It would appear not a matter of if but when James McDonald will become Australasian racing’s greatest Group 1-winning jockey. On Saturday he joined Damien Oliver, George Moore, Hugh Bowman and Jim Cassidy as Australian or New Zealand jockeys to ride 100 winners at the elite level.
Oliver was 41 years old when he notched his century on Fiorente in the 2013 Melbourne Cup. Three days earlier Cassidy had ridden his 100th Group 1 winner at age 50. Bowman was 41 when Forbidden Love gave him the 100 in March 2022. Moore was in his late 40s when he reached the milestone on the early 1970s.
McDonald is 32. It has been just 16 years between his first Group 1 win in the New Zealand Thoroughbred Breeders’ Stakes aboard Special Mission and his 100th aboard Via Sistina.
He has ridden 46 of those elite winners since September 2021, in which time he has won races worth a total just short of $150 million.
At his career strike-rate of six elite wins per year, he will surpass Oliver’s record total of 129 Group 1 wins by the time he is 38, but on his form in the past three years, that record could come as soon as 2027.
McDonald’s partnership with Chris Waller has clearly been key to this rush of success. Via Sistina’s victory on Saturday was the 37th Group 1 win in combination between the two expat Kiwis.
But he has also had 16 Group 1s with James Cummings and nine with John O’Shea. All in all, McDonald has ridden Group 1 winners with 23 individual trainers.
Those wins have come from 52 individual horses. Verry Elleegant has been his most successful with nine, while Nature Strip and Anamoe have eight apiece. That above trio have won four of the past five Australian Horse Of the Year Awards.
Hong Kong star Romantic Warrior has given him seven elite wins across Hong Kong, Australia and Japan, while (It’s A) Dundeel was responsible for six. Arguably, Dundeel was the most important of all of those, given he provided six of McDonald’s first eight Group 1 winners in Australia, establishing him as a top-class rider on this side of the Tasman.
James McDonald – most successful Group 1 horses
From a breeding perspective, those 52 individual Group 1 winners were by 44 individual sires. Given the Kiwi connection, it is perhaps not surprising that Savabeel leads the way in that regard with J-Mac having ridden four Group 1 winners by the Waikato Stud champion, while others to have had multiple Group 1 winners ridden by him are I Am Invincible, Northern Meteor, High Chaparral and Zoustar.
McDonald has ridden 11 Group 1 winners that have gone on to stud careers, including Group 1 producers The Autumn Sun, Dundeel, Astern, Real Impact and Shooting To Win.
James McDonald rode his first Group 1 winner as a 16-year-old.
Of that list, the only one McDonald has ridden Group 1 victories on their progeny is Astern, via his son Golden Mile.
McDonald’s 100 Group 1 wins have come across 63 individual Group 1 races.
His most successful has been the Verry Elleegant Stakes (the old Chipping Norton), which he has won four, while he has won the King Charles Stakes (the old George Main) three times, along with the Cox Plate, the Caulfield Guineas, the TJ Smith, the Golden Rose, the Tancred and the Ranvet Stakes.
He is now one of eight jockeys to win the Cox Plate on three or more occasions and just the third after Bowman and Brent Thomson, to do it in successive years.
James McDonald – most successful Group 1 races
Of his Group 1 wins, 30 have come at Randwick, 18 at Rosehill, 13 at Flemington, eight at Sha Tin and seven at Caulfield. All in all, he has ridden Group 1 winners at 17 different tracks in five different countries.
His sweet spot for Group 1 success has come in races from 1600 metres up to 2040 metres. Of his century of elite wins, 53 fall into that distance range. He has had 26 Group 1 wins over 1600m, 23 over 2000m, and another three over the Cox Plate distance of 2040m. He also has one over 1800m.
Via Sistina gives champion jockey James McDonald his 100th Group 1 success with her Cox Plate victory.
He has 13 Group 1 wins over 2400 metres and 10 over both 1200 metres and 1400 metres.
Regarding the age group of those Group 1 wins, five of them have been in two-year-old company, and 29 in three-year-old only races. That means there have been 66 victories for the champion jockey in open-age races.
James McDonald – most successful Group 1 tracks
