Jockey Annelise King, left, with Kathy O'Hara.
He may be eyeing off the Canberra Guineas with Zuccherina, but Luke Pepper revealed he won’t have the services of gun-for-hire Annelise King any time soon.
Pepper and King formed one of the most potent trainer-jockey combinations in regional NSW last year, but the talented apprentice has finally bowed to pressure to keep her weight down.
Nudging almost six foot on the old scale and setting the benchmark in height for jockeys in Australia, King has quietly slipped into retirement after making a winning cameo on Freetoair at Canberra late last year.
‘‘I had great luck with her,’’ Pepper said.
‘‘I don’t know what her record was with me but it was pretty ridiculous there for a while.
‘‘She was just like a little robot - you send her out there, put the instructions in and away she goes.’’
King was formerly apprenticed to Gwenda Markwell at Kembla Grange and steered Freetoair to victory in her only metropolitan-winning ride back in May. The mare finished mid-field in last weekend’s Bega Town Plate.
Pepper will press ahead with plans to aim top prospect Zuccherina at the Canberra Guineas after she ploughed through the wet to win at Kembla Grange last Saturday.
