The Kerryman who starts the race that stops the world

On Saturday evening, Kerry native Robbie Supple will start his tenth Aintree Grand National.

Aintree Grand National starter Robbie Supple. Picture: Healy Racing

Even at the other end of the world, Robbie Supple couldn’t escape the question. While on a stud farm tour in New Zealand, the guide - an Irishman - occasionally glanced Supple’s way. He recognised him but couldn’t place him. It’s probably that way for many racing fans.

“After a while,” says Supple, “he said, 'You're not that fella that starts the racing in Cheltenham, are you?' I said, 'I am'. He said, 'Why don't you just fucking let them go? What are you playing at?'” 

Supple laughed. He’d heard it all before. Nick Luck, who presents Racing TV’s Luck on Sunday, once said Supple was “like some pompous schoolmaster”. “I thought it was a bit funny,” Supple says. “He's brilliant at his job. I definitely think he's posher than I am! It's what people's perception is.” 

On Saturday, Supple - now in his 21st year as a starter with the British Horse Racing Authority - will get the Aintree Grand National underway for the tenth time. It’s a race with which he has a strong connection. He rode in it six times, finishing fourth in 1991 and third in 2000, and in between was there for two of the race’s most infamous days.

The thought that he’d become a starter had never occurred to Supple until a future colleague told him he had exactly the type of experience the BHA requires.

He has an enduring love for horses, sparked while growing up in the north Kerry village of Ballyduff. He rode winners on the flat and hundreds over jumps.

Supple is the eldest of four brothers, all of whom became jockeys. John and Gerry also rode in the National while Willie was a successful flat rider.

He was nine when his father took him to the Listowel Races and told him jockeys make a decent living. “The way he explained it, it was a lot easier than it turned out to be!” 

Aged 15 in 1982, Supple went to work for Michael Hourigan in Limerick. After a year, Hourigan told him he needed to bulk up. At six-and-half stone, he was more suited to the flat than national hunt.

The teenager went east to Jim Bolger. His brother Willie followed and became champion apprentice during his time in Kilkenny. While there, Supple rode his first winner: Special Display in a two mile handicap at Tralee.

He was riding for Kilkenny trainer Frank O’Brien in 1987 when he got an offer from Geoff Hubbard in England. O’Brien, always a positive voice in Supple’s career, pushed the 20-year-old to go.

“I was in tears going over because I didn't really want to,” says Supple.

He spent 18 months with Jonjo O’Neill in Penrith, met his wife Shona, and started to feel like his career was going places.

While there, he rode Nick the Brief for John Upson. The horse had won the Vincent O’Brien Irish Gold Cup in 1990. A year later, after he’d left O’Neill and moved to Towcester to ride for Upson, Supple was on board when the horse won the renamed Hennessy Gold Cup at Leopardstown. It was the biggest win of Supple’s career.

Two months later, he finished fourth on Over The Road for Upson in his first Grand National. Though Supple had set off “handier” than Upson had wanted, the trainer was delighted with the result.

Jockey Robbie Supple and Niki Dee prior to the start of the Cathcart Challenge Cup Chase during the 1999 Cheltenham Racing Festival. Photo by Matt Browne/Sportsfile

“The thought that ran through my head,” says Supple, “was my mother watching it at home and being excited. In the Grand National, you have a lot of time to think.” 

The 1993 Grand National, abandoned after two false starts, was a formative experience. Supple, Sammy McNeill and Seamus O'Neill - three future starters with the BHA - were all on board runners that day.

“There were protesters there at the first fence,” Supple recalls.

“We were hanging around a long time. The adrenalin was flowing and we were shouting at the starter, 'Just let us go, they'll get out of the way'.

“I think we needed a new starting gate. The starter, Captain Keith Brown, was up against it with the kit he had.

“It's four-and-a-quarter miles but nobody wants to lose an inch at the start. He was saying 'Keep back off the tape' but I could see some of the jockeys were letting their horse's head over the tape.” 

Supple and Zeta’s Lad did a lap before Upson’s head travelling man Jim Murphy got onto the track and shouted that the race was void.

“There was that split second,” says Supple, “when we pulled up and you could see the others galloping off where you're thinking, 'Shit, have I done the right thing?'

“It was utter disappointment. My initial thing was, 'I'll never get an opportunity like this again'. We only had 10-2. For Mr Upson and me, it was a big dream and we felt it was half taken away from us. I never blamed Captain Keith. I knew that the equipment wasn't as good as it should have been.” 

The 1997 race was postponed for two days due to an IRA bomb threat at Aintree. Supple, one of the many Irish people there that day, never heard a negative word in his direction.

“We were all guided towards the centre of the track,” he says.

“When I got in there, my brother Gerry was standing beside me. We were hiding behind the first fence. He was working at Pipes and was excited about me riding the mare. He'd been giving me advice on how to ride her. He'd ridden her in the Welsh National.” 

Supple had initially been booked to ride General Wolfe for Tim Forster but connections opted for Lorcan Weir when he became available. Instead, Supple ended up on Martin Pipe’s Evangelica.

After leaving the track and walking to the village, the people of Aintree welcomed the racecourse refugees into their homes.

“This nice lady brought us in,” says Supple. “The funny thing was, Captain Forster was in there! He said, 'I was quite happy for you to ride my horse, it was nothing to do with me'. We had a cup of tea.

Supple and his wife had travelled from Yorkshire to Aintree with Stephen Squires, who was due to ride in the amateur race that day. He grabbed Squires’s car keys and got them out of town.

“I jumped in his car and drove out the gate,” says Supple.

“I was in my riding gear. Nobody was meant to go out. Those lads had to stay there that night in their gear. Stephen and Shona came out. We stopped at the services to get a sandwich. Stephen had his riding gear on and I had my riding gear on. It was strange going back on the Monday.” 

Tony Dobbin, whom Supple and his wife had met as a 17-year-old while working for Jonjo O’Neill, rode Lord Gyllene to victory in the rescheduled race.

It had always been Supple's ambition to ride 50 winners in a season. He did that during 1998-99, finishing with 52 from 340 starts but the following year, by his own choice, his career was over.

“I wasn't enjoying it as much as I should have been,” he says.

“A few personal things had happened as well. If I'd taken a holiday for a few months and refocused, I probably could have gone on for a few more years but I'd got it into my head that I'd reached as far as I was going to go.

“I said to my brother John that I'm thinking of calling it a day. He says, 'Right, you've got a good chance in the Grand National this year. Pull yourself together, get yourself focused and give that horse the best ride that you can and if you win the Grand National, call it a day. If you don't win the Grand National, wait until you have a good winner somewhere and bow out'. That was it.” 

Supple finished third in that year’s National on Peter Beaumont’s Niki Dee. 12 days later, he had his last winner, Reach The Clouds, at Cheltenham. Two days after that, he rode in his final race being unseated by Derryrose four out at Carlisle. In the winner’s enclosure, an emotional Supple rose again, lifted onto the shoulders of his fellow jockeys.

"I had it in my head too that I could go back to Ireland. Ballyduff is still home to me. I love going back there and I love going to Ballybunion on a nice day. There's no place better in the world.

“I wanted to go back to Ireland and I thought I'd live happily ever after. I wanted my family to grow up in Ireland. I went back to Jim Bolger's for a year and a half.

“It was great but I missed here. I've been here too long. All my friends are over here. I didn't feel part of the racing scene in Ireland anymore.” 

Supple was working for John Upson at Cheltenham when he met the starter Peter Haynes. Towards the end of the year, a coupe of starters would be retiring, Haynes informed him. He should keep an eye out for a job advertisement.

He was in his early 30s but Supple had never put his CV together, never had to do a job interview. Without the assistance of the Jockey Employment Training Scheme, Supple doesn’t know if he’d have got the role. He wouldn’t have answered that question ‘Why do you think you’re suited to this role?’ with the required confidence, even though he undoubtedly was.

Starter Robbie Supple raises the flag ready for the start at Kempton Park racecourse. Picture: Alan Crowhurst/Getty Images

2015 was the first year that Supple started the Grand National. That year and the following one “went smooth as silk”.

“All the jockeys wanted to go well,” he says.

“Barry Geraghty, Ruby Walsh were riding over here a lot and going back to Ireland a lot. We'd built up a good bit of respect for each other through those couple of seasons.

“Those first two years, there were enough of those big name jockeys that the younger riders respected. They made it easy.” 

There were issues in 2017 when the tape broke and last year when animal rights protesters caused the race to be delayed by 12 minutes.

“We thought everything was clear so the stewards allowed the horses to come onto the track,” he says about the 2023 race.

“We were ready to go and then the message came through from the police to not start the race.

“Even ITV didn't know what was going on. I know some of my friends here were giving out, 'Oh why didn't he let them go? What is he playing at?'

“Then what happened was I had the microphone turned on and the message came through and all the jockeys heard, 'Robbie you are clear to go'.

“Once the jockeys heard we were clear to go I thought I'd better let them go because they'd been there too long. It wasn't ideal but I thought it was the best thing to do under the circumstances.” 

The “worst thing” that Supple has done as a starter is to let the runners go when he shouldn’t have.

“When they are coming a bit too quick, for that split second, I've thought that it's the thing to do, let them go,” he explains.

“The jockeys that you've build up so much trust with, you've let them down. That's the thing I hate doing. I have done it a couple of times, started a race when I should have stopped them. That's when I've been most disappointed in myself because I know that I've let those lads down, those riders that have trusted in me.” 

Supple lives in Towcester near Northampton. It's a handy base for travelling to the 200 race meetings he attends every year. 

He and Shona still keep some horses. That's how Supple gets his fix. "The people in Towcester think I'm some mad lad riding around the town on a Connemara pony a few times a week," he says. The reception he gets from the young people of the town reminds him of excitement he felt growing up when he saw a pony and cart bring milk to the Ballyduff creamery. 

This Saturday, along with others from the BHA, Supple will have Aintree groundsman Stan Walsh with him at the start. Walsh has been working at the course since he left school. It’s the only job he’s ever had.

“He’s fantastic,” says Supple.

“He'll have five or six tapes in case they get broken. He said to me one year, 'I've only got six. If there's six false starts...'

“I said, 'If there's five of them, I'm getting down and someone else can do it!’” 

Some years, it goes better than others. When you’ve got 34 horses and jockeys primed to race, there is always going to be someone annoyed.

“My daughter said to me, 'You're still trying to please everybody. That's impossible. You're never going to do that',” says Supple.

“It's a great feeling when it goes right and everybody is away. Then you get to watch the National on the big screen.”