The pair were reunited at the Matamata trials on Friday and will resume an association that has seen them win two Group 1s together.
Elliot hasn’t been riding Legarto so far this season because he has barely been riding at all.
He has had just nine rides as he tried to get his body healthy and even after a long break he rode at just two meetings before needing another break.
The problem isn’t dedication, willpower or ability.
It is his body, which is a fraction bigger and heavier than ideal for a jockey, a profession where 3-4kg of bodyweight can be the difference between a lucrative career and looking for another job.
For Elliot, that means wasting and lots of it and there is only so long you can under-fuel your body before you pay the price.
So Elliot has had to pick his battles for much of the last five years but when working he has racked up Group 1s on not just Legarto but her stablemate Levante, Sharp N Smart, One Bold Cat, Ladies Man and Pennyweka.
“I love riding in the big races and I can’t wait to get back on Legarto in the Zabeel,” he says of Ellerslie’s Group 1 on Boxing Day.
“But I am also keen to do as much riding as I can over the summer.”
That was supposed to start over a month ago but after that long break, Elliot rode for two days and his body got angry.
“I have to be careful and I have got to make sure I am putting the right supplements in my body and replacing what riding takes out,” he explains.
“After those first two days back I felt pretty bad so had check-ups and tests and I have to stay on top of keeping my body healthy.
“But I feel good at the moment and want to get back into it.
“Obviously I really enjoy riding in the big races but I want to be busy and ride as much as I can over the next few months.”
Part of the reason for that is one of the few females who means more to him than Legarto, his fiancee Hollie Wynyard, the talented trainer who he now lives with in Cambridge.
“We are getting married next year so I want to have a big summer riding to help pay for the wedding.
“Actually, more so we can have a great honeymoon,” he laughs.
With many of the best jockeys riding at today’s black type Trentham meeting, Elliot is in demand at Te Rapa today, riding for leading stables Te Akau, Andrew Forsman, Cody Cole and Roger James/Robert Wellwood.
“I think it helps with a few of the other top jockeys being away at Trentham but I have a good book and I think all of them have to be at least each way chances,” says Elliot.
“But if I had to pick one out, I think The Nomad (R8, No.2) is a good chance in the last.”
While Te Rapa hosts a handy open handicap 1600m, the main focus for domestic punters will be on Trentham and its four black type races.
It could be a potentially huge day for premiership leader Craig Grylls, who rides the favourite in three of those four major races, including Lara Antipova, who has been smashed in the betting from $2.40 to $1.65 for the $175,000 Windsor Park Wakefield Challenge Stakes.
Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.