Don't ask Koby Jennings how tall he is. He doesn't know — and certainly isn't going to try to find out. And if one more small-bit owner gawks at his gangly frame when he walks into the mounting yard to be legged aboard one of their horses — well, he won't know what to say.
"It's not uncommon for me to walk out and an owner point out how tall I am," Jennings shrugs. "It's not something I like hearing, but it's true so I've just got to put up with it."
The softly spoken kid who knocked around Victoria's Sale track as the latest in a long line of racing devotees — both his father and grandfather were trainers and he's related to the Stockdale clan — is a jockey who can look you straight in the eye.
The winter weight battle — when those last few grams grumble and don't want to leave the wasting body — has been costly, in more ways than one. Stewards have hit the hip pocket when he has just failed to make a weight and valuable rides have been forfeited.
Not surprisingly one of the few jockeys the 20-year-old can look eye to eye with has been somewhat of an inspiration. "Tye Angland ... we've got the same build being tall and lanky," Jennings fired back when asked for a jockey mentor. "We've picked up a few things on his style and he's been a good role model and always good to help.
"But I try to avoid [thinking about the weight]. If you think about it too much it just destroys your mind too much. The more you think about it the more you stress. The more you stress about the worse things tend to go."
Things haven't been going too badly. Jennings is closing in on losing his three-kilogram claim in the city in the final few months of his apprenticeship before he decides whether to seek an extension.
Winona Costin aside, there is arguably no better junior rider for trainers to take advantage of.
Yet the kid who needed 35 rides to rack up his first winner – and a steep learning curve in racing's perennial outback in Darwin – has been a star slowly on the rise ever since.
"I remember my first race ... I finished about 20 lengths last at Traralgon," Jennings laughs. "[My first winner] was going nowhere at the furlong, ran on and puts its head down right on the post. It was frustrating and I didn't think it would take that long [to break my duck]."
Thanks to the help of former Territorian Stephen Brown, Jennings reasons he learnt to become a jockey in Darwin. He led the premiership with Brown's backing at one stage — and learnt the "mongrel" required in competitive racing.
"And then I broke my hand twice," Jennings says. "I was kicked in the hand twice — one time after another. I actually went on holidays and got kicked in the hand by a horse. I rang up the boss and said, 'I'm coming back with a broken hand'. The same week I was due to ride again I was kicked in the hand by another horse.
"It was actually 10 minutes before I was due to ride in a trial in front of the stewards to prove my hand was right. I rode that trial with another broken hand and didn't realise it at that time."
Whatever Sydney master Kevin Moses saw in Jennings, he certainly knew he was getting a tough kid. After short stints in Canberra the apprentice will celebrate his first year in Sydney this week.
After riding winners at the last two Saturday metropolitan meetings, Jennings only has Plutorius and Decision Time, to fall back on.
"I'd say Kevin and the team have been a huge help just getting me out there," Jennings says. "From the start of my career I've never been the one out there. But every time I get pushed behind a shadow I come out and ride a city winner on a Saturday and get kicked back out there again.
"I become a senior in October so I've got to establish myself somewhere. It really wouldn't worry me if I was riding at Kembla Grange and Newcastle if I have to."
Just as long as there's not an owner marvelling at how tall he is for a jockey.
