talents are not restricted to the hospitality business. He was also commissioned by the Fred Hollows Foundation to write a book on nutrition, and somehow found the time to complete the task. That little publication sold over 30,000 copies in just two and a half years.
Jamie’s experience in the racing industry hasn’t been completely lost. He occupies a seat on the NT Appeals Tribunal and has been very adept in that role. “It’s great to think I can put my racing experience to good use”, he says.
The amazingly versatile former jockey lives in Darwin with his English wife Clare who he met during his days as a Tour Guide at Kakadu. They are the proud parents of Kaitlin (8) and Haydon (10).
Jamie has regular contact with the children of his first marriage. Son Jerome is 28, while his daughter Rhiannon is 30 and is to be married next year.
Had Steve Hart not sent me the photo of Pablo’s Pulse, the mystery of Jamie De Belin’s disappearance would have deepened. Thanks to the wonders of social media we’ve been able to track him down and review his fascinating post racing life.
As he looks back on thirteen years as a professional jockey, he ponders just one regret. To this day Jamie can’t understand why somebody from Tulloch Lodge didn’t give him a pat on the back when he won on Anntelle.
He believes when you’re winning on a 500/1 chance, you must be doing something right.
(Banner image courtesy Steve Hart Photographics - Jamie on Pablo's Pulse before finishing second in the Chelmsford Stakes. This was two weeks after Pablo's Pulse scored a shock win in the Warwick Stakes)