Childs to utilise claim for final time

Jordan Childs has achieved a milestone by outriding his claim but the apprentice will still get to utilise his allowance one more time at Caulfield.

Childs, son of now-retired champion jockey Greg Childs, rode his 80th city winner at Sandown on Wednesday on the Archie Alexander-trained Azurite.

Because acceptances for Saturday’s Caulfield meeting were already declared, Childs can still use his 1.5kg claim on his five rides despite reaching the metropolitan win milestone.

“I’ve finally done it,” Childs said.

“It was a bit frustrating because the last few weeks I’ve just been running places every Wednesday and Saturday, but I’ve finally done it now.”

Childs is tall for a jockey and usually restricts himself to riding at 55kg or above.

“I manage my weight quite well and I don’t ride light all the time,” Childs said.

I’ve had to work hard and the name only gets you so far.

“People didn’t think I would last this long but I’m still here and still going quite strong.”

Childs has ridden 27 city winners in Melbourne this season with another one in Adelaide, but had been stuck one win short of the milestone for more than a month since winning the Listed Straight Six on Tashbeeh on May 20.

During that period he also served a careless riding suspension.

“I rode a fair few winners in a short amount of time, then once I got down to needing one winner it’s taken a long time to get the last one,” he said.

Childs can add to his season tally on Saturday with the Darren Weir-trained Kiwia, the $2.60 favourite in the Dream Thoroughbreds Handicap (2000m).

Kiwia was a close second at Flemington last start with Childs aboard and meets the winner of that race, Royal Order, again.

Nikitas, another Weir-trained runner who Childs finished second on at Flemington three weeks ago, is on the second line of betting at $5 in the SECUREcorp Handicap (1400m).

Childs is also booked for the Weir-trained Approved Anger (race three) and Smackdown (race eight) and the John Salanitri-trained Royal Island (race seven).