I have always loved horses.  I come from a non-horsey background but my parents let me start riding a few years ago and they bought me a pony that I could go hunting on.  I have always wanted to be a jockey as well but it was always just a dream and I never thought I’d have the chance to make that dream a reality.  However, last summer I heard about an apprentice school called RACE about a week before the closing date for application forms.  I sent away my application form just in the nick of time and fortunately, after surviving a weeks trial, I succeeded in securing a place on the 10-month trainee jockey course.

RACE has been the best experience of my life.  It has taught me a lot.  In the few years I have been riding I have never learned as much as I have in the last four months that I have been here.  It’s great fun and you make lots of new friends but it is also extremely tough at times.  You have to endure lots of early mornings in cold and wet weather and it can be hard work as it’s not all about the riding.  You also have to muck out and groom the horses and you have to be prepared for lots of sweeping!

Here in RACE we also have to study for a FETAC Level 1 certificate which is good because it means we can continue with our education.  I’m hoping to stay on as a senior in RACE next year and take the FETAC Level 2 certificate.  Then I might move off the Curragh and go somewhere down south.  I come from Tipperary and I would probably like to work somewhere around there or maybe down in Cork.  I want to become a National Hunt jockey.  I might start off as an amateur rider but I would like someday to become a professional jockey.  That has always been my dream and now thanks to RACE I’m hoping that it might just come true.