I came to RACE in the middle of  the summer.  At that stage I didn’t even know what a jockey was.  I stayed in the Yellow dorm and all that the lads talked about was pony racing.   All I knew about racing was up and down Smithfield, and in the backers of Brookfield in Dublin.  Bare back riding on the ponies, some laugh!  

Anyway, they woke us up at 7 am the next morning and we got breakfast at 7.30.  Then they sent us down the yard to pick weeds for two hours in the sun; the forks burnt the hands off us and left us with splinters.  Everyone started to call me "Flea" because I was so small and light, and I look like a flea in riding gear.  We did a lot of hard work on the trials but I didn’t really care.  When I got my results I didn’t want to come back - it was torture.  I came back anyway, and it wasn’t so hard. We didn’t pick weeds; we mucked out every morning, rode out one lot, then swept the yard.  We left the yard and back to bed with me.  I wasn’t good at making friends but I didn’t need to; they made friends with me.