‘They’re delighted to jumping out of bed at 6.30am’ - Meet the teenagers hoping to become the next Rachael Blackmore

“The exhilaration,” she recalls, smiling. “I realised that first day, straight out, this is what I wanted to do.”

Williams had been in line for a trial for the Dublin football team, but GAA’s loss might well be racing’s gain. “I always knew I wanted a career in horses, so I did some research and found RACE,” she says. “My parents said, ‘if this is what you want to do, we will be behind you. We don’t want you regretting anything’.”

Focus, determination and passion are an absolute must at RACE, where 25 trainee jockeys aged between 16 and 19 are on an intensive residential programme. The starts are early and the hours are long. By 8am (and often, by 7am) the trainees are already working in the racing barn.

“It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. They’re delighted to be jumping out of bed at 6.30,” says Caroline Strong, operations manager at RACE.

There, they muck out, get involved in yard work and take the academy’s racehorses — all retired champions — for rides across the Curragh. After lunch, there are school lessons in subjects from business and IT to communications and equine science.

Even after dinner at 5pm, the learning doesn’t end.

“On midweek evenings, there are fitness classes, and often — pre-Covid at least — we would have had industry talkers visit for evening talks,” says Strong. “We do a lot of mindfulness and personal development stuff. We watch content on the British Racing School website — often accounts on how people became a jockey.

“Even in their downtime they are encouraged to use the horse simulators or pulling their whip through. There’s a lot of character building going on. Because you’re not just building a jockey, you’re making a person.”

RACE’s leafy campus is nestled in between the Japanese Gardens and the emerald expanses of the Curragh. It’s easy to see how it has become a place that breeds winning jockeys, among them Seamie Heffernan, Daryl Jacob and Padraig Beggy.

The building halls are covered in photos of champion jockeys; the gym walls are festooned with inspirational posters featuring logos like ‘Don’t Wish For It, Work For It’, or ‘Success Doesn’t Come To You, You Go To It’.

In the canteen, a fresh newspaper clipping of Rachael Blackmore takes pride of place on the noticeboard. Blackmore is of course the Irish jockey who rode Minella Times to a landmark victory in the 173rd edition of the Aintree Grand National this month, becoming the first woman to win the race.

“There was huge excitement when that happened, as Rachael is fairly local and living in Carlow,” Strong says, adding that it wouldn’t be unusual for the trainees to find themselves “bumping into her” on the Curragh gallops.

“She has given so much of her time to the students. In terms of talking to the girls in particular, she was great, telling them the things you have to look out for. She would say to them that she doesn’t necessarily feel like a ‘female’ jockey.

"Your gender doesn’t matter any more. You’ll be lifting wheelbarrows and all the rest. Expect to be spoken to like everyone else in the yard.”

Five years ago, the gender ratio at RACE ran close to 3:1, boys to girls. Now, the split is closer to 50:50.

“It’s funny, ask the boys what they want to get out of being here, and they’ll have always said, ‘I want to be at the top of my game,” says Strong. “The girls would have usually just said, ‘I’d like to do well’. But that’s all changed. They’ve seen Rachael do it, and the glass ceiling has pretty much been smashed.

“There’s more of an acceptance of girls being jockeys. The students here have seen jockeys like Nina Carberry and Katie Walsh do great things. The lads are definitely looking over their shoulders.”

Mia Nicholls, 16, from north Yorkshire, comes from a racing family: both her parents were jockeys, and she entered pony racing at an early age. Watching Blackmore win the Grand national was “incredible to see”.

“It was a real breakthrough moment, but I wouldn’t say I necessarily see her as a female jockey: she’s just a jockey. She sees herself as no different. If I do become a jockey, that’s the attitude I’d like to have, not to be singled out as a female.”

As it happens, the young women can often have a slight advantage over their male counterparts. It’s not unusual for a young man to arrive at the school and experience a growth spurt, which makes keeping their weight down more of an effort.

Where trainee jockeys had to weigh less than seven stone in previous decades, now revised regulations state that trainees must weigh nine stone or under.

“The girls seem able to manage their weight a little better,” Strong says. “Girls’ bodies mature a little earlier, but when a lad comes in at 16, he might grow a foot during the year.”

In a sport in which the jockey’s weight is paramount, weight control has long been an issue. Reports abound that jockeys across the world have engaged in unhealthy behaviours for years in a bid to make the strict requirements for racing, from abusing laxatives to skipping meals.

Former champion jockey Richard Dunwoody admitted in his biography that his career has been blighted by anorexia. A Brunel University study published in The Journal Of Sports Sciences in 2008 claimed that jockeys hoping to be selected for big races were resorting to extreme methods to keep their weight down.

This is an aspect of the industry that RACE is aware of, not least because teenagers seem particularly at risk to disordered eating, even outside of the racing world. A sauna was removed from the campus some years ago as a precautionary measure, under the assumption that sauna use is a possible method of removing water weight.

“We are very much on top of it all,” Strong says. “Gillian O’Loughlin, our dietitian, comes in on the first week of the course and advises the trainees on nutrition and calories. We don’t focus on weight in terms of ‘you shouldn’t be eating that’. Instead, we make sure that the trainees acknowledge what nutrients are in everything. If they’re having a treat, that’s fine, but they need to know how to acknowledge that calorie intake.”

John Miller is RACE’s resident chef/catering manager, and is also a Pilates instructor. Alongside O’Loughlin, he has created a rolling menu packed with low-GI, nutrient-dense dishes. He has come across his fair share of picky eaters on the job; some trainees are vegan, but not overly fond of vegetables, while others have lived a ‘chipper’ diet for years.

“A lot of them are just typical teenagers,” he says.

That’s the other thing: while RACE is an intensive training academy geared to engendering greatness, there is also a tacit understanding among its staff that teenagers will be teenagers. The trainees enjoy social media on what little downtime they have (although most trainees prefer to engage in other sports on the weekend), although there is a strict anti-cyberbullying policy in place.

They live in bubbles of four in on-campus accommodation, segregated by gender. A close eye, via CCTV, is kept on the accommodation after hours, while a buzzer on each front door alerts a supervisor to any nocturnal comings and goings. Not that supervisors are much exerted on that front: “The kids are far too tired at the end of the day,” Strong says.

Nicholls doesn’t see the considerable course-load as any kind of sacrifice or hardship. “I enjoy having a full day,” she says. “I don’t like sitting around doing nothing. If I had the time, I’d be watching racing. It can be tricky, if you want to go out with friends and do they they’re doing. But I make sure to eat what I like and do fitness stuff every day.”

Amy O’Driscoll, 16, from Kilcullen in Kildare, started horse-riding when she was four, and realised early on that her love of horses amounted to more than a hobby.

“You do miss being at home with friends and doing little things like walking to the shop, but when you find something you love, you want to make something of it,” she says.

RACE Ireland opened in 1973 as a social project for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds by its founders, local vet Stan Cosgrove and social worker Derek O’Sullivan.

Nowadays, the spread of backgrounds is much more diverse. Via annual trials, trainees have been welcomed into the academy from the Traveller community, and from urban equine project initiatives like the Moyross Project.

“We also have the Pony Club kids, where mum and dad rock up in a Land Rover to collect them on a Sunday,” says Strong.

“RACE is a bit of a leveller. Just because you happen to be quite wealthy does not mean you have talent. We have normal teenage friction that has nothing to do with socio-economic background.

"You might notice that with the inner-city kids, there’s a real hunger to succeed there. But once they get into the barn, they are mucking out side by side and all struggling with the various horses’ personalities.”

Nicholls then explains that each horse in the barn is rated from 1 to 4; one being docile, and 4 being more temperamental. Each trainee is placed with a different horse each day. Which does she prefer? “The 4,” she laughs, as though stating the obvious.

“The faster, the better,” O’Driscoll enthuses. “There’s no other feeling like racing a horse — it’s pure adrenaline.”

During the trials for RACE, candidates are picked out from around 50 or 60 hopefuls.

“It does come down to riding ability, but the most important thing is attitude and a willingness to learn,” says Strong. “If a teenager is ‘I know it all’, you don’t feel they’re coming to learn. On the trials we watch for the eye-rolling and the ‘do I have to?’.

“Although jockeys are solo athletes, there is lots of teamwork happening behind the scenes. They might be on their own competing against other jockeys on the course, but in every team, they’re all in this together to get this one horse over the line.”

After training, many of the graduates go on to yard placement before applying for their jockey licences. Some are kept on by local trainers, while others find work in the UAE, Japan, New Zealand, the US or Australia on large racehorse farms.

Niall Byrne, who graduated from the course in 1976 and now works at RACE, coached in Japan for seven years after retiring as a jockey.

“It’s an incredible opportunity for these kids,” he says. “If you play your cards right, you can travel the world.”

And of course, glory of the kind that Rachael Blackmore has recently enjoyed is rarely far from the mind. “I remember thinking, ‘I could be there some day’,” Williams says. “The feeling you get watching that… it’s almost like I won it myself.”

5 women who smashed racing’s glass ceiling

Rachael Blackmore: The daughter of a dairy farmer and a school teacher, the Carlow native became the first female rider to win the Aintree Grand National this month.

Meta Osborne: A licensed vet who established Tinnakill House stud, she became the senior steward of Ireland’s Turf Club in 2015, and the first woman to helm an international horse racing regulatory body.

 

Bryony Frost: The Englishwoman became the first female jockey to win a Grade One race over obstacles, on 20/1 outsider Frodon, at the 2019 Cheltenham festival.

Nina Carberry: The daughter of racing legend Tommy, the Meath woman became the first female jump jockey in Ireland and Britain to win a Grade 1 race when taking the Champion Bumper at the Punchestown festival in 2006 on the Noel Meade-trained Leading Run. She won the race again the following year on Mick The Man, another trained by Meade.

Katie Walsh: The Kildare jockey broke new ground when she came third in the 2012 Grand National on Seabass, giving her the highest finish to that date for a female competitor in the race. She also became the third woman to ride a winner in the Irish Grand National, in 2015.

Irish Independent