I think the days of a horse being overpriced because a filly is on board are long gone. Undoubtedly happened in the past, when something of a novelty, but these days almost all of the filly jockeys are more than capable and I think punters now realise this. Any punter who thinks that Nina Carberry, Katie Walsh, Amy Ryan, the Gannon girl and most of the other filly riders on the back of a stead is a negative will quite quickly see themselves knocking on the doors of the poor house.
The undoubted fact is that the price of a horse will be larger if a rider deemed to be ‘poor’ or ‘unknown’ is on board as opposed to a top notcher, like ‘King’ Kieren or Ryan Moore. But these days, from a punting perspective, I believe the definition of ‘poor’ is judged solely on the standard of riding rather than the sex of the pilot.
As old boy Nassau said if anything having a filly in the saddle can lead to horses, in fact, being underpriced. Turner’s media profile is far in excess of her actual talents (I’m not saying she’s poor by any means but not in the ‘top half dozen’ as her profile implies) and ‘mug’ punters tend to latch on to her because she is ‘well known’. In fact this latter opinion, in my view, also applies to that Dettori creature.