Veteran jockey Chris Johnson is still 18 wins away from equalling David Walsh’s record for the number of wins in New Zealand.

 

Johnson recorded win No 2433 at Ashburton on Thursday and will continue his pursuit of Walsh’s record of 2451 wins - at Trentham and Woodville - this weekend.

 

A detailed check of Johnson’s riding records by NZTR this month found that his winning tally on the NZTR website was 10 wins higher than it should have been.

 

Twelve overseas wins had been mistakenly added to his NZ wins for the 1983-84 season and there were two wins over the previous two seasons which had been omitted from his record.

 

 Much of the detail for the riding records in the early 1980s was input manually, which resulted in some errors.

 

Most of those discrepancies were picked up when NZTR did a check of the winning totals for the leading active riders at the end of the 1998-99 season. However, Johnson was not included in that review as he had “retired” from riding at the start of that season and did not resume his career till 2005.

 

 Johnson has five rides at the premier meeting at Trentham on Saturday and seven at Woodville on Sunday.

 

He has an impressive record at Trentham, where his mounts include Zipitsweetie in the Group I Al Basti Equiworld Dubai NZ Oaks, Sensei in the listed Te Akau Racing Lightning Handicap and the unbeaten Exaltation in the Group II Carfinance.co.nz Wellington Guineas.

 

Johnson has won the NZ Oaks five times - more than any other rider – with the first of those wins coming in 1990 and he has won the Lightning four times.