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By Ray Hickson

It’s the dream job Kayla Nisbet never knew she wanted and after almost a year in front of the camera the reigning Country Championships winning jockey says retiring from riding could be the best thing she’s ever done.

Just a month after Nisbet rode Asgarda to a memorable win in the $1 million Country Championships Final at Royal Randwick she swapped the saddle and whip for a microphone and a form guide as a presenter for Sky Racing.

Kayla Nisbet, 2024 Country Championships Final winning jockey, is loving her role as Sky Racing Presenter. (Pic: Jess Webber-White/Bradley Photos).

She’s now a regular alongside Graeme White covering racing in her ‘back yard’ - the South East and Southern Districts of New South Wales.

As she looked back on the decision to end her riding career a few years earlier than she’d planned, the 30-year-old says there’s no doubt it was the right choice.

“It was a lot harder than I expected at the start, even just doing form I didn’t realise how differently we do form as a jockey,’’ she said.

“Learning the behind the scenes things and being in front of a camera, it’s been harder than what I thought and I’ve been lucky I’ve been able to transition in my area.

“When I was approached about a job potentially coming up, at the time I wasn’t prepared to finish race riding.

“By the time the job was offered to me I thought about it long and hard and thought the opportunity wouldn’t be there for me in two or three years. And what if I succumbed to injury or something and I’m forced out, maybe the job won’t be there.

“It wasn’t necessarily that this is exactly what I thought I wanted to do, it just fell into place.”

It did play on Nisbet’s mind that, like a lot of jockeys, she left school in year 10 to pursue racing so she didn’t graduate high school.

As it’s turned out she now has the “best of both worlds”, she’s grown into a role she’s making her own while still being able to ride some trackwork for her father – Canberra based trainer John Nisbet.

“It opens up so many doors,’’ she said.

“For me to get qualifications doing anything means I’d have to go back to school. So to fall into a job like this that’s given me more experience than in a normal role outside of riding it could open doors for something else.

“I ride work for dad on the days I don’t come to the races so I think I have the best of both worlds. I ride a few for him and do the groundwork, I call myself the foreman there.

“That’s also what’s made the transition easier.”

Not many jockeys get to go out on a high and that’s what Nisbet feels she did when she won the biggest race of her career in front of a huge crowd at Royal Randwick and to do it for a big supporter in Wagga trainer Doug Gorrel was fitting.

While Asgarda’s win wasn’t her last, a few more came her way in the month prior to hanging up the saddle, she said it “topped off” her riding days.

“I thought ‘I’m not going to reach any more heights than what I’ve done’, it was the cherry on top and after winning that I was very comfortable with the decision,’’ she said.

“That was the pinnacle for me and a great way for me to bow out.

“I’m under no illusions about my riding ability. The Country Championships and The Kosciuszko have given country participants an achievable goal.

Asgarda and Kayla Nisbet return after winning the 2024 Newhaven Park Country Championships Final (Pic: Bradley Photos)

“Obviously everyone in racing, whether it’s owners, jockeys, or trainers, want to win a Group 1 but it’s not achievable for a lot of country people.

“It’s just a dream and it’s not achievable for us as country jockeys so have this there it feels like a Group 1 and that’s why I’m so rapt the owners and trainer stayed loyal to me because it means so much for a country jockey.”

Asgarda started $26 when she won the Country Championships Final.

There wasn’t a lot of expectation other than to run to her best but Nisbet had the sense on race morning, as Randwick recovered from an overnight deluge, that the mare was a sneaky chance.

“I was going there confident that she was going to run well,’’ she said.

“I knew she handled all conditions, drawing a soft gate I was going to be able to ride her wherever I find her which is half the battle in these high pressure races.

“I didn’t think she was a chance of beating Bandi’s Boy but I was thrilled the morning of that the races were going ahead because we liked a wet track.

“I was surprised that she won but I was expecting her to run well.

“I only rode five more winners after that so it kind of does feel like that was the end.”

The actual end came at the Wagga Cup carnival where she rode her final winner on the Thursday and had her swansong in the Wagga Gold Cup the next day.

That season she rode 45 winners and fell just short of a milestone she’d hoped to reach before hanging up the saddle. But, jokingly, she says in a few years it won’t matter.

“I would have liked to get to 600 winners, I got to 592,’’ Nisbet said.

“So that’s probably my only regret but I figure in 10 years’ time I can tell people it was 600 and no one will be fact checking.”

*This article appears in the April 2025 edition of the Racing NSW magazine

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