Friday, January 18, 2013 racingpost.com14INTERVIEW TOM RYAN

Jessica Lamb on a Cheltenham Festival-winning rider who hasn’t looked back since relocating 9,500 miles away

Ryan on . . .vvThe travellingIt’s a massive place all right, but we only race in two states and in Victoria, the state I live in, the longest we have to drive to a race meeting is four hours, which isn’t too bad – in Australian terms. When we go to South Australia to ride in Adelaide, they fly us over and that’s the same as flying from Ireland to Britain for a ride. We go there every second week in the winter.

vvThe continuing exodusThere’s a place near Melbourne called St Kilda that is Irishtown now. Every second person walking down the street is Irish. In the two years I’ve been there I have definitely seen an increase in the number of Irish people around me. The lads who came over partying – walking out of one job straight into another, not giving a damn – wouldn’t survive now, but there are still jobs and I still expect to see a fair few more Irish arriving.

vvThe lifestyleMy friends and family are the only thing I miss. It’s a great lifestyle finishing work at 9am and going to the beach, having barbecues every day in the summer, sitting out in the garden. And we get a proper break from riding – a few months, not a few days like in Ireland. Injuries were the other reason my career started going down the drain in Ireland and it has made such a huge difference to my body getting that rest.

Shane Jackson. They all came at the same time as Ryan, a time when the scene was changing; experienced riders like Brett Scott and Craig Doran were retiring and as the sport had been dwindling for years there were few young guns coming through, leaving a hole.

The Irish filled that. Some of the original contingent have returned home, but Niki O’Shea and Donal MacAuley intend to boost the team this year. They may be the last, however.

Ryan explains: “Young Australian riders are coming through now and in the pipeline is the introduction of a cap on the number of jump jockeys who can come from Ireland to ride here because the Australians want to keep bringing their own riders through. And they are right to do that too.”

Work is good. After the Grand National Chase win, Ryan began collecting Australia’s biggest races.

Last May he bagged Warrnambool’s A$100,000 Brierly Chase. ‘Jump on board the Tom Ryan express’ read the headline in Melbourne paper The Age in June when he became the fourth rider in history to take the A$200,000 Australian Chase and Hurdle double at Sandown on Megapixel and Kirribilli Gold.

A fortnight later Megapixel gave him victory in Bendigo’s A$100,000 Mosstrooper Chase, 11th in an 18-leg series of feature races run in Victoria that all the above are from and in which he finished fourth behind Pateman, Allen and local rider Brad McLean.

The victories didn’t stop in Victoria, with the South Australian Grand National Chase on novice Berlioz adding to his haul.

What now then?“Most of the tracks are very flat, but

Warrnambool and Sandown have big hills on them and remind me most of the courses at home,” says Ryan. “It’s Warrnambool, though, that I think is the home of jump racing.

“They have a big festival there in May, three days of jump racing, and it is packed every day. It’s their Cheltenham and the Grand Annual is their Gold Cup. That’s the race I really want to win now.

“When we were down at the start for it last year they were playing the Australian national anthem and as the horses looked at the first fence we all looked up into the stands. They were packed and there’s a big hill beside the stands, where all the old lads love to watch the race from, that was full too. When I was looking out at that I thought: ‘Jesus Christ, it’s just like home’.”

But better. Everything is better and as the 170-year-old industry grows once again, so will the name Tom Ryan.

their umpteenth call to ban jump racing.

Activists began campaigning for the discontinuation of jump racing in Australia in the 1970s and today it is legal only in the states of Victoria and South Australia, with less than one per cent of all horseraces, including trotting, run on the country’s 450 racecourses each year being over hurdles or fences.

Had he fled an industry in financial turmoil only to land in one facing termination? Thankfully not.

“It’s full steam ahead again for the sport now,” he says. “Last year it ended because people are sick of it and it was only a small group who were protesting. They made a lot of noise when the Greens held the balance of power, but now the government has put its shoulder behind jump racing.”

Whether that’s false hope for a game that has been bashed for decades remains to be seen, but the changes are already visible with the odd yellow hurdles replaced by regular ones and

progress its own. Homebred Steven

Ryan, but the rest of the

Paddy Flood and

H IS luck was out. His morale was low. His brightest memories souring. Jockey Tom Ryan had to go, and beckoning

to him was fair Australia with its golden soil, wealth for toil and boundless plains to share.

That’s what the melodic national anthem promises and, for at least one of the 3,000 Irish people who left their home country on the same path two years ago, the reality has lived up to it.

“It was around November 2010, the bubble had burst,” recalls Ryan, “and I couldn’t see much happening in Ireland. I had considered going to England and France, where I had a job offer, but it was still the same situation in England as it was in Ireland and I wasn’t gone on living in France.

“I had kept in touch with the jump jockeys I had met on the 2005 Irish tour in Australia and they kept telling me jump racing was starting to pick up again and it would be worth my while.

“I probably got jocked off a couple of horses and decided I’d had enough, booked a flight and ended up in Melbourne this time two years ago. It was pretty much as simple as that and it’s one of the only correct moves I’ve made in my life.”

Two seasons into his new life 9,500 miles away from home, the 28-year-old ranks among the top three jump jockeys in Australia, but until recently that meant little as his business has long been in jeopardy of compulsory extinction, an issue highlighted on the day of his first win.

Shocking Melbourne racegoers in his first August, he punched 50-1 outsider Man Of Class to a photo-finish victory in the A$200,000 (£131,000/¤157,000) Grand National Chase for trainer Ciaron Maher.

He had won the Pertemps Final at the Cheltenham Festival on another 50-1 shot, Kadoun, but his Australian breakthrough topped that with almost double the prize-money of what had been the richest success of his ten-year career.

The victory, though, was overshadowed in the morning papers by the death of horse Fergus McIver in the supporting JJ Houlahan Hurdle. His suspected heart attack had sparked another in a series of attacks on the sport from the Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses, who publicly made

‘It’s full steam ahead for the sport now. Prize-money is exceptional, fixtures are rising and there are incentives to get horses into jump racing’

The journeyman jockey making it big down under

hurdles replaced by regular ones and fences up to the height of point-to-point obstacles.

“It’s growing at a fast rate,” Ryan adds. “Prize-money is exceptional,

fixtures are rising and there are incentives to get horses into jump

racing which are working really well.”

A downside of this revival in Australian interest in jump

racing is the nation’s wish to progress its own. Homebred Steven

Pateman is the champion jockey and streaks ahead Tony

McCoy-style according to Ryan, but the rest of the

table is tight and it includes fellow ex-pats Johnny Allen,

Paddy Flood and Paddy Flood and

9,500 miles away from home, the 28-year-old ranks among the top three jump jockeys in Australia, but until recently that meant little as his business has long been in jeopardy of compulsory extinction, an issue highlighted on the day of his first

Shocking Melbourne racegoers in his first August, he punched 50-1 outsider Man Of Class to a photo-finish victory in the A$200,000

157,000) Grand National Chase for trainer Ciaron Maher.

He had won the Pertemps Final at the Cheltenham Festival on another 50-1 shot, Kadoun, but his Australian breakthrough topped that with almost double the prize-money of what had been the richest success of his ten-year

The victory, though, was overshadowed in the morning papers by the death of horse Fergus McIver in the supporting JJ Houlahan Hurdle. His suspected heart attack had sparked another in a series of attacks on the sport from the Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses, who publicly made

The best of your emails

vvGerry will be missedVery sad my old friend Gerry Foster has lost his fight against cancer. As a jockey, along with his brothers, he was an integral part of the jumping scene in the West Country in the 1950s. Always fun and great company, the world is a duller place without him.

Mary Gliddon

vvNo-one’s watchingWhy not run evening all-weather cards in the afternoon – that’s when punters are in the shops. After 6pm the offices are deserted.

Geoff Cape

vvDennis top-rated Superb column by Steve Dennis from the Upstairs Club – a welcome light-hearted view of the ratings recalibration.

Alan, Ayr

vvIf your name’s not down What a brilliant piece by Steve Dennis. I’m told there’s a Derby Winners bar at the Upstairs Club that even Dancing Bravecan only enter as a guest.

John Wheeler, Eastleigh

vvAin’t snow stopping usI hear one of the train companies has contingency plans to run a ‘virtual’ service if it snows. It means I should still be able to get to Steepledowns.

Mike Bell, Ashford

Richard Dunwoody 49 three-time champion jump jockey; Roger Charlton 63 trainer of Sanglamore & Quest For Fame; Micky Fenton 41 rider of Alcazar & Speciosa; David Maitland 66 rider of Flying Nelly & Ardoon; Xavier Aizpuru 38 US champion jump jockey 2007 & 2008; Kendrick Carmouche 29 rider of True To Tradition & Perfect Officer; Gerry Olguin 40 rider of Ablo;James Wigan 63 director of London Thoroughbred Services; Mark Flower 63 trainer of Duckey Fuzz & Roger Ross;Paul Dennis 48 rider of Ida’s Delight;Alan Taylor 65 former jump jockey;Anna McCurley 70 former Levy Board member; Rebecca Goldsbrough 34 secretary to Mark Johnston; Kate Harrison 31 vet & amateur rider;Graham Barrett 55 Totepool control-room operator; John Harnett 65 London punterPlease notify birthday greetings to us at least one week before publication

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CHATROOM

hugopalmeracing -9 in Newmarket this

morning. Everything white apart from lights of the heathmen working their arses off to keep it all open. We are v luckyThe show rolls on at HQ much to the delight of one grateful trainer

kimbaileyracing The weather forecasters

have got it wrong most of the time in the last 12 months. Hope they are wrong again tomorrow #forecastedtobesnowedinBut it’s not looking too good for Palmer’s Gloucestershire-based counterpart

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