RUSS Garritty may be one of the senior riders on the circuit - not that he'll thank me to reminding everyone - but he gave a startling reminder of his skills by completing a treble at Wetherby last week.

The Great Habton-based jockey was in blinding form aboard Silver Knight and Kentucky Blue, both trained by Tim Easterby, and was also seen to great effect on the John Quinn-trained Archie Babe, whose first hurdles victory completed the Garritty haul at combined odds of more than 55-1.

"This game isn't about jockeys, its about horses. And good horses make jockeys look like superstars," was Garritty's modest appraisal of his contribution to his afternoon's work.

Silver Knight was a most impressive wide-margin winner of the novices' chase, which was run in memory of Harry Atkinson, a great Ryedale character, who died last year.

A useful horse in the making, Silver Knight could well turn out again at Wetherby this Saturday in the feature race, which carries the name of the late, great One Man.

Kentucky Blue, owned like Silver Knight by Charlie Stevens, made a winning debut over hurdles when powered home a length-and-a-half clear by Garritty after looking a winner from the final turn.

A useful horse on the flat, and a winner both this year and last, Kentucky Blue has the size and scope to develop into a smart hurdler and his proven liking for soft ground should also stand him in good stead in the winter game.

While Silver Knight, one of our horses to follow in the recently-published Gazette & Herald list, duly opened the scoring for the ten-strong team, Vintage Premium tarnished his prospects with an odds-on defeat behind Archie Babe.

The Richard Fahey-trained gelding, a more than useful horse on the flat at around ten furlongs, failed to get home anything like as well as his principal rivals and, in the end, finished a tame third, with the James Hetherton-trained Valeureux denying him second place in the closing stages.

Success for Archie Babe was hardly out of turn. The prolific flat winner had suffered a crunching fall at the final flight in the corresponding race 12 months earlier when firmly in contention. A real favourite in the John Quinn stable, he promises to win again on the strength of this 17-lengths romp, which gave Russ Garritty an afternoon to remember.

Tim Walford also has good reason to remember this Wetherby meeting with a certain fondness. The Sheriff Hutton trainer produced a shock winner when 50-1 shot Petrea capitalised on the last-flight fall of Huka Lodge to win by a length and a half.

"I put everyone off backing her," admitted Walford, who trains Petrea, a former point-to-point winner for local owner-breeder Sarah York, a steward at several northern racecourses and a stalwart of the Injured Jockeys' Fund in her role as northern almoner.

Updated: 11:21 Wednesday, December 03, 2003