It amuses Dean Yendall when people he plays golf with or bumps into on the Horsham streets say how busy he must be at this time of year. "I'm like, 'I ride every $#@! day of the week!'"
Pick up the paper, he tells them, and you'll find they're racing somewhere in Victoria, every single day, and more than likely he'll be there. Good Friday and Christmas Day offer the only respite, "and soon enough there'll be races then too".
Jockeys' Association boss Des O'Keeffe thinks Yendall is a great story of an average junior who was rough around the edges and a bit grumpy, whose work ethic and insatiable appetite for race riding make him as crucial to the industry as the spotlit Williamses and Olivers. Of seeing his name not only at Warrnambool, Geelong and Ballarat this week, but in the Cox Plate field too, O'Keeffe says: "I think every rider in Victoria would be cheering for him."
Racing Victoria steward Corey Waller says Yendall's conduct is exemplary, reporting that, despite all those races, he's virtually never been given a rap over the knuckles for interference. He reminds Waller of his own father, Ken, a former country Queensland jockey who'd get the odd big big ride, "and everybody would want to see him get up".
Yendall likes his chances on Gai Waterhouse's Wandjina on Saturday, but doesn't reckon a win would change a long-held perception that he is essentially a "country jockey". "Maybe, maybe," he says. "But I don't think so."
At 40, the son of a Westmeadows butcher can see the upside in the truth behind the tag. At the end of every racing day, he points his hard-working car at Horsham where his wife and fellow jockey Christine Puls and their cherished baby daughter Mia are waiting. "Words can't describe how good it feels to come home and see my girls," Yendall says, his voice breaking to recall they once talked about not having children. "I wouldn't give her back, that's for sure."
He clocks up close to 90,000 kilometres a year, a marathon commute that last season amounted to more than 900 rides for 146 wins. The last car they traded in did 180,000 kilometres in barely two years.
So much racing, combined with where they choose to live, affords Yendall an unusual luxury for a jockey. He rarely rides trackwork, so gets up as late as 8am, plays with Mia for a couple of hours, then heads off to work.
"Because he's not up at three in the morning, we don't sleep in the middle of the day, we're off doing stuff all day," says Puls, a farm girl from Jung who has watched her husband morph into a bushie too. "When he gets a day off he can walk 50 metres and put his fishing rod in the Wimmera River, or be on the golf course in no time." They have a putting green around their swimming pool and a shared love of animals that Puls thinks would be dangerous if they were on a farm.
They're best friends, a stark contrast to their early dealings, when Yendall had moved from a Jerilderie apprenticeship to Ararat. "It's terrible to say this, but I actually hated him," Puls says, having found him arrogant.
Yendall agrees with the "arrogant" tag and remembers himself as a shy person who needed steering around strangers. When rides didn't pan out as hoped he'd tell the owners: "Your horse is $#@! useless." He thought they'd appreciate the honesty; time has taught him subtlety.
Darryl Dodson, a trainer with a similar liking for the road, put him on everything. A stint with the Hayes stable, two years in Adelaide, brought him no closer to metro acceptance, but in recent years he's become a regular for the prolific Darren Weir. "It's like any job – if you're not prepared to do the work you go nowhere," Yendall says.
Brad Rawiller, the only Victorian who spent more time in the saddle last season (with 1055 rides), concurs. "It's my career path – Dean's in the same position – if you don't do it you get left behind."
The travellers don't car pool, because Rawiller generally needs time in the steam room to make the weight – an occupational hazard Yendall is grateful to avoid. "We're natural little lightweights; we walk around at 49 (kilos) and eat whatever we want," says Puls.
She says her husband is "a brilliant cook" and a passionately healthy eater. Yendall expanded his culinary horizons watching Jamie Oliver, Bill Grainger, et al, and loves dipping into his many cookbooks. He avoids the temptation of all those highway drive-throughs, but curses that there's no other option when leaving Swan Hill with a grumbling stomach. "I'll have a Big Mac and feel shit half an hour later."
Puls says there are people in both their families who've struggled with their weight. "We've just been active and made sure we don't."
This helped land him the ride on Wandjina, and Puls is grateful a trainer "who knows what she's up to" has shown faith in a jockey who is a career lightweight, rather than a binge dieter in search of spring riches. Yendall can handle the country tag, but seeing heavier hoops crash his territory is irksome.
"In wintertime most of them struggle to ride the minimum weights of 54, 55 kilos, then miraculously, come springtime, they can ride as light as they want."
He's in form, riding two winners at Geelong on Wednesday before heading to Melbourne to ride Wandjina in work on Thursday. A few years ago they bought a one-bedroom Docklands unit Yendall says "is like our own motel", and makes more sense than paying hundreds in accommodation on those rare nights in town.
He thinks he's got a good chance of giving Waterhouse a first Cox Plate to take home to Sydney, a city his little family holidays in annually, and where a few years ago he got hooked on another pursuit that keeps him on the move. "I came back with a skateboard, one of those big street ones," Yendall says.
Puls says he's a natural, cruising the Horsham footpaths with their dog on a lead, dragging him faster and faster. "You get some speed up, have to hunt for the grass to slow down."
It's about the only time he puts on the brakes.
