AS the green and gold silks of J.P. McManus flashed down the outer in the dying strides to pinch the Guinness Premier Handicap at Galway last Friday, the well-worn adage of the old dog for the hard road rang true loud and clear.

For great weighing room stalwart Niall McCullagh, it had been a quiet 2023, but – almost in an instant – his fortunes turned around pretty spectacularly. From having drawn a blank for the season prior to a double at Down Royal the previous week, he delivered a serious contender for ride of the season aboard Brazil to plunder the feature €110,000 prize on day five of the Ballybrit bonanza. Right out of the top drawer.

Kevin Manning’s departure from the saddle at the same venue last autumn means McCullagh is now Ireland’s oldest professional jockey at age 54, though few would have guessed that from watching him partner Padraig Roche’s 14/1 shot last week.

It says a lot about the Co Carlow native’s incredible longevity that he had ridden his first winner before 14 of his 16 rival jockeys in the Guinness Handicap were even born.

For context, McCullagh’s maiden success on Rose Of Carlow at Navan on May 21st 1986 arrived a week after Bobby Ewing came back from the dead on Dallas. Sean Bowen, rider of Galway second Teed Up, would have been aged just six when McCullagh partnered Royal Diamond to a memorable triumph in the 2012 Irish St Leger.

Times have changed, but the Galway hero of the hour is very much savouring a big moment in the autumn of a most fruitful and lengthy career.

“Someone had asked me before the meeting if I’d be at Galway this year and I told them no,” he quips.

“That’s because it tends to be a place for the top jockeys and the 7lb claimers to make a name for themselves. We saw it again last week with Jack Kearney and Danny Giligan, and I got my go there as a 7lb claimer in 1988 on Pheopotstown in winning the McDonogh Handicap on the Tuesday.”

McCullagh was visibly emotional in the Galway winner’s enclosure after delivering the goods on the big stage, carrying the same silks as when winning last year’s November Handicap on Drop The Anchor and 2015 Athasi Stakes on Iveagh Gardens (upsetting Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe heroine Found in the process).

“I have to say, winning on Brazil was an unbelievable buzz,” he beams.

“A winner at Galway can turn your whole season around. You can be having a quiet year but all of a sudden you then have people patting you on the back saying ‘well done, you’re flying it’. You’d swear I was after winning the Derby with all the texts and calls I got after last week! I must have gotten 100 or more messages and calls.

“It probably overwhelmed me a bit, all the well wishes and support, but I think everyone could see what it meant to me. It’s nice that it came across to people how much I got out of that winner. When things are going a bit slow for you, you have to deal with the devaluation. I was one of the decent jockeys in Ireland riding 30 winners a year previously but this year I’ve been struggling.

“I enjoy what I do, though. I turn up and keep going. I can assure you, when you do get on a nice horse, produce a good ride and everything works out, those wins give you such a great feeling.

“One winner at Galway can be worth 10 winners somewhere else in the country. I especially enjoyed doing it for J.P. McManus, who I’ve had some nice success with down the years. This one meant so much to me.”

McCullagh may not be as frequent a visitor to the number-one spot nowadays on track but he is arguably as in demand now as ever. Across the Curragh, he is regarded as a leading judge and is often snapped up by major operations for the purpose of work riding.

“I’ve never ridden so much work in my life,” he quips after a jam-packed day’s work at Irish flat racing headquarters.

New challenges

“You’re always trying to find the next good one, aren’t you? I’m in a few different yards; Johnny Murtagh’s, Mick Halford’s, Ken Condon’s, and I ride work for Jessica Harrington, John and George Murphy, Charles Weld, Darren Bunyan and others. I certainly don’t get bored or fed up of going into the same place all the time. There’s always something new every week, new challenges and new horses.

“I absolutely love that aspect of the job. With the experience I have, I think trainers like having me in and around their horses. I’d like to think that sort of feedback can be helpful for any trainer. I enjoy mapping out where the horses might go and giving a hand with that side of things.

“You’re looking at the next ones coming along and hoping you might get on them, but you need to be realistic. If the owners say they want Colin Keane, I tell them I won’t be worried about it - work away. But if they can’t get someone like him and want me to sit up on them, that’s great. You have to deal with the devaluation, while keeping the mindset that I know I’m good enough to deliver a winner if the horse is good enough.”

McCullagh forged a terrific link-up with John Oxx for what he describes as the best period of his career.

What standout attribute made the legendary Currabeg horseman so successful?

“I think it was his complete consistency,” says McCullagh. “He was so level-headed as a trainer, no ups or downs.

“It might have been a bad weekend of results, or a few days where he trained three Group 1 winners, but you could walk into the yard on a Monday morning and know he’d be the same person as before. He was always the same. His level-headedness was incredible and he loved what he did.

“He had a great team behind him and I think all of us enjoyed working there. We felt like part of the time. It was a brilliant set-up.

“I had some slow years in 2009 and 2010 when riding nine winners in each of those seasons, having ridden upwards of 40 winners a few seasons before it. It gave me real satisfaction to get going again in 2011.

“I won the Doncaster Cup on Saddler’s Rock for John that September and a couple of days later I won the Blandford Stakes back at the Curragh on Manieree, having won the Kilboy Estate Stakes on her earlier in the summer.

“That year I felt things were starting to get going again [with 28 winners for the season in Ireland], and the Irish Leger came the following year. After a few slow years, you really appreciate when you do get back going.”

Star turn

Asked about the best horse he has ever ridden, McCullagh says: “I’ve sat on some great ones over the years, particularly in John’s. I obviously didn’t manage to ride him in a race but I did ride Sea The Stars in his training before.

“I can remember riding him at home as a young horse and he probably just seemed to be another horse at the time. Suddenly then Michael [Kinane] started riding him and the horse kept progressing and progressing - I never got back on him again!”

Race-riding has become even more savoured in recent years by the son of trainer Michael McCullagh. Niall’s son Scott has created a strong impression as an apprentice in recent seasons and regularly sits close to his father in the weighing room on racedays.

“I absolutely love seeing Scott doing well,” he says. “Being honest, I’d rather see him have a winner than me. That’s the truth.

“My daughter Nicole has also done great in college. She graduated with first-class honours in Business and Law at Maynooth, the first in her class of 57. She must have got the brains of the family! I’m very proud of what she’s doing too.”

McCullagh adds: “It’s tough on Scott at the moment because his weight restricts him. He was lucky to get a few more chances and winners in Jessica Harrington’s yard when Shane Foley was injured but it all shows how hard and competitive racing in Ireland is.

“In my opinion, Scott is a top-class apprentice but he still has to work hard for rides and graft away. Hopefully he’ll get a run at things and lose his 3lb claim because I think that would be a big help to him.

“It’s very different to when I first started out. I weighed 4st 12lb in colours when I had my first ride as a 15-year-old. We had a lot of small, light riders in the past - and some still exist - but the apprentices are absolutely bigger now. That reflects how it is in the general population.

“Bottom weights were 7st 7lb when I began and that’s up to 8st 7lb now; I can see why. People might say that I’m agreeing with that because Scott is taller, but it’s not just him by any means - it’s the vast majority of apprentices nowadays.”

Philosophical approach

The 54-year-old horseman’s talents do not appear to have diminished visibly in the past handful of years, but his number of rides are not as plentiful as was the case in previous years.

Does he find that situation difficult to cope with?

“There are times you’d have to get frustrated but you need to remember, it’s all human nature or even nature itself,” he says philosophically.

“The young bucks come along and the old stag gets pushed out to the periphery. Every now again, though, the young bucks are away or busy and the old stag lands in… Bang. He gets the job done. That’s the way you have to look at it.

“If I thought I couldn’t give a horse a proper ride or felt I wouldn’t be able to give 100%, I wouldn’t be riding at all. I do feel I’m still riding well and if I get on the right horses, I’m still confident that I will get the job done. That’s what keeps me going. When I feel I can’t do it, I’ll stop there and then that day. I know I said before that I’d stop at 50 but I’d rather treat it in that way.

“Sure, last week at Galway has well and truly made my whole year. The fact I had a double the week before for Jim Bolger was another boost to. I promise you, if you told me the Friday before Galway that I’d ride two winners for Jim Bolger and then head to Galway and win a feature handicap for J.P. McManus and Padraig Roche, I’d have asked how you escaped from the mental hospital!

“It all goes to show that you never know what’s around the corner in this game. If you keep grafting away, the tide will turn. I’m a firm believer in that. Good things happen to good people. Keep your head down, keep grafting away and you’ll get your due reward.”

Only the strong survive a lifetime in racing - let alone close to four decades in the saddle - though it’s only natural that there are more yesterdays than tomorrows left in McCullagh’s riding career.

If his Galway heroics are anything to go by, however, the young bucks of the weighing room will be kept honest for another while yet. The old dog for the hard road still has plenty of fight in him.

HAVING already ridden a winner at every track in Ireland and captured a classic, it begs the question whether there is anything that could be ticked off McCullagh’s bucket list in the near future?

The veteran jockey does not hesitate when asked to nominate the omission from his CV he dearly wants to rectify.

“I’ve never won the Lincoln and it bugs me,” says McCullagh.

“That’s because I should have won it as an apprentice for Eddie Harty snr many years ago and I haven’t forgotten about it. It absolutely annoys me. You never know, I might get to strike that one off the list next spring.”