Clerks of the course employed by country race clubs need to be more pro-active and show a bit more enthusiasm than we saw at Ballarat last Thursday.

When My Villena dislodged the rider at the barrier, both clerks must have thought it was time for a tea break as they downed tools and just looked on.

With the riderless horse galloping up and down the track several times, one of the clerks, a rather rotund gentleman looking as if he should be carrying the pony instead of the pony carrying him, observed proceedings from a far.

After an unnecessary delay, a young lady, who was attending the horse, came down from the mounting yard giving the two clerks a 30 second demonstration of how to catch a horse.

Damian Lane was the star apprentice over the weekend, riding the first two winners at Bendigo on Saturday and the first winner at Yarra Valley yesterday.

He came over from Perth more than 12 months ago to join the stable of Matthew Ellerton & Simon Zahra, and hasn’t taken a backward step since arriving.

The opportunities were there to join the stable, he has accepted the challenge, the results are paying off, he is a highly promising young jockey, he communicates well with owners explaining how their horses have performed in a race.

The future of All Too Hard hangs in the balance, whether he will race again is not likely to be decided on the spur of the moment.

A lot of midnight oil will be burnt before any decision is reached; too much is at stake and those that make mistakes rarely wear medals.

The investment in All Too Hard is believed to be $25 million, you have to step wearily, no hasty decisions that are likely to jeopardise the stake in the horse.

Those that have invested in the horse have to be protected, he cannot afford to be soiled, a couple of racecourse defeats could change a lot things.

It is more than possible, that if All Too Hard was retired immediately to stud, he would gross $30 million in service fees before the first of his progeny even raced.

That is the main reason our good colts are retired so early, they can earn more at stud than they ever will on the racecourse.

Foxwedge is a good example, he went to stud as a four year old covering a big book of mares at $33,000, he is currently on the shuttle service in the U K.

N S W Jockeys and Trainers weekly winning lists week ending 17^th March 2013.

JOCKEYS.. Greg Ryan 6, Tommy Berry 5, Brenton Avdulla 4, Corey Brown 4 James McDonald 4, Raymond Spokes 4, Hugh Bowman 3, Grant Buckley 3, Christian Reith 3, Peter Graham 3, Peter Robl 3, Blake Shinn 3, Jason Taylor 3, Ricky Blewitt 2, Andrew Bloomfield 2.

TRAINERS John O’Shea 6, Chris Waller 4, Guy Walster4, Gai Waterhouse 4, Luke Griffith 3, Trevor Hardy 3, Hawkes Team 3, Trevor Sutherland 3, Bjorn Baker 2, Brett Bellamy 2, Gary Colvin 2, Greg Cornish 2.