Rising apprentice Beaux Banovic-Edwards rides the girl-power wave

Beaux Banovic-Edwards believes in girl power — and she’s banking on it for another win at the next Carnarvon race meeting. The apprentice has previously ridden in what race officials thought might be a world first — a race meeting at Moora featuring all female jockeys in 2018. She said the growing presence of female jockeys was encouraging to see. “It’s good,” she said. “You see all the people signing up lately, it’s mostly all girls, and it’s good to see the numbers increasing. “It’s all over Australia, if you watch the races you see every third jockey is a girl.” In her second year, she said she hadn’t been in the race game quite long enough to know whether being a female jockey presented specific challenges, but she planned to stick around long enough to know. “I’m sure I’ll find out,” she said. The meeting at Geraldton Turf Club on Friday will be the last to run in the more southern location before the races return to Carnarvon for the rest of the season. Banovic-Edwards said she was hoping to get enough rides to make it to this meeting — based on her recent form, you would hope she would be there. Last meeting at Geraldton she won the Happy 77th Birthday Ted McGuire Handicap, named in honour of champion jockey and trainer Eddie McGuire, who became a quadriplegic after falling from a horse in Geraldton in February. “I was pretty happy to win it,” she said, “especially for a trainer who has supported me and always puts me on.” The trainer was Robert Smith, and the horse was Blitz Glory. Smith said Banovic-Edwards had an even better record on another horse of his, Diamonds For All. In her past four regional rides on the horse, she’s won three firsts and a second. “That girl can ride,” Smith said. “She’s not only a sprint rider, she’s also a staying rider. “She’s ridden four winners for me lately.”