CALL it a frame of mind.

Shane Foley was at Doncaster on the Thursday before Irish Champions Weekend. The second day of the St Leger meeting, and he was over to ride Silence Please in the Group 2 Park Hill Stakes for his boss Jessica Harrington.

He went for a run before racing, twice around the track. Doncaster Racecourse is just short of two miles in circumference and, as he ran up the home straight for the second time, he made a deal with Fate: if I do two more circuits, I’ll have a good Irish Champions Weekend.

He felt like stopping after he had done one more, almost six miles down, but he thought, if I stop now, I won’t ride a winner on Irish Champions Weekend. So he pushed himself forward, completed his fourth lap and pulled up.

Job done. Over to Fate.

Fate stalled though. Corviglia was favourite for the listed fillies’ race that opened Irish Champions Weekend.

Jessica Harrington’s filly had the pace to adopt a prominent early position from her inside draw, she led into the home straight and, when her rider asked her to pick up, she quickened from the front and put over a length between herself and her pursuers, at which point she traded at 1.62 in-running. But she couldn’t see it out, she was run down close home by Panama Red and Limiti Di Greccio.

Beaten

“Going into the weekend, I thought that Corviglia was my best chance,” says Foley. “So when she got beaten, well it wasn’t a great start.”

Just shows you, this game. Fate got going. An hour later, Foley got the leg up on No Speak Alexander before the Group 1 Coolmore America ‘Justify’ Matron Stakes, a largely unconsidered 25/1 shot who had lots to find on official ratings.

“I did think that No Speak Alexander had a live each-way chance. Her work had come back good. The Guineas had taken a lot out of her, and she was beaten in France, but we knew that she was going into the race in really good form and we thought that she would run a big race.”

Again, the O’Callaghans’ filly was away sharply from her inside draw, and she was able to adopt a prominent position, just behind the two leaders. Foley took her towards the outside as they straightened up for home and asked her for her effort.

When he did, his filly went forward and to her left. Ryan Moore had to check Mother Earth’s momentum behind, but No Speak Alexander was strong all the way to the line, seeing off a late challenge from Pearls Galore on her outside. After a lengthy stewards’ inquiry, the result was allowed to stand, but Foley was suspended for five days for careless riding.

“The suspension took the gloss off it for sure. You never want that. My filly leaned to her left when I used my stick, and I corrected her as soon as I could. But it was brilliant to win it, it was brilliant for the filly.”

The day rolled on. Foley won the Group 2 Clipper Logistics Boomerang Mile on Real Appeal, and he won the ‘Petingo’ Premier Handicap on Ever Present.

Call it momentum.

“Real Appeal just loves Leopardstown,” he says. “Whatever it is about the place. He seems to grow an extra leg there. Fast pace, fast ground, he loved that. He could go for the Breeders’ Cup Mile now. We’ll have a chat about it, but a mile around Del Mar, that could suit him really well.”

And the horses on whom he didn’t win on Saturday all ran well. Forbearance was third in the Group 3 Paddy Power Stakes, Bopedro was third in the ‘Sovereign Path’ Premier Handicap. Six rides on the day, on the first day of Irish Champions Weekend, three winners – a Group 1 and a Group 2 among them – and three thirds.

Moyglare duel

Then on Sunday, he won the Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes on Discoveries.

“We had finished behind Agartha in the Debutante Stakes,” says the rider thoughtfully, “but we did think, on the better ground, that we would get closer to her in the Moyglare. We didn’t think that we would definitely beat her, but we thought that we would get closer.”

It was an enthralling duel, the two fillies were first and second from flagfall, and they went toe-to-toe through the final furlong. But Discoveries was strong, she wore her rival down, got to the front just inside the furlong marker, and she kept on strongly to get home by three-quarters of a length from Joseph O’Brien’s filly.

“Discoveries is a lovely filly. She’s finished now for the season, but she’s a real filly for next season. Big frame. She reminds me of Alpha in that respect.”

Call it pedigree.

Alpha is Alpha Centauri obviously, Discoveries’ full sister, also owned by the Niarchos Family, also trained by Jessica Harrington, who won the Irish 1000 Guineas and the Coronation Stakes and the Falmouth Stakes and the Prix Jacques le Marois as a three-year-old in 2018.

Colm O’Donoghue rode Alpha Centauri to all those victories in 2018, as Foley made his way as a freelance, the year after he had moved on from Michael Halford’s. It was a big year, a big change from all that he had known.

Shane Foley didn’t ride a horse until he was 15. A native of Kilkenny, it was soccer and (somewhat unsurprisingly) hurling that piqued his sporting interest as a youngster. He played in development squads for Kilkenny, under 14 and under 15, but his physical growth could not keep pace with that of his contemporaries.

At school in New Ross, at Good Counsel College, one of his teachers was the racing enthusiast Aidan O’Brien (no relation), and he encountered Sean Flanagan and Matthew O’Connor, with the result that horses and racing came into focus. He went to the apprentices’ school at RACE and, from there, he was placed with Michael Halford. He stayed for 10 years.

“Mick was really good to me. I learned an awful lot with Mick, he taught me a lot and kept me grounded. I still ride for Mick when the opportunity arises.”

Foley’s first big winner was Snaefell, whom he rode to victory for Halford in the Group 3 Phoenix Sprint Stakes in 2010, a 3lb-claiming apprentice who couldn’t claim his 3lb but, even then, his relationship with Jessica Harrington was taking root.

He struck up a fine partnership with Bob Le Beau, whom he rode to win his maiden and two good handicaps in 2010, and he landed the Listed Hurry Harriet Stakes in 2011 for Harrington on Bible Belt.

“Lots of trainers have been very good to me. Johnny Murtagh has put me up on a lot of winners, and Ken Condon has always been great to me, and I rode my first classic winner for Adrian Keatley.”

Classic winners

That was the 2016 Irish 1000 Guineas, when Shane Foley and Jet Setting got the better of a pulsating duel with Ryan Moore and Minding. And he rode his second classic winner almost exactly two years later, in the Irish 2000 Guineas, on Romanised for Ken Condon.

His star continued in the ascendancy. The 2019 season, his first as first rider for Jessica Harrington, was a best-ever season, 76 winners, third in the jockeys’ championship, and two Group 1 winners, Millisle in the Cheveley Park Stakes and Albigna in the Prix Marcel Boussac, which doubled his Group 1 haul.

The start of the 2020 turf season was curtailed by Covid-19, but the Harrington team were ready. On the first day back at Naas after the Covid break, Foley rode four winners. Two days later at Navan, he rode two more. The following day at Gowran Park, he rode two more.

Title battle

The momentum generated at the start of the year took him all the way through the season, through another Group 1 win on Lucky Vega in the Phoenix Stakes all the way into a battle with Colin Keane for the jockeys’ championship. At the end of the Listowel Festival last year, Foley was six ahead of Keane, 72 wins to 66.

Keane had eroded the deficit by the start of October and, four days later, he was two ahead. But Foley rode a treble at Navan on October 7th, and he had another winner at Thurles the following day, which took him back into a slender lead, but it was impossible to stop the Keane surge.

Foley had a winner at Cork, but Keane had a double. Foley rode three winners at the Curragh, but Keane rode two. Same again at Navan a week later. In the end, when Keane rode his 100th winner of the season at the Curragh on November 2nd, Foley had to admit defeat. Even so, 92 wins was some haul.

“I loved that last year,” says Foley. “The battle for the championship. I really enjoyed the ding-dong with Colin. And I never felt any pressure, I just went out there every day and did my best.”

Delivered

The momentum has continued into this year. When Hugo Palmer needed a rider for Ebro River in the Group 1 Phoenix Stakes at the Curragh in August, Foley was top of the list.

He duly delivered too, another Group 1 win.

And there is serious strength in-depth in the Jessica Harrington yard.

“Our horses have been running well all season, but I was thinking earlier in the year that, with just a little bit more luck, we could do even better.

“That has happened in the last month or so. Jessie is just a very, very good trainer, the quality of horses that she has continues to improve, and the team works very well together.”

Team member

Foley himself is an integral part of the team.

“I like to go in early in the mornings, go into the office. We bounce things off each other, Kate and Emma and Richie and Jessie, where a horse might go, what a horse might do, what race might suit what horse.

“There are so many things to consider, track, race conditions, likely ground, racing style.

“And everything else. I love being part of the team. We have our arguments, but we usually arrive at decisions all right. We have a system, and that system seems to be doing okay.”

Call it clockwork.