BIG-RACE success in the £100,000 Bunbury Cup at Newmarket’s July Festival last Saturday served as the latest reminder of Rossa Ryan’s ability to shine on the big stage.

However, he may have ended up excelling on a different sporting stage last weekend but for an encounter between his father and a local farrier while growing up in the village of Ballinderry near Tuam, Co Galway.

A former underage footballer for the Tribesmen, it doesn’t seem impossible to think that, in another life, Ryan could well have been helping his county to an All-Ireland Senior Football final appearance at Croke Park last Sunday. Instead, he was watching on from afar at Chantilly, where competing in blacktype action in the colours of global powerhouse Juddmonte. Not a bad alternative to shooting into the Hill 16 end.

“He was always good at every sport he played,” recalls David Ryan, father of the in-demand rider, and a small-scale trainer whose biggest success came at the 2006 Punchestown Festival through valuable handicap chase winner One Four Shannon.

“He was a great footballer. We actually hoped he might go down that route when he was younger because we obviously know the ins and outs of the racing game, but then there was the pony.

“A local farrier had this one and asked me if I’d be interested. Sure he got the good racing pony and that finished that with football. After he got the pony racing bug, there was no stopping him. It was less and less football, more and more racing.

“Our club is Corofin - real football country - and he would have played alongside nearly all the lads around the senior team here before, as well as the likes of Dylan McHugh [man of the match in last weekend’s win over Donegal].

“We’re thrilled to see him doing what he’s doing and competing in those big races. We’ve always kind of instilled into him that how hard you work probably determines your success rate. It seems to be paying off in that sense.”

Setting the standard

The goalposts may have changed from those early days, but it seems as though Rossa Ryan is operating with close to tunnel vision in his pursuit of sporting success right now. The numbers are beginning to add up. So are the big-race wins.

His coming-of-age campaign in 2023 can be summed up by a few key figures: 202 winners in the calendar year (more than any other flat jockey in Britain), a whopping 1,090 rides (more than any other flat jockey in Britain) and a profit of €109.24 for anyone backing each of his mounts to a €1 stake (more profitable than any jockey with at least 250 rides last year).

What’s more, things have only picked up this year.

From January to the end of June in 2023, Ryan notched 83 winners in Britain from 500 rides. Fast forward to 2024, and he clocked an even more impressive 105 winners from 647 rides during the same period. He is going through the gears. Again, Ryan is officially the most in-demand rider in Britain this year, and a simple numerical approach seems to keep his mind focussed.

“I keep my head down and treat every day as a new day,” says Ryan, who only turned 24 a fortnight ago but speaks with the sort of composure you’d associate with a much more senior rider.

“I have a target every week, winners-wise, that you have to meet. That keeps you driving for more. For example, last year I wanted to hit 150 winners so that meant riding three winners a week from the start of January to get there.

“I know to get to 200 winners this year that I’ll need four a week, but I’ve almost kept it the same in aiming for three winners in a week. Even if I can pull three out of a time where it feels like maybe I’m not having the best week, it’s still working itself out over the course of a year. It pushes you on every day.”

On the road

Ryan is speaking while in the middle of a near eight-hour round trip to Pontefract that results in a winner and two thirds from five rides. He ends up reaching the golden four-winner mark for the week through other successful trips around Britain to Ffos Las and Newmarket.

“I did about 70,000 miles in the car last year,” he says of the hectic regime.

“It’s probably more mentally challenging over here than physically, between riding out in the mornings and getting in the car for three or four hours to get to the racecourse. Things are going well, though. I can’t complain. I’m well ahead of my tally from last year and I’ve already got a Group 1 winner on the board.”

That victory at the highest level came just three weeks ago in the Pretty Polly Stakes at the Curragh aboard the Ralph Beckett-trained Bluestocking - a success that meant plenty to the rider given it was his first Group 1 win on home soil.

It didn’t always look the likeliest outcome for the 11/10 favourite. In fact, she traded close to 16/1 in the in-running markets when looking to have plenty on her plate, but Ryan and the four-year-old managed to pull it out of the fire in the closing stages to score by half a length over Emily Upjohn.

The winning jockey does not view his ride as a vintage one (“the filly got me out of trouble - that’s one thing for sure… I thought Emily Upjohn was gone and not coming back”), but maintaining a level of self criticism seems to have been a constant through his career so far.

Nearly three years ago he spoke about being hard on himself in getting over defeats. “I’m okay in front of the cameras after riding a loser but not always behind closed doors,” he said at the time. However, experience and travel has helped him adopt an increasingly mature perspective on the sport.

Constant improvement

Asked what is the biggest thing he has learned in recent years, Ryan says: “You have to keep pushing for constant improvement, but it’s a job that can also turn so fast. One minute you can be top of the world, the next you’re kicking the barrel. Then you can be back going better than ever in no time. Racing turns quicker than the flick of a lightswitch. It’s a great game, but it can change quickly.

“I think going to Australia for three months taught me the need for perspective. I was still in racing but I got to see a bit more of the open world outside of the sport. I was staying with one of my uncles who isn’t into racing and the experience down there opened up my eyes to the world.

“Racing is great, and when you’re in it, it’s brilliant. But sometimes you can get sucked in way too deep into it. Then you start overcomplicating it. Sometimes it’s a very simple sport, but it depends on how you take it on the chin.”

He adds: “Moving on from one race to the other after disappointment is probably the thing that every jockey struggles with. It’s something I’ve got better at and definitely something I’ve got to keep working on. I think half the time it’s just over complicating things, that’s half the battle.

“It’s not the easiest job in the world, there’s more to it nowadays than riding horses. When you’re riding winners, keeping them ticking every week, it makes things a lot easier.”

Any successful sportsperson must be able to adapt to setbacks, and arguably the most impressive strand of Ryan’s career so far is how he has rallied since splitting with Amo Racing towards the latter stages of the 2022 season. He was aged just 22 at the time.

The former champion pony racing jockey, who rode in the same excellent flapping crop as the likes of Darragh O’Keeffe, Dylan Browne McMonagle, Ben Coen, Shane and Nathan Crosse, Danny and Mikey Sheehy, Luke McAteer and Andy Slattery, does not look back with great negativity on his time as Kia Joorabchian’s retained rider. He instead looks for an upside.

Finding a positive

“I mean, it took me up the ladder quicker than I possibly would have been able to otherwise,” asserts Ryan.

“If I didn’t ride for Amo, would I have ridden Shaquille last year in the July Cup? I’m not sure. Funnily enough, on the flight over to the Curragh the other day with Ralph, we were talking about the Amo thing. I’m nearly sure that if I didn’t ride for Amo, Bluestocking would have been my first time riding at the Curragh - and that can count for a lot, knowing the track.

“I’d definitely have been very wary going out on an 11/10 favourite in a Group 1 then if I had never ridden there before. There are always positives to take out of something you didn’t think worked out as you expected.”

Ryan recorded Royal Ascot winner number four last month when taking out the ultra-competitive King George V Stakes aboard Going The Distance, and the nephew of highly-successful Australia-based jockey Tom Ryan is excited to see how high the Beckett-trained three-year-old can fly.

There is also the small matter of Bluestocking chasing another Group 1 in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Qipco Stakes.

The man who splits his mornings between Beckett, Clive Cox and Alan King believes it will be difficult to catch Oisin Murphy in the race to become champion jockey this season. With the title decided on winners ridden from May 4th to October 19th, as opposed to the entire calendar year, Murphy has established an advantage of more than 20 winners in the championship window. If matters were decided on an entire year’s action, the Kerryman would lead on a much tighter scoreline of 118 to 115.

Still, Ryan is unapologetic about his ambition to reach the top of the mountain in Britain.

“I wouldn’t be in racing if I didn’t fancy a cut at the jockeys’ championship,” he says, matter-of-factly.

“It’ll be very hard to catch Oisin this year because he’s riding well and getting on the right horses, but one day it would be great to do it.”

That day might be on the horizon sooner rather than later if his eyecatching progress is anything to go by; potentially just like an All-Ireland title is for his beloved men in maroon. The western stars are alligning for success on the big stage.

The best horse he has ridden:

Bluestocking. I got a particular kick out of winning the Pretty Polly on her, I think it was because it was on home soil and my grandparents were there too. They don’t really go racing much but they decided they wanted to come that day. I’m very close to my family. I speak to my dad most days, discussing what’s happened after racing. He’s a good man to have on your side because he keeps you on the straight and narrow.

His biggest remaining ambition:

To become champion jockey.

The best jockey he has ridden against:

Ryan Moore.

What is on his bucket list outside of racing:

I’d love to travel to Nashville. It’s meant to be unreal and I’ve had a few friends speak highly of it. I’d really like to go over and experience the whole thing properly.

One thing he would change in racing:

I’ll actually give you two: prize money levels and racecourse sauna closures. Weight-wise, I’m okay but the sauna situation is playing on the minds of a lot of lads. With racing commitments in the afternoon and the travel involved, sometimes you have to sweat the night before you even ride out now. What some of the riders have to do here is ridiculous. Guys are renting a room in a hotel [near a racecourse] only to be able to use it for an hour to sweat in the bath before racing. It’s not good and I think the excuses the authorities come up with are pathetic. I don’t know what will happen but I’d say the jockeys will keep pushing until we have them back.

What he’s looking forward to for the remainder of 2024:

You’re always trying to find the next Bluestocking among the two-year-olds you’re riding. Then there’s the likes of Going The Distance, who won at Royal Ascot - who knows what he could become? If we could get another Group 1 win out of Bluestocking it’d be a brilliant year altogether.