Racing is a fashion game as much as a form game. On the track, not just in the grandstands and cocktail bars at carnival time. 

Craig Newitt rode an Australian-trained winner at Royal Ascot when Miss Andretti won the King's Stand Stakes in 2007. He finished second on the Victorian jockeys' premiership in 2011-12 ,  and has partnered more than 30 group 1 winners.

But at 32 he saw opportunities dwindling and his future fading as other riders began to get mounts he might have had just a year earlier. In addition, competition in the Victorian jockey ranks is intensifying as a new crop of talented young apprentices make their mark.

So he grasped the nettle and switched camps, moving from Caulfield, where he was based for 15 years after coming to Melbourne from Tasmania as a teenager, to Flemington.

It was a wrench, as he had been associated with the Mick Price stable for so long.

But Damien Oliver, Mark Zahra and youngster Michael Dee had been coming in for more of the yard's rides, and Newitt knew he had to do something if he was not to slide further down the list.

It's been a gradual process, but he feels that with the help of Winx's trainer Chris Waller, he is now getting there. 

He broke a run of 75 losing rides at Flemington when he won on Waller's Overstep on May 20, and he scored on the same filly again there last Saturday..

"If you are not riding winners of course it dents your confidence. I knew I wasn't riding bad, I just wasn't getting the opportunity to win races," Newitt says.

"Victoria is probably the most competitive state in the country. There are so many good riders here.

"I just had to change something up and I thought I would give Flemington a go. I have been at Caulfield for 15 years and apart from Mick never really ridden for anyone else.

"The change has been good, and it's paid dividends.  I have been at Flemington for three months now."

Its all about visibility, says Newitt - and future proofing the next phase of his career.

"I was still doing the day-to-day grind, but I was going to the races for one or two rides. Twelve months ago I was going for seven or eight."

Newitt's relationship with Waller was developed while he was based at Caulfield although the Sydney champion's Melbourne satellite yard has always been at Flemington. 

He had won the group 1 Makybe Diva Stakes for Waller aboard Foreteller in 2013, and also scored in the group 1 Metropolitan at Randwick on The Verminator two years earlier.

Newitt is one of the few "group 1" jockeys who can ride very light, which also gives him an advantage.

"If you are there working hard and doing your best he's [Waller] happy to reward you."

Newitt says he has always been grateful for the support Price gave him, both when he was trying to get established as a youngster and when he returned from an 18-month disqualification early in his career.  The pair combined early this season to win the group 1 Moir Stakes with sprinter Extreme Choice.

But the reality now, he says, is that "the numbers just weren't there".

"There was no falling out - it's just that he has a lot of riders there and it was becoming very slim pickings. I have a wife and three kids, so I had to do something.

"I had slipped down the pecking order as a result, and in a 12-week period I had eight rides [for Price]  ... it's just one of those things, they happen, and you have to deal with it."