Denis O'Regan still just thinking of the next winner
WINNER ALRIGHT: Denis O’Regan with winning owner Basil Holian after Visionarian won at the Galway Festival in July. Pic: Healy Racing
Taking stock is not really Denis O’Regan’s bag. There’s too much going on. He and his wife Louise bought a house on the Athboy road out of Kildalkey early last year and the renovations are ongoing.
It is an exciting time, with two sons Thomas (5) and Charles (11 months) at the beginning of their journeys.
In national hunt jockey terms, their 40-year-old father is nearing the end of his but he’s feeling good and riding as well as at any stage in his career.
According to Racing Post data, he is one winner shy of 800, having added three on the flat to his 795 under Rules in Britain and Ireland, and one in Australia – Warrnambool if you want to know. However, a resource in Australia, Racing And Sports, has him down for 802, though they do have his first winner wrong.
Appropriately enough, given Listowel’s seven-day Harvest Festival kicks off tomorrow, that came at the Kerry venue in April 2001 on All Honey in a bumper for Francis Flood. And it was this time 19 years ago that he returned to Listowel to register his first success as a professional, in a maiden hurdle on odds-on shot Rupununi for Frank Ennis.
No doubt it has been a lucky track for him, with the likes of the Lartigue Hurdle and the listed Guinness Handicap Hurdle snaffled for Tony Martin (Golden Spear in 2015) and Michael Hourigan (Kilbeggan Lad 2005) respectively. He has scored for long-time supporters John Kiely and John Queally at the track in recent years too. Sure, he has been beaten a short head in the Kerry National and lost a Lartigue Hurdle in the stewards’ room. But this is racing. Nobody escapes hardship.
He isn’t pushed about his overall tally though.
“I don’t think like that,” says O’Regan. “I am always thinking of the next winner. I don’t really know if it’s a lot of winners. My friends and family will tell me it’s an awful lot of winners but I’ll be looking at (Davy) Russell going, ‘He’s 1800 winners!’
“I suppose for what I did and where I came from, it’s probably a good achievement.”
Where he came from was Lackenroe, just outside Youghal. His father Denis was a tillage farmer and his mother Geraldine ran Lombard’s Bar, which had been in her family for generations. There were five boys and they mucked in as soon as they were able. It was tough but the second eldest’s passion for ponies and horses was supported as much as possible.
He hitched lifts from out on the main road down to Dungarvan as a teenager, to ride out for the aforementioned Kiely and Queally. He also made his way to Conna, where Jimmy Mangan operated, and the most considerable feat of thumbing, to Liam Burke in Mallow.
From there he progressed through point-to-points and working with Francis Flood to link up with Noel Meade. Paul Carberry was in his pomp at Tu Va Stables, a virtuoso with the most distinctive style that O’Regan modelled himself on and was encouraged to do so. It was what the horses were accustomed to. Some might have viewed his propensity to win so many races in the last 10 strides as arrogance but he is still one of the last to draw his whip in a finish and when he is at the front early on, you absolutely know they are not going too quickly.
English trainer Howard Johnson was in thrall to Carberry so for him and his primary backer Graham Wylie, offering the master’s apprentice a job was the next best thing. Although he was flying at home, had won a Galway Plate on Ballybrit specialist Ansar for Dermot Weld a couple of years earlier and just bagged his first Grade 1 in the Champion Novice Chase at Punchestown on the Charlie Swan-trained Offshore Account, he didn’t think twice about hopping on the plane in the summer of 2007.
They got off to a stellar start, landing two major prizes at their first Cheltenham together, Tidal Bay scoring in the Arkle and Inglis Drever delivering a third consecutive World Hurdle. Tidal Bay would make it a third Grade for the Cork pilot in a month at Aintree. O’Regan was crowned leading northern rider – Cock O’ The North - two seasons running.
In the meantime, raiding Irish trainers would be quick to avail of his services and he gave Black Apalachi a peach for Dessie Hughes in the Becher Chase over the National fences. They would renew acquaintances in the 2010 Grand National itself, finding only Don’t Push It and AP McCoy too good.
But after three years, his contract wasn’t renewed, so in need of a fresh start, O’Regan moved south, even though he had no contacts and no agent. But a product of his environment, he eschewed self-pity and knuckled down.
That brought him a Fighting Fifth Hurdle on Countrywide Flame for John Quinn and an association with John Ferguson that yielded another top-tier success on Ruacana plus a host of other big wins. Alan King also gave him the leg up to good effect.
When the Ferguson gig ended, he kept kicking. Tony Martin started getting him to come over more and the pair combined for significant victories in the Paddy Power Chase (Living Next Door) and the Galway Hurdle (Quick Jack). That led to owner Barry Connell offering him a job to ride for him and so the newly-married O’Regans moved to Ireland. A fourth Cheltenham triumph followed in 2017 on Tully East.
Following the end of his stint with Connell, O’Regan flourished now that he was more available. In particular, he has struck up a good relationship with Gordon Elliott, whose first ever runner at Cheltenham he had ridden, and in the last two years landed seven graded races, the trademark snatching of the Grade 1 Drinmore Chase on Beacon Edge for Meade at Fairyhouse last November the highlight.
This is a triumph of talent and industry over adversity, culminating in a CV most jockeys can only dream of.
“It’s a return on a lot of hard work and graft, and riding at the top of my game. I haven’t had the big yards or power for a long time but I still made the best of what I got,” comes the unfussy summation.
“I would be really grateful that at the age of 40 I am still competing and I still want it and am still used and still riding winners.”
There isn’t a hint of bitterness when he speaks of the past. Maybe a hint of what might have been, had the road taken a different turn, but it never lingers. This is a happy story.
“They were phenomenal days,” he says of the time with Johnson and Wylie. “I mean, I probably didn’t really appreciate it. I appreciated Tidal Bay because he was my first winner at the Cheltenham Festival. He was a great horse. And I felt, he wasn’t the best jumper but I got him into this really good way of jumping a fence. I put that trademark on him. I felt I suited the horse… I put my stamp on the horse.
“I was obviously thrilled to ride Inglis Drever and the pressure was massive, to be on him on the third World Hurdle, the record breaker. At the time it was history, it was mega. But you always felt you were only a small part in that horse’s success, he was such a great horse. I felt I was only lucky to be riding him really. I had nursed Tidal Bay through from the first day he jumped the fence.”
More recently, to display his wares on the big stage and sample elite success once more in the Drinmore provided a considerable buzz.
“It’s a signature race. It was for Noel Meade and it was for Gigginstown. And it was fantastic to win another Grade 1 in Ireland. And the Grade 3 in Galway on Visionarian (in July) was very special as well. I kind of completed the full set in Galway. I had won a Plate and a Galway Hurdle, had won the Blazers and I won that big €100,000 handicap on the Saturday last year on Arcadian Sunrise.”
Mention of Arcadian Sunrise brings a tinge of sadness. The gelding, trained by Queally for his wife Miriam, died in June, two days after finishing third at Royal Ascot. A fantastic dual-purpose operator, he was being aimed at the Galway Hurdle before embarking on a chasing career.
“I was upset about it but it was deeply upsetting for John Queally. Some blow for a man like that who brought that horse along and wouldn’t let him go at a price in the sales. Knew he was a decent horse and brought him on so steady. And in my mind, was turning that horse into a Grade 1 performer. He was definitely going to get to that level or near enough, especially over fences. Huge blow for that yard, huge blow.”
With that, he reminds you that when you’re in the sport as long as the Queallys and Kielys of the world, a realistic outlook prevails. Give that duo the artillery though and they will deliver.
“I have ridden for a lot of horse trainers. But these men are geniuses. They are gifted horsemen. And they are gifted with people... we only see inside their minds and their special gifts through horse racing. But I reckon if you put them in any field, they are gifted men.
“When you are riding for them sort of people, if you listen to them closely, they’ll put you right. I have ridden a lot of winners for them two men, they are just very special people and trainers. They are very special trainers.
“They’d be real deep thinkers. They are very shrewd people. But when the chips are down, they demand the best of you. And they don’t have to tell you. You can feel it, you can sense it. Just one little sentence and you know the pressure is on here. You have to deliver. They are small operators so they have to get it right. They will get it right, so then you have to get it right. And that’s pressure. It’s not like you are riding for a big operation and you mess up today you will be back on one tomorrow. They target and that’s what they are. They are target trainers. They are serious now, serious. They would succeed in any walk of life.”
The enduring possibility that stokes the embers and sustains the child inside the man is to find that signature horse to take him to the signature races. There are loads of reasons why it can’t happen, rooted in access to the superstars, but it does happen. Why not him?
“Wouldn’t you love to get a Honeysuckle, a real good star. But the fingers are always crossed that something like that will happen... It would be a dream come true.”
One target that is definitely in the forefront of the mind is to ride a winner at Hereford. It would make him the only jockey, he reckons, to have ridden winners at all the Irish and British National Hunt tracks.
“I’ve ridden a winner at every jumps track in England and Ireland bar one. Which I didn’t know about until I thought I had completed the feat a couple of years ago in Bellewstown. When I was living in England, Hereford was closed down for a number of years and when I left England it actually reopened. So we are going all out to get that this year now. And that’ll be something that no jockey has done… it’s a hard thing to do because you are trying to do it at one certain track in England. But you know, Gordon knows about it so maybe it will happen. Maybe.”
It's a reminder of a tremendous career. Going from Ireland to England is the norm, given the amount of racing there is across the water. To go the other way and make that work? That is exceptional.
Given that body of work, O’Regan’s thoughts on the current weighroom and what he feels needs to be done to help the younger members develop are very interesting indeed.
“I am a very experienced jockey now. I think the weighroom is lacking that. It has a lot of jockeys and a lot of good jockeys but it mightn’t have a lot of experienced jockeys. I suppose, you would say that going back 10, 12, 15 years ago there were five, six, seven, eight very experienced jockeys. Now you would say there is only two or three. With a lot of those phenomenal jockeys gone, I reckon there was a big hole put in the weighroom. There’s an awful lot of young jockeys coming through and they probably don’t have enough senior jockeys to be looking at and learning from.
“One of the biggest things they did in England was they introduced jockey coaches. They rounded up ex-jockeys, who did a course and then the BHA paid them to coach to a very high level. Those jockeys are reaping the benefits of that. I don’t know why we don’t have that in Ireland. You have to go to England to do the course.”
Warren O’Connor and Gordon Power were sent a number of years ago but O’Connor is, if not the only full-time jockey coach, the most visible one and he is operating as a sole trader rather than a subsidised service provided by the industry.
“For a country that produces the best riders in the world, I believe we should back something like this. There’s young jockeys riding now over jumps that would 100 per cent benefit from having coaches. They’re getting coached by trainers but that’s no good… There needs to be jockey coaches introduced to Ireland, run the courses and pay them to provide the coaching. It would serve as a massive benefit to Irish racing.”
Whatever he has done, he has made happen himself but none of it would be possible without home. Louise is an enduring rock and working on a forever home for the four of them is some reward for that, he hopes.
“She is just a massive part of the whole thing. So it’s nice when things are going well, we enjoy it. She knew me when I had nothing.”
Lackenroe was where the stoicism was forged and the dream harboured. The O’Regans might not be the most tactile or expressive bunch, but as a father himself now, the penny has dropped with Denis, so he breaks ranks.
“I think one of the biggest things for me is I hope my parents are proud of me. I’m sure they are. We don’t say it. I love my parents so much and it’s only now, at this stage of my life, that I’m realising how well they did with me and how good my father was bringing me to ponies, bringing me to point-to-points. He broke his arse doing it. He didn’t have the money to do it and he did it. They followed my career. My mother is all WhatsApp now. She got an iPhone about a year ago and she can’t get off it!
“I hope they’re proud and I hope they know I’m always grateful for what they did. That would mean a lot to me.”
