Kieran Shoemark has been booked to ride Dancing Gemini in Saturday’s Coral-Eclipse.
Roger Teal has turned to the jockey with doubts surrounding the availability of Dylan Browne McMonagle, who was aboard the three-year-old in both the French 2000 Guineas and Betfred Derby.
The trainer told Tuesday’s Nick Luck Daily Podcast: “Obviously Joseph O’Brien has got Al Riffa entered and Dylan is Joseph’s jockey so we thought a while back we’d be searching for a new jockey for this race.
“Al Riffa was confirmed on Monday so we had to cover our bases and we tried to get Oisin (Murphy) on board, he rode him in a piece of work last week, but unfortunately he’s got to go to Haydock on Saturday.
“Kieran steps in for the ride. He’s ridden him a couple of times as two-year-old in work before he ran and rode a winner on his mother so balancing everything up his name came out on top.”
So will Shoemark keep the ride even if Al Riffa isn't declared?
“I think so. We’ve got to this stage now and it would be unfair to Kieran to take him off. It’s always hard, you want the best available on the day to ride your horse and we’re not a big stable so aren’t able to retain a jockey, we have to do what’s right for our horses," Teal continued.
“Dylan is always going to have other commitments being based with a big stable, Kieran as well and Oisin too, whoever the big name jockeys are they are always going to be committed to their own stable and we just have to do what is right for us on the day and Kieran ticks a lot boxes and that’s the decision we’ve made.
“He’s a very, very capable jockey, you’ve just got to look through his CV, which I studied on Monday very hard. He’s very capable. Things haven’t gone great for him this year with Mr Gosden on the very big days but I'm not being rude but those horses he’s riding might have their best days behind them and when Mr Gosden finds new talent I'm sure Kieran is going to be riding him plenty of Group One winners."
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