Keith Clarke

I'm from Pelletstown, Co Meath and I got into racing through my family - my mother is a Geraghty, her brother Tucker is Ross and Barry's father. We were always riding ponies and going to riding school and it went from there. Barry took me pony racing one day and I got the bug, and I wanted more and more. I used to love going racing with a horse that had a chance and then leading in that winner. It was a buzz and I remember getting off school to go with my uncle Tucker for a winner in Kilbeggan. That probably gave me the biggest buzz to want to be a jockey.

When I was in school, I went to Tony Martin's and went to him full-time when I left school. I spent four years down there. He had great staff and great jockeys coming in riding work. You got the opportunity to go schooling and riding work. Then I was in charge of the likes of Davids Lad (subsequent Irish Grand National winner 2001). I got the opportunity to take out my amateur licence and then my conditional licence. I wanted to be riding more regularly, so I sat down one night and went through a list of trainers within an hour's drive of my house that I could try and get to if I went freelance, and that's what I did. Within a month, I rode my first winner for David Broad and it went from there.

I got myself out a good bit and concentrated on getting rides. It was a struggle riding as a freelance, but when you went into the likes of David Broad or Tom Foley and they said you were riding, you were riding and that was it. I had a good agent in Garry Cribbin. I remember one time driving at night to get the boat to go to England to ride work the following morning in Wales for a small trainer there, and I got a few rides for him. I was going over there a bit. I didn't drink or smoke and I was dedicated because I knew you only had a few good years at it. I gave myself the best opportunity I could. I had to try and get as many rides as I could from as many trainers as I could. If you want something so bad, you have to work at it. I gave it as much as I could to get as much as I could out of it. I would have liked to achieved a lot more, but you make decisions in life like choosing between horses in a race and it is all about making the right decision.

Through riding work for Tom Foley, a chance call came from a daughter of Tom's called Sharon. Her husband said Michael Bowe was looking for someone to ride work for him. So, I jumped in the car that morning and rode work on a horse and who knew that a few months down the road I would get the call to ride and win on Coolcashin in the Grade 3 Ladbroke Hurdle on Irish National Day. It was one of my biggest winners and being at a local track too was special. That really got me established and then things took off.

Before that, I had been to Australia to take a break from it all - I got on a flight after riding a winner at Leopardstown to see something different. I came back refreshed and hungrier. I went to Tony Mullins and Pat Hughes and kept travelling. Things started happening for me and I was more mature for it then. I would have loved to have ridden more winners like a lot of jockeys, but it just didn't happen. Then the recession came in and there were horses you would be riding all the time and, all of a sudden, you weren't riding them because the more senior jockeys were more available because there were smaller fields. Owners wanted value for money, so they were putting up senior jockeys which they were entitled to do.

At that stage I was looking long-term as I wasn't going to be a jockey forever. While I was in all these yards, I was teaching myself and watching how they trained to take the best things from their training and use it down the road for me. While I was still riding, I was doing one or two breezers at the sales. I was then prepping horses for Derby Sales and Land Rover Sales. When you are training and doing sales work, you are looking at the horse as an individual and you pay more attention to detail. You appreciate the animal more than when you were going racing and getting a good spin. Every horse is different.

I have a small yard and I know every horse individually, the way they eat and how they drink. All these things come with years of experience doing the job. There's a lot to it and I still have a lot to learn. I started beside the home place in Drumree and numbers went up all of a sudden, so I went and rented a yard over in Lee Valley (Ratoath). I was there for four years and we had a good run of it. My father passed and I make no bones about it, I kind of lost focus. I wasn't really concentrating I suppose. You really have to work at this. After Lee Valley I went over to Hilltop near the Naul to a bigger yard and, while I was there, I got the call from Barry Connell to see if I would go down and help him get going until he got his licence sorted. It was the right call at the right time for me. It was a good opportunity to go down and see the top-class facilities. What he has done this year is incredible, he's a great trainer. He was an owner who deserved to get the results that he got with the money he spent in the game. To have those colours running under my name was nice to see. While I was there, I was saving money so I could put in a little canter at home.

Then Covid-19 came in and, since then, I have been back home in Drumree. We have an extra four stables with pens on them, so horses that have lung issues or breathing issues live in the pens. They are constantly getting fresh air. I have 12 boxes which is enough for one person to do because one thing I've noticed in big yards is that horses can become numbers. I try to focus on every animal to their individual needs. That's my niche in the market. I like going to the beach for the horses to relax and wind down. At the minute I have availability for three horses. I am also open to pre-training and breaking.

I had a filly, Jeremys Joy, that wasn't easy to train and wasn't easy to ride, and I used to get up at 5.30am every morning to ride her before the lads came into the yard. She won the Connacht Oaks (in Roscommon 2017) for me. She was a handful and so hard on herself. If she got a run on you, nothing would stop her. She had some ability and to me it was special to win the Connacht Oaks with her. A lot of tears went into keeping her relaxed. She even nearly turned herself upside down in the trailer going to the races that day. Robbie Downey gave her an absolute peach of a ride that day from last to first.

I have three nice juveniles in. When I get a new horse in, and they give you that feel, it gives you that little bit of a zip in your step that you want to go up and see the horse now. This is why I do it. My goal is to train a Listed winner. Everyone wants to be champion trainer, but realistically I'm miles off that. I would like to train a better class of horse. I have great owners and we will get there at some stage. We are just climbing the ladder slowly.