Category: Jockeys

Does Aidan Coleman have a retainer with J.P. McManus?

The short answer is no, he doesn’t. Following the shock retirement of Barry Geraghty – who had replaced A.P. McCoy as retained rider to J.P. McManus in Britain in 2015 – in July, 2020, Aidan Coleman was short-priced favourite to replace him. However, concerns were voiced, at the time, that Coleman might not represent the type of unrivalled appointment that McManus had favoured in the past. Even Coleman, himself, was keen to play down speculation linking him to the role. He said, ‘I’m very fortunate that I ride for a lot of people, I’m very busy and I ride a lot of nice horses. I’m just concentrating on myself and what will be, will be after that.’

Coleman was one of several jockeys – the others being Richie McLernon, Jonjo O’Neill Jnr. and Richard Johnson – frequently used by McManus in Geraghty’s enforced absence, due to a succession of injuries, in recent seasons. That said, aside from Geraghty and McLernon, no jockey has ridden more winners in McManus’ famous green and gold hooped silks during the last five seasons. The situation became a little clearer in November, 2020, when, while discussing riding plans for the Champion Hurdle winner Epatante, trainer Nicky Henderson said, ‘J.P. [McManus] has got a lot of horses and Aidan is going to be riding a few of them. There’s no retained jockey in this country.’ In the 2021/22 National Hunt season, so far, Coleman has ridden 17 winners, four of which have been for McManus.

 

Where, and when, did Hollie Doyle ride her first winner under rules?

Standing just 5′ tall, capable of riding at 8st 0lb and nicknamed the ‘Pocket Rocket’, Hollie Doyle has taken the horse racing world by storm in recent years. In 2019, she rode 116 winners, thereby becoming just the third female jockey, after Hayley Turner and Josephine Gordon, to ride a hundred winners in a calendar year; she also broke the previous record, 106, set by Gordon in 2017. In 2020, even with 75 days of racing lost to the Covid-19 pandemic, Doyle increased her winning tally to 151, breaking her own record.

Indeed, 2020 proved to be something of a ‘breakthrough’ season. Doyle rode her first Royal Ascot winner, Scarlet Dragon, trained by Alan King, in the Duke of Edinburgh Stakes and her first Group 1 winner, Glen Shiel, trained by Archie Watson, in the British Champion Sprint Stakes, back at Ascot later in the year. In 2021, so far, she has ridden 146 winners, at the same 15% strike rate she achieved in 2020, so is on schedule to break her own record again.

Of course, everyone starts somewhere and while it seems a very, very long time ago that Hollie Doyle rode The Mongoose, trained by David Evans, to a half-length victory in the Betfred Mobile Sports Lady Riders’ Handicap at Salisbury on May 5, 2013, that was he first success under rules. At that stage, she was a 16-year-old amateur rider and still at school.

When did Richard Kingscote leave Tom Dascombe?

A graduate of the British Racing School in Newmarket, Richard Kingscote was apprenticed to Wiltshire trainer Roger Charlton, with 85 winners to his name, when Tom Dascombe came calling. Reflecting on those early days, Kingscote said later, ‘I was a bit dubious when Guy Jewell, my agent, told me Tom wanted me to ride all his horses. That just doesn’t happen, does it?’

Nevertheless, what followed would become one of the most enduring and successful partnerships of recent times. Kingscote is probably still best known for his association with the ill-fated Brown Panther, whom he rode to ten of his eleven career victories, including the Irish St. Leger at the Curragh in 2014. In September, 2019, he and Dascombe reached the career milestone of 500 winners with the victory of the two-year-old filly Brookside Banner at Haydock. At that point, Kingscote said, ‘Tom’s a lovely boss and all credit to him for giving me his support. Long may it continue.’

Despite that assertion, in early 2021, when invited by Sir Michael Stoute to pursue opportunities in Newmarket, Kingscote made the shock decision to relinquish his position as stable jockey to Tom Dascombe. Interviewed in August that year, Dascombe said, ‘He [Kingscote] hasn’t been our stable jockey basically for 2021.’ Kingscote has still ridden more often for Dascombe than any other trainer in 2021. However, his strike rate is a mediocre 7-120 (6%), compared with 19-97 (20%) for Sir Michael Stoute.

What nationality is Rossa Ryan?

Born in Ballinderry, near Tuam, County Galway on July 3, 2000, Rossa Ryan is an Irish citizen. He is, in fact, the son of successful National Hunt trainer David Ryan. A prolific winner on the pony racing circuit, Ryan was invited for a week’s trial by Richard Hannon in October, 2016, while still in school, and became apprenticed to the yard the following January. Reflecting on his decision to cross the Irish Sea, Ryan said later, ‘It was just too big to turn down. So, in January, I packed my bags and away I went. Haven’t looked back since.’

Ryan rode his first winner, Willwams, trained in the sunbets.co.uk Claiming Stakes at Lingfield on St. Patrick’s Day, 2017 – still three-and-a-half months shy of his seventeenth birthday – and finished his inaugural season with a highly respectable 21 winners. In 2018, he raised his seasonal tally to 78 winners, riding out his claim in the process and, in 2019, rode his first Group race winner, Duke of Hazzard, trained by Paul Cole, in the Celebration Mile at Goodwood. In 2020, he rode his first Royal Ascot winner, Highland Chief, trained by Paul and Oliver Cole, in the Golden Gates Handicap. In 2021, Ryan has been hindered by a broken collar bone and appendicitis, but that has not stopped him from riding 102 winners, including two more Group 2 winners on British soil, and amassing £1.4 million in prize money, so far.

 

 

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