Condon out to buck convention
DERMOT Weld has never won an Irish Grand National. He is, after all, more renowned for his exploits on the flat than over jumps, but his seven-year-old grey Prince Erik is not without a chance in the race and, alongside jockey Davy Condon, will be bidding to beat convention when they line-up for the start of the race just before five-o-clock on Monday.
Sired by Indian Ridge, Prince Erik is very much a flat-bred horse who has fortuitously turned out to be a jumps star instead – a characteristic the horse shares with his jockey.
A native of Glengoura, near Conna in East Cork, Condon was initially a star on the flat, but as he matured and his body filled out, it became clear that he would not be able to maintain his weight to the level required of a flat jockey and thus he switched his skills to the world of jump racing. He has never looked back.
Originally a star on the pony racing scene, he left school after his Junior Cert and was apprenticed to Willie Mullins in Carlow. He made his track debut at sixteen years of age in 2001 and scored a total of five wins that year. His break-out, however, occurred in 2002 when he had a total of 27 winners and finished second to Tadhg O’Shea in the Apprentices’ Championship. His stand-out horse that season was the Mullins’ trained Holy Orders on whom Condon won twice and who he also rode to second place at Ascot and accompanied all the way to Australia for the Melbourne Cup.
It was not a bad performance for only his second year as a jockey and the 2003 season was similarly accomplished with another 22 winners being added to his burgeoning tally.
However, the following year his weight started becoming an issue and for a lot of budding flat jockeys this could have spelt disaster, but Condon was not particularly fazed; he had a few more strings to his bow.
“During my first two seasons my weight was fine,” he recalls, “but it gradually crept up and by the third season it was not looking good. By the time my fourth season came around I definitely knew I would end up being a jump jockey.”
For some riders the mere thought of tackling fences would have precipitated immediate retirement, but not Condon. “The jumps never really held any fear for me even though I had been riding mainly on the flat. That was because I had been with Willie Mullins and I was always schooling horses at home and jumping them, so the prospect of riding jumpers didn’t bother me at all.”
In November 2004 he scored his first victory over hurdles aboard Markason for Ger Cully and he went on to record a total of 12 jumps wins that season, with the highlight being a Grade 3 win aboard Homer Wells at Cork. At this point he was still able to mix and match flat and jumps racing and the 21 winners he recorded on the flat was not a bad haul. Even so, he knew that in the long term his future was in the National Hunt sphere.
“It definitely took a bit of time to adapt,” Condon admits adding, “when you have to drop the irons a couple of holes and you end up thinking you’re going to fall off it is strange, but you get used to it. I was able to still ride a few flat winners – and it was great to be able to do both for a while.”
Since the 2005/6 season, Davy’s career has been on a steady upward curve. That season he rode 12 winners, fourteen the next and then 26 in 2007/8 and he says he has been happy with progress.
A major highlight during this time was the victory on Ebaziyan in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham in 2006, but the jockey reckons that he never really appreciated what that victory meant. “I’d really love to do it again because it didn’t really sink in at all at the time. Of course it is every jockey’s dream to win a race at Cheltenham, it doesn’t matter whether it is a handicap or a Grade 1. Unfortunately for me I don’t really think I grasped the significance of it at the time.”
For the 2008/9 season Davy decamped to the Greystoke base of Nicky Richards near Penrith in Cumbria. The previous summer Richards’ previous stable jockey Tony Dobbin had been to Ireland and met up with Condon and told him there was a job at the yard for him if he wanted it. Davy weighed up his options.
“Obviously Willie was big then, but Noel Meade was the Champion Trainer and Ruby (Walsh) was riding most of Willie’s horses – all the hot ones anyway – and he was going to be there for a long time. The offer to go and be first jockey to Nicky was a tremendous opportunity. He had owners like Sir Robert Ogden, Trevor Hemmings, Craig Bennett and John Hales at the time and there were plenty of nice horses there too. I had a chat with Willie about it and he told me I should go for the experience, so I did.
“I really enjoyed the year over and I rode 24 winners while I was there, including a Peterborough Chase on Monet’s Garden and a Scottish Champion Hurdle on Noble Alan. But when the recession really started to bite, it got very tough and Nicky lost a few owners and the yard shrank quite a bit – to the point where there was no real need for a stable jockey. I never fell out with Nicky or anything, but we just realised there was no longer a job for me. I will never regret going over to England.”
Back in Ireland for the 2009/10 season he teamed up with Noel Meade thanks to the work of his agent Kieran O’Toole and when stable jockey Paul Carberry was sidelined because of suspension, Condon got lucky. “It was very unfortunate for Paul, but it was very much the case that one man’s loss was another man’s gain,” he says.
And so it was. Davy rode four Grade 1 winners in the period while Carberry was out and suddenly he was the flavour of the month in the weighroom.
First up was Pandorama in the Drinmore at Fairyhouse and then he won the Frank Knight at Leopardstown; Go Native had earlier then won the Fighting Fifth at Newcastle and went to Kempton on St. Stephen’s Day and won the Christmas Hurdle; after that Hollo Ladies won the Future Champion Novices’ Hurdle at Leopardstown, while later in the year Davy rode Orsippus to win the Totesport Bowl at Aintree to make it a total of six Grade 1s in the season.
“For Noel to have the confidence to put me up – especially with Paul being out – was a real boost for me. He could have used a lot of other jockeys, but he decided to use me and it was very big for me that he decided to put me up. I won five Grade 1s for him and it was almost beyond belief,” Condon recalls.
This was a fantastic platform from which to build and, having moved home from Carlow to Trim, he did just that, consolidating his relationship with Meade, albeit as second fiddle to Paul Carberry, and also joining forces with Gordon Elliot.
“From where I am based now, Gordon is only five minutes away and Noel is only up the road as well. I also school for Joanna Morgan most days and she’s nearby too and always has a few summer jumpers. I still go down to Mullins’ every Thursday and Willie, in fairness, still looks after me.”
Life is never short on irony and one quirk of fate he has encountered is the fact that his first cousin Paul Townend took over his role with Willie Mullins and has turned out to be a star turn for the Champion Trainer. But has this led to internecine trouble and strife between the cousins?
“No, definitely not,” Condon laughs. “I am delighted for Paul and while we have a bit of light-hearted slagging about him taking my job at Willie’s, it is all good fun. He is a tremendous jockey and I am very proud of him. At such a young age he is a fantastic talent and he is only getting better. Willie’s yard has got stronger too in recent years and Paul has been able to benefit from that.”
Condon is focused on his own career thought and says he is delighted with the way things are going.
“I’m especially pleased that this year I’ve already passed last season’s tally with 33 winners and next year I’d like to see myself bettering that total again. That will be my goal next season. I am happy enough to freelance because there are not too many stable jockey jobs out there right now.”
The ride on Prince Erik in the Irish National on Monday is a case in point. He has ridden the horse three times already this term and won on him at Naas last month in his final prep. race for Fairyhouse. It was a victory which, Condon reckons, has set the horse up nicely.
“He enjoys this time of the year because the ground will be coming in his favour – he’s a good ground horse. I rode him in his last three outings and we won last time at Naas. He is a flat-bred horse and he enjoys the sun on his back and he’ll be more at home on better rather than soft ground. Quick going certainly won’t be a problem for him,” the jockey maintains.
“He stayed very well over hurdles was second in the Pertemps Final at Cheltenham over three miles last season. Mr. Weld has no worries about him getting the trip and I think he’ll see it out. I will be looking to get a good start and I will ride him prominently – out of danger. He will enjoy that as he seems to enjoy his races more when he doesn’t get knocked around and when he has a bit of daylight around him.”
And so it is that a flat-bred horse and a jockey who thought he was going to be a flat rider will take on one of the biggest prizes in Irish National Hunt racing. And they have every chance of winning it.
