GALWAY racecourse is a special place for Jane Mangan.

In 2012 she won the big amateur riders’ race on the Monday of the Summer Festival, the race every amateur rider in Ireland wants to win.

Just six years later she made her television debut on RTÉ alongside Robert Hall and Ted Walsh back at Ballybrit.

And just three years after that, which brings it up to just last week, she anchored her first live show on RTÉ on Galway Hurdle day. It has been a rapid progression, traversing two professions and reaching the summit of both within nine years.

“If you told me that I’d be anchoring live coverage at the Galway Races either after I won the amateurs’ race or even after I made my television debut, I wouldn’t have believed you,” Managan asserts this week.

“It’s a huge responsibility. Hugh Cahill is so relaxed and he makes it look easy. It wasn’t until I got the countdown ‘three, two, one, we’re live,’ that I realised, ‘Wow, this is it...’

“It was a great experience. I would say having Barry Geraghty, Andrew McNamara and particularly Ted (Walsh), whose been there so long, was a great comfort – you can rely on them. Richard Pugh and Brian (Gleeson) are the same. I took a great amount of comfort in knowing the team around me have been doing it for a long time.”

Mangan was deputising for regular presenter Cahill, on Olympics duty, and the programme went off without a hitch, which is par for the course with her broadcasting career so far. Labelled by Off The Ball managing director Ger Gilroy as “one of the best sport pundits on TV in Ireland, in any sport,” Mangan has quickly enhanced the quality of every racing programme or podcast she has been involved with, which include productions from RTÉ Racing, Racing TV, ITV Racing and the Nick Luck Daily Racing Podcast.

From the start she has never been afraid to voice her opinion, bolstered by her own confidence derived from her deep knowledge of the industry. Holding your own beside Ted Walsh on the national broadcaster perhaps isn’t for the faint-hearted but that is what she has done from day one, speaking with conviction and a passion for the game.

Perhaps we should have expected as much given she comes from a staunch National Hunt background, with her family, headed by father Jimmy and mother Mary, having literally lived the dream when they trained Monty’s Pass to soar home for an incredible success in the 2003 Grand National at Aintree.

Jane was nine when that happened, and it was at this time and in this environment, she had subconsciously begun to train her own mind to absorb and retain information, putting in place the encyclopedic racing knowledge she is known so well for today.

“In our house it was the racing channel on and that was it,” Mangan explains. “We used to get one Racing Post every day and I never wanted to give it up to anyone else so I had to read through everything so I could give out the information – the trainer, the breeding, the jockey, anything.

“If I wanted to watch any part of the race without having to look down to answer one of dad’s questions, I needed to know it so that is kind of where my knowledge came about because I wanted to retain the paper and see the race.

“Normal kids were into MTV or whatever but those channels were never on in our house. It was the same with reading. I didn’t read Harry Potter until I was like, 25! I read sales catalogues because those were the books my parents were reading and that was the norm. That’s probably where my knowledge on the pedigrees came along.”

Radio

However, broadcasting wasn’t something Mangan grew up dreaming about per se. It wasn’t until she was approached by RTÉ’s Robbie Irwin to take part in the radio broadcasts of the big meetings that the seed was first planted. It worked well for her because when she was riding as an amateur, she would invariably be riding in the final race bumper, so had time to take part in the coverage of earlier races on the card.

“What I found from working on the radio is that you need to be able to paint the picture for the person listening – not just tell them what is happening but paint a graphic in their mind,” Mangan explains.

“I did the radio for two or three years and I always felt that if I could ace that, the television would be easier because you can refer to images so I think radio was a very good grounding and I’d recommend that to anybody who wanted to get into punditry.”

Mangan loves the racing industry, in particular the journey from the breeding sheds to the racetrack. She speaks about the privilege of being able to be present for that crescendo moment and the duty to do the sport and its participants the justice they both deserve.

“Last year during lockdown, nobody could go racing, and remember we did the five weekends from the RTÉ studio in Dublin? All eyes were on us because there was no sport happening, only racing. Talk about having to nail it. That is what I would consider the most important part of our job.

“We have to showcase the sport in the best possible way but also in a realistic way – we can always say things are fantastic but people are not stupid and you don’t want to undermine their intelligence.

“I think it’s a huge responsibility. I love live sport, seeing the horses in the flesh, that’s what I love. Since Covid, I’ve seen Mam and Dad at home and seen all the work they do again. I always grew up with it but to go racing then and do the broadcasting, it really makes me appreciate how lucky I am to do that.

“I see Dad foaling a mare in the middle of the night and Mam nursing it the next day. We’re then bringing horses to the sales and then you might not see them again until they are four or five and it’s come full circle. Then we get to see the final product broadcasting live at the races and get to comment on it. That’s the dream, no?”

Given her record in the saddle, you’d be forgiven for previously presuming that Mangan’s dreams lay in that profession. She won the 2013 Punchestown Champion Bumper on The Liquidator and rode winners at all the big festivals, including over hurdles. A six-year stint began when she was in fifth year and finished the summer after she completed her marketing degree at Cork Institute of Technology.

“To be honest it was always the plan to race-ride temporarily and I’m grateful to have had that chapter in my life,” Mangan explains. “It opened up so many doors for me and without knowing it at the time, I was gaining good experience of how to conduct myself with the media. I don’t think I’d be broadcasting if I didn’t race-ride.

“In truth, I just didn’t love it enough to make a living from it. I never rode out in a yard full-time because I was always in education. I knew I never loved it enough to give it my life and that’s what it requires, you have to give it your life.

“I was reared to do something properly or don’t do it at all. I wasn’t just going to do it at the weekends. Broadcasting is too important to not give it your everything. I don’t want to turn up and be unprepared.”

Preparation

Mangan’s preparation for a day on the TV usually starts on the morning of, in order to avoid overcrowding her head with too much information. She tries to avoid long build up to the big meetings as all the time the yearning is to think independently.

“Everybody is different,” she says. “Everybody uses different material and I think that is important as well because you want your information to be original. I don’t want to be reeling off what’s written in The Irish Field or the Racing Post because people can buy that, but people shouldn’t be able to buy my view or buy my opinion.

“I think you have to validate your view. Nobody has to agree with your view but once you validate and believe it, then that’s your view, but don’t say something that you can’t stand behind.

“I grew up during the X Factor era and Simon Cowell was brilliant, very entertaining. He had a view and he was black or white, and not everybody can be as black or white as him but he would invariably be correct. I’m not saying I’m a Simon Cowell but from watching people like that – if you have a view, even if people debate it out with you, that’s good television.

“People agreeing all the time is not entertaining. A debate is healthy once you can stand behind it. Racing has a great way of proving you wrong and proving you right and nobody is ever going to get it right all the time. It’s fun and entertaining for pundits to have debates on air, and to have them not pre-rehearsed, to have them live in the moment as well.”

Such is her respect among media peers, Mangan’s views are heavily sought after on different platforms and naturally involve the good and the bad issues. It’s been a particularly turbulent six months for Irish racing which has yielded difficult subjects to discuss but while she doesn’t enjoy approaching these issues, Mangan readily accepts that she has a responsibility to tackle them when asked.

“Unfortunately racing isn’t always just about the results and the form on the track,” she says. “There are times when it is your obligation or your responsibility to speak on matters that pertain to the sport whether that is on or off the track. I just feel that is something you have to do and you have to do it right.

“When it is a sensitive subject, you just have to be very careful to be as accurate as you can. Sometimes it’s not a matter of opinion but it’s more a matter of fact, particularly when you’re dealing with an investigation that is ongoing. It’s imperative to be accurate.

“And of course I appreciate that we have to recognise the issues that are ongoing off the track but you know you forget that we have 23 of the 28 winners at Cheltenham, you forget that Rachael Blackmore won the Grand National. It is unusual for a top international flat meeting to not have an Irish winner. The sales market seems to be thriving.

“I think we’re in a good place but some headlines are dominated by politics off the track and it’s easy to forget how well the industry is performing other than that.”

And on the track Jane Mangan is thriving in her role as a broadcaster and doing Irish racing a great deal of service for it.

“I just want to be the best at what I do and I want to give our sport the coverage it deserves because it has been so good and continues to be so good to me and my family,” she explains.

“We all rely on the industry and different facets to make a living so if you are the face or to the forefront of it on a terrestrial or racing channel, it is such a privilege to be able to do it, that it would be an insult to not do it right.”

Mangan on…

Social media

“Where there are positive comments, there will be negative comments, that’s inevitable. It’s never nice to get negative comments, particularly ones that you feel are unjustified. I think 99% of people, whether they acknowledge it or not, are people pleasers and I certainly fall into that category but there is a stage in life when you realise you cannot please everyone.

“I like Twitter and I do not want to give nasty users the power to stop me using the app. Some people say delete the app but I like it so why should some people I don’t know, who don’t like me make me have to delete the app? I’m not afraid to use the block button and I do think the social media sites or whoever governs them, their regulatory bodies, are answerable for a lot.”

Marketing racing

“Marketing to a fan base during Covid was much different to marketing to a fan base in normal times. I always think there is room for improvement but I do believe we have a great team in HRI and I think everyone in racing is so accessible whether that be the trainers or the riders, I even found during lockdown when people couldn’t go racing that trainers and riders made an extra effort to be accessible to the media and to basically help us get their story across.

“I think people in racing are very open minded and they understand that what benefits racing will benefit everybody in racing and I think that’s a great thing. It’s not often you can get Jose Mourinho and Cristiano Ronaldo at the top of a button and they will answer the phone you know, so I do think we do a good job.

Advice for people getting into racing

“Always have an open mind and don’t be afraid to work. Our industry is extremely rewarding once you work. It opens doors for people who are willing to work. I’m not afraid to do anything. Keep an open mind and keep your head down and work hard and you will make things happen. Surround yourself with the best people, observe them and work hard to be as good as them. They will carry you forward.”