Donagh pictured with trainer Johnny Levins after the pair had a double at Dundalk in January© Photo Healy Racing
I’m from New Ross in Co Wexford and my father and uncle had point-to-pointers and I loved going point-to-pointing with them on Sundays. They are real National Hunt people and still follow that side of the sport very closely but after I spent a couple of summers at Jim Bolger’s yard I started to focus more on the Flat. My sister had got me going on horses at home but I only really learned how to ride when I went to the RACE apprentice school.
Even when I was in school I always had a very keen interest in being a jockey and I was lucky that my parents let me go to RACE and proceed straight into working in racing from there. If I had done my time in RACE as a transition year student and then gone back to school, because I’m quite tall I probably would have filled out by eating normally at home and not having the advice of a dietician. As a result I probably wouldn’t have had the chance to pursue a career on the Flat but the way it happened gave me the chance to keep my weight under control. I’m able to manage it quite well at the moment and the recent raising of the weights was obviously a massive help and badly needed because it’s obvious that everyone is getting bigger these days. When the season gets fully into swing it’s a lot easier to manage it. All of the jockeys have their own diets and I’ll have a sweat in the bath or go for a run if I need to lose a little bit of weight. I think people’s moods have improved because they’re not having to use saunas so much as well.
Good Counsel secondary school in New Ross has produced quite a few jockeys and the vice-principal Aidan O’Brien is a big racing fan and is very supportive of anyone who has an interest in making a career in the sport. He often takes the students on visits to stables and I was in first-year when he brought a group of us to Ballydoyle. We also went to Aintree for the Grand National meeting and Mick Kinane, who was there to ride in a legends’ race, came out to talk to us which was very inspirational.
When I was growing up I was a fan of Richard Hughes. He had a lovely style, was a very sympathetic rider and was a great stable jockey for any yard. I’m a bit of a homebird and am happy to stay riding in Ireland. Moving to Britain was an option but driving four or five hours to ride one or two horses doesn’t really make much sense to me, to be quite honest. I know we all want to be jockeys but that’s seems a bit of a madness to me.
Donagh winning on Hernes Hill at Cork earlier this month© Photo Healy Racing
I’ve been with Johnny Levins on the Curragh since graduating from the apprentice school and he trained Miller Beach who was my first winner at Naas in 2014. We’ve both learned as we’ve gone along and he’s always given me plenty of support. It’s hard for a trainer who’s starting out to be in a position to do that because he has to try and keep his owners happy, but he’s stuck by me and I’d like to think I’ve done the same.
I suppose it took me a while to go through my claim compared to some lads but there’s a lot to learn in this game and I feel I’m a better rider now with a few years of experience under my belt. I had a good run of things at Dundalk during the winter, including in the races restricted to riders who hadn’t ridden more than 20 winners in the previous season. It gave me the chance to ride for people that I hadn’t ridden for before and opened a few doors for me. I rode winners for John McConnell and Dermot Weld during the Winter Series and I ride out at both of those yards now as well as for Johnny Levins.
I rode a Listed winner at Navan for Ger Lyons three years ago on Inverleigh and was just touched off in the Group 3 Ballysax Stakes for him in 2020 when that race was run at Dundalk. Settle For Bay was a great horse for me and I won four in a row on him at Dundalk during the winter of 2017/18. Unfortunately I picked up a whip ban at Hamilton which meant I couldn’t ride him in the Royal Hunt Cup that summer which he duly won and that was a hard pill to swallow. These things happen and you have to learn from them and my disciplinary record has been pretty good for the last few years.
It was great to ride the first treble of my career at Cork last week and hopefully things will keep rolling along for the rest of the season. I’d love to get a few more chances in the higher profile races and have something of quality to really dig my teeth into at that level. That’s what we’re all striving for in the weighroom.
