Dean Yendall has ridden more winners than any other rider in the nation in the last 12 months, yet the Victorian hoop is still struggling to regularly book rides in town.

Yendall topped the Australian Jockey Premiership with 156.5 wins, however only 24 of those came at Metropolitan meetings.

However Yendall believes the national premiership will open doors and lead him to a big 2011/12 racing season.

“Trying to win a Group One race, that would be my next goal and trying to get a ride in the Melbourne Cup and hopefully have a bit of luck in it,” Yendall said.

“A Cox Plate ride would be good too. There might be a little light weight ride going around.”

Yendall exceeded even his own expectations over the last 12 months, and he even admitted that he was pleaseantly surprised when he learned that he was a chance in the nation-wide jockey premiership.

“The national premiership wasn’t a goal. The Victorian one I concentrate on, I just try and get as many city winners as I can,” he said.

“Not realising about the national premiership, someone said to me a couple of months ago, ‘you’re right there, you’ll probably win it’ and it wasn’t until then that I thought about it.

“I had a couple of good city wins, a couple of listed races, and there were a couple of nice wins at Warrnambool and Swan Hill, so it’s been a really good season.”

The race for the national premiership between Yendall and Craig Newitt went down to the wire and either man could have won it going into the weekend of the season.

Yendall was in top form at Caulfield on Saturday, riding Diggersanddealers and Massoni to victory, which gave him a 3.5 win lead over Newitt, who failed to salute the judge on Saturday. There were some who thought Newitt could overtake Yendall thanks to a full book of rides on the Sunday at Sale, however ‘Froggy’ could not kick home a winner and the prize was Yendall’s.

“Craig had a heap of rides at Sale and I only had four at Warrnambool, that was all I could have (because of the jumps races), and once I rode a winner there and watched a few of the Sale races I knew he had no chance of catching me.” Yendall said.

Yendall’s tally of 157.5 wins was 4.5 wins clear of Yendall, while New South Welshmen Greg Ryan came in third with 143.5 wins.

While the race for the national jockey premiership went down to the wire, Peter Snowden cantered home in the national trainers premiership with 224.5 wins, some 28 wins clear of Peter Moody.