Robbie Moran © Photo Healy Racing
BEING forced to retire from race riding due to injury was a disappointment. I had my last ride four years ago and I’m still only 35. I would have liked to have stayed going for another few years but you just have to get on with things and I’m doing that, looking forward to what will hopefully be successful fixture on Sunday at Thurles.
I had some good times in 20 years as jockey. I got into racing through point-to-points, starting off for a local trainer in Wexford, Padge Berry. I did my Leaving Cert and went full-time into the points after that. I won the Eastern regional title in 2005 and turned professional then, joining up with Paul Nolan.
I won the conditional jockey’s championship that first season. I’ll never forget I had a great Christmas that time, riding six winners and I finished with 28 but a bad leg break set me back and I never managed to regain the momentum.
I got to ride some excellent horses, especially as an amateur; the likes of Bewleys Berry, Fundamentalist and Snowy Morning. Snowy Morning was actually my last winner in a point-to-point before I turned pro, at Clonmel for Colin Bowe and he went on to be third in a Grand National. Southern Vic and Bannow Strand were others. I won a listed chase on Hi Cloy for Michael Hourigan while I was still an amateur and he went on to win a Melling Chase and a John Durkan.
Point-to-pointing has changed a lot from then. The Wexford lads like Colin Bowe, the Doyles and Denis Murphy, you’d have to take your hat off to them. They’ve worked hard and been successful. It’s so commercial now and the good horses are sold for plenty money. It’s just a different era and time moves on.
Racing on the track is so competitive too. As a jockey you’re depending on good horses and they were very limited for a journeyman jockey like me. That’s how it was and is to a lot of people. It’s a numbers game now and it’s very difficult if you don’t have access to those numbers.
Over the last few years I was riding, I had Cootamundra who was a great horse for me. Whether it was a two-mile maiden hurdle, a beginner’s chase, over three miles, he was always on the bridle between the last two fences, so you had some sort of chance, and it was great to win a Troytown on him.
It was a different calibre to the type of good horse Willie Mullins or Gordon Elliott or JP McManus or Gigginstown would have but for me, he was the kind of horse that you enjoyed riding. Fethard Player was similar— he’d jump and travel. Maybe it was false hope they gave you at times but it was better than most of the others you’d be riding that would have no chance.
Another thing I know well is that while I had a lot of problems with my shoulders that led to my retirement, I’m blessed compared to a lot of other lads. I got out of the game and I can still do what I want. You think of the likes of John Thomas McNamara and Robbie McNamara, both of whom I rode against. So I can’t complain. It is what it is and you move on.
My wife Kate Molony is manager of Thurles and I was helping her, her sisters Patricia, Helen and Annmarie, and her mother Ríona out where I could, even when I was still riding. It was actually where I had my last ride on Halls Bridge, on February 12th, 2015. I never announced my retirement but I knew I was finished.
So it was natural to put a bit more time in at Thurles when I had it. I am mainly hands-on. I help Richie Brennan and Declan Carroll with the layout of the track, maintenance of the stables, just trying to improve things around the place. It’s actually only when you stop riding you realise how much work goes on behind the scenes to get a racecourse ready for a meeting. It’s not as simple as turning up!
We’re looking forward to Sunday, which is one of our two biggest meetings of the year in terms of quality, with the Kinloch Brae, which is now sponsored by the Horse and Jockey Hotel, and the Coolmore NH Sires’ Mares Novice Chase, both Grade Twos, and the WT O’Grady stayers’ novice hurdle.
Lorcan Wyer was down this morning and we’re calling the ground good — a very safe good. We had five mils of rain yesterday. The temperature has dropped and it is going to be cool so it’s not going to dry out. We’ll be on virgin ground that hasn’t been used since this time last year. There’s a good covering of grass. If it was Cheltenham or Aintree you’d have no problems bringing your horse but at this time of the year, trainers are a little more cautious.
The problem seems to be that we had such a dry summer, the rain doesn’t seem to be getting into the ground fully. People are getting frustrated but what can you do? We have never seen anything like this. Our aim every day is to provide safe ground for both horse and rider. You try your best and that’s not enough for some people, but there’s only so much interfering you can do with nature.
Having been a jockey definitely helps. You know from riding what’s safe and what’s not. If a bend’s too sharp, different types of ground. You’re at it for 20-odd years. You’d want to have some idea by that stage.
The Molonys have always had a few broodmares and there are five at the moment, while I have always bought foals myself every year to sell on as three-year-olds usually. It’s another interest. We try to sell the foals from the mares, bar the odd one we might want to keep. We talk about it amongst ourselves where we think the mares should go — myself, Kate, and her mother — what might be suitable for each mare or what’s fashionable at the time.
I was always very fond of pedigrees and I really enjoy seeing the younger horses’ progress. If you do sell them on it’s nice to see them doing well. Ready And Able is one that was bred by Kate’s late father Pierce out of the Oscar mare, Gypsy Mo Chara, by Flemensfirth.
He’s just turned six and is with Jonjo O’Neill, owned by the Smith/Magnier/Tabor combination we’re used to seeing on the flat. He won three handicap hurdles this season before falling last time out in a Pertemps Qualifier in Newbury. He looks decent and it would be nice to see him keep going forward. He looks a three-mile chaser in time but he’s going the right way at the moment. Let’s hope he’s okay after the fall and he gets to some of the big meetings. Time will tell.
