It’s been a fairly hectic 12 months in horse racing, and there has been a few changes for me as well to say the very least.

A few months back I walked away from the saddle so to speak and I’m not missing being in it. I’m still very happy with my decision as racing is a game that you have to be one hundred per cent committed to and I simply couldn’t do that anymore. When you have success people in racing simply cannot understand why you would have any notion to quit, but I just want time to see what else life has to offer.

I’ve loved having a few months to just look around at everything, and show jumping at the moment is something I’m very interested in exploring. My mother’s side of the family is big into the show jumping world, as is my girlfriend, so it’s definitely worth a look. It’s all about time, I was never able to fully commit to the sales as finding enough hours to do what I needed to do with a young horse was always difficult as it never ends when you are riding at the track every day!

One element of being a jockey I will definitely not miss is waiting around this week to try and find out what I might be riding at Cheltenham. It was torturous, there was never anything you could do to find out what you might ride, there was nothing you could really do to get on a better horse and you were just waiting around. There’s an insecurity in the job that can be very hard to take.

Cheltenham Pandemic

It’s mad to think it’s been twelve months since Cheltenham, and thankfully the general public shouldn’t have the same contempt for the festival as they did a year ago.

Looking back, crowds probably shouldn’t have been allowed in, but how could anyone have seen what was coming? We didn’t know anything about the virus at that stage and the official advice for everyone was that it was ok to travel.

My father didn’t go last year, so I stayed in a house with my girlfriend and my mother down the road from the racecourse, and we just weren’t aware about what was happening back home.

After the few days we went back to Ireland, and it was like we had leprosy – the public didn’t want us racing people to come home at all! It wasn’t fair as anybody who went could not be blamed for not foreseeing what has happened since, as I’ve already said.

I think there will be positives though. By us all not being able to go this season I’d say next year will be amazingly busy and it will be even better again. People will be very hungry to get out and about so there could even be a knock on effect for local racecourses too. I think a few of the evening meetings at Wexford or somewhere in the summer could become very busy as a result.

Prestbury Park

I know Cheltenham is huge and that’s an understatement as whenever you hear of a young horse people say this is a “Supreme horse” or an “Albert Bartlett horse”, they don’t even need to mention what distance the horse might run over. Saying that though, Cheltenham was never a racecourse I really enjoyed as I suppose I just never had my big day there.

I was second twice in the Ryanair, I was second on Monalee in the Albert Bartlett and I was second in the County Hurdle twice as well. It just never fell right for me and I think like anything you only ever get a real feel for something when you win.

To be honest I found it a fairly moderate track to ride around. It’s very trappy and I always found it very hard to get into a proper rhytm as it’s down the hill and up to a fence etc. I always found it very difficult to get a horse flowing there, and I just didn’t enjoy it. As I said though, I just never had that winning feeling at Cheltenham, or really I never even thought I was going to win there as I never jumped the last on the bridle etc.

I should’ve enjoyed it more as it was a track you could gain advantages at, a proper jockey should be able to do well there as it is a difficult course to ride around and you can steal lengths at different parts of the course, but I probably just didn’t have the horses. I remember saying to Barry Geraghty once “Jesus I hate this place” and he just said back to me “wait until you’re on a proper one, they’ll take you everywhere and do everything for you”.

That just never happened for me.