Craig Newitt, Chad Schofield and Dean Yendall have all stripped their bodies of the last gram of excess weight to make the 49.5 kilograms allotted to their mounts.

For Schofield (Sweynesse) and Yendall (Wandjina), the challenge isn't as arduous, as they comfortably weigh about 50 kilograms.

Schofield, it should be noted, won the race last year on another three-year-old, Shamus Award.

However Newitt has had to lose about four kilograms in the past three weeks since securing the ride on Almalad.

With his wife Karli overseeing his diet, Newitt has been able to get down to the featherweight allocated to three-year-olds in arguably Australia's toughest race.

For a jockey to lose weight from an already deprived body, and maintain strength at the same time, is one of racing's toughest challenges and it was never more relevant during the career of one of Australia's greatest jockeys.

Roy Higgins rarely rode below 54 kilograms during his career, and even then he barely ate a thing as the following extract from Roy Higgins: Australia's Favourite Jockey reveals.

HIGGINS would only eat a minute piece of steak, chicken or fish with maybe a couple of steamed veggies on the side and Saturday night was his "breakout night", according to his daughter Nicki.

The diet was only half of the torture that Higgins would put his body through. His youngest daughter Martine recalled that "he was always on the go, having to do something to meet Saturday's race weight. And even on Saturday mornings he'd be in the sauna with the Glad Wrap on, just to drain out the excess fluid on the morning of the racedays. He was often quite dehydrated."

It was truly a shocking regimen to keep riding, and one that wouldn't be endorsed today.

At a Hall of Fame dinner a few years ago, Nicki and Martine attended with their father and watched in shock as the top jockeys of the time ate a full meal. Martine said, "I think it was Greg Hall at the time, and he was hoeing down on a beautiful roast meal.

"And I said, ignorant to it all, 'What are you doing now with your life?' He responded, 'Oh, yeah, I'm riding. I'm still riding.' 'I'm like, 'Oh, OK.' He goes, 'Yeah, I'm racing on Wednesday'. And it was just bizarre to see him with a plate full of food."

She had grown up where the broth in a soup was often as much as their father would allow himself to eat. allowed.

The dietary regimen is a vivid memory for the girls, who compare what Higgins went through with the science of today's weight-loss diets. Nicki noted that there's a more complex understanding of dietary matters now, and that "the more frequently you eat the little portions, the easier it is to control your weight and lose weight. Where back then obviously they didn't understand those sorts of things and it was just 'starve yourself to get the weight off'."

While starving himself to get the weight off, Higgins would also play golf and run in sweat pants. He was constantly trying to achieve weight loss. The commitment itself should be lauded; however, the method was dangerous.

Nicki and Martine described his meticulous techniques. "He would sit in the sauna wrapped in Glad Wrap. It was really strange to watch him because he would sit there dripping with sweat and he would rub his hand down his arm and all this sweat would run off and he would be putting it into a container or a cup to monitor how much he was actually losing. And then he would get out of the sauna and he wouldn't drink a glass of water or anything because he'd just be putting straight back on what he lost."

Jockeys are stood down every day of the year all over the world for being dehydrated, and Higgins was no exception. 

Higgins' battle to make his riding weight each week and his resultant relationship with food and fasting shaped the way the Higgins family went about their daily routines.

Genine played a pivotal role in not only raising their two daughters but also ensuring her husband was fit and ready to ride. She didn't have a degree in nutrition and didn't feel comfortable asking others for help.

Higgins was very private when it came to his wasting, and in turn it was left to him and Genine to battle this everyday task together.

When a jockey is involved, the concept of sitting as a family around the table for dinner is completely foreign. 

Genine recalled that the constant fasting over the years had shrunk Higgins' stomach to the point that he could only digest certain foods. "He couldn't stomach dry food. As a rule, he needed gravy or something with it for digestion purposes. He would eat little cabbage rolls, little rissoles, cold sausages and he would love a roast on a Saturday night. But with all these things, he would just pick at them slowly, small bits at a time. He just couldn't eat large amounts."

It was perhaps only the wives and families of other jockeys who could relate to the pitfalls of fasting and the effect it had on family life. Genine remembered the wife of another jockey from that era telling her that she would feed the kids at 4.30pm and then open up every door and window to get rid of the food smells before her husband came home.

"Whilst I never went to these lengths with Roy, it was hard, because he was starving half his life due to the wasting he went through," Genine said.

Despite Higgins' shrunken stomach and commitment to staying light, he confessed to eating more heartily on the odd night off.

"I used to stray," he said. "So I'd get home Saturday night and that was my great big roast with vegetables and a bottle of wine or

whatever I could get my hands on. Sunday, I'd be up at five in the morning having a piece of that leg of lamb on toast with sauce all over it.

"Monday morning, I'd jump on the scales and I'd probably be in the vicinity of about 58 or 59 kilograms stripped. And I'd start off Tuesday after trackwork straight to the sauna and I'd then come and I'd take off five or six kilos to ride the next Saturday and then put it all on again. These days, it's done more professionally."

For the 29 years he was licensed to ride, Higgins' breakfast varied rarely unless he was suspended or injured. He would have a black tea without sugar and a piece of toast without butter. After trackwork was finished, he'd return home around 9am for another cup of black tea, never indulging in a cube of sugar. 

Edited extract from Roy Higgins: Australia's Favourite Jockey by Patrick Bartley, Penguin, $39.99.