JOHNNY Burke had one simple goal this season; ride 50 winners. He’d never ridden 50 winners before. He had 48 one season in Ireland, which is big for Ireland, but after riding 45 and 48 winners in two of his previous four seasons in Britain, 50 was the bullseye.

Early last month the Cork native had to sit down and review his goal. If you’re doing that, it’s either very good or very bad, and in Burke’s case it was most definitely the former.

As he spoke on his way home to Broadway - 25 minutes from Cheltenham - from Wednesday’s meeting at Wincanton, he had 55 winners on the board. He’d go on to ride a double at Ludlow on Thursday to make it 57. Among that total is Grade 1 winner Not So Sleepy who dead-heated with Epatante in the Fighting Fifth in November. It was the first dead-heat of Burke’s career and one he shared with another Cork native in Aidan Coleman.

That was a catalyst for further success this season but there have been other factors too and things have really got going for him this term.

“It’s different over here to back home,” Burke says thoughtfully. “The travelling, the tracks, the amount of racing, the tempo in races - it probably just takes a bit of getting used to and it doesn’t happen overnight. In my first year, I only had a small number of trainers I could ride for but I’ve got a lot of support from a lot of people now. It’s all about making contacts and having the experience.

“The biggest thing about here is you’re at it nearly every day. So if today’s doesn’t go too well, you’ve another chance tomorrow. The nice horses help as well. To win the Fighting Fifth with Not So Sleepy was big. I rode Love Envoi to win a Grade 2 recently as well - it all helps.

“The Saturday winners are big. That wasn’t something I would have thought of coming over. It just captures the attention of more people. You’d be going racing on Tuesday and Wednesday after and people would be coming up to you saying well done.

“For me getting into the 50s this year was big. I’m delighted to do it.”

Burke is still only 26. It feels like he’s been around for so much longer than that. Next month it’ll be eight years since he won the Land Rover Bumper on Willie Mullins’s Very Much So.

The treadmill that is Burke’s career was maxed up to full blast then because just a couple of months later, he was riding professional, and then in October he was signed up to be retained jockey to Alan Potts, which at the time, one of the best jobs in jumps racing either side of the Irish Sea. And he was just 18, still claiming 5lb.

Despite his inexperience, he made hay with the golden opportunities provided to him, straight away partnering Sizing Europe to his fourth win in the PWC Champion Chase at Gowran and parenting Sizing John to Grade 1 success at Leopardstown that Christmas, just four days after his 19th birthday.

More signature successes followed the following year and he ended up winning the conditional jockeys’ championship by 15 winners. But it often seems like Sir Isaac Newton was factoring in the life of a jumps jockey when he said “What goes up, must come down.”

When Burke suffered a T3 and T4 compression fracture following a fall at Thurles at the end of January, 2016, it was the beginning of a horrid 18 months. That injury only kept him out for five weeks but within three weeks of his return, he fractured his T6 vertebrae in a schooling fall and that was five months out.

Out of sight, out of mind shouldn’t affect retained jockeys in theory, but things had begun to change for the Potts team later that year. They’d transferred their horses from Henry de Bromhead’s yard to Jessica Harrington and Colin Tizzard. Burke had never ridden for either.

Amicably

In the end, he and Potts agreed to part ways amicably in November but while he had a fresh start, the injuries kept coming - a broken leg in a fall at Fairy-house in December and shortly after returning from that setback, he chipped a bone in his shoulder and suffered tendon and ligament in the process following another fall. That ruled him out until July.

“I’ve no doubt that time, riding the big winners for Willie and for Ann and Alan Potts combined with the injuries I had, it definitely helped me, it definitely turned me into the person I am today,” Burke says. “Of course, you don’t appreciate success as much when you’re young - it was all a bit of a blur for me. When the injuries came, eventually I think I got better with them as they came along, if that makes sense.

Sizing John gave Burke a first Grade 1 win at the age of just 18 \ Healy Racing

“After the first few injuries, I was desperate to get back. I’d be going racing and keeping track of everything and I’m not sure that’s the right thing to be doing. As I got a few more setbacks, I used the time off to do things you probably can’t do as a professional jockey, went off travelling and seeing places around Ireland, I just enjoyed that side of life more I suppose.

“The physical thing will sort itself out if you give it a little help but the mental side you have to look after more. You find a happy medium; so you do your rehab and get yourself back fit as quick as possible but you can take that opportunity of time off to do other things.”

Burke was at the 2017 Derby Sale with his father when a British number popped up on his phone. It was Charlie Longsdon and he asked Johnny would he consider going over. He said he would and after the call he spoke to his dad, and the pair of them agreed it would be a good time to go over. He was only 21 - give it three or four years and if it doesn’t work out, he can always come home.

“When I moved over I was lucky to be living with William Kennedy and his girlfriend, renting a room off them,” Burke says. “I’d say if I wasn’t living with them, I wouldn’t have stuck it out. I was fairly homesick but William kept saying to me, just stick at it, this can turn at anytime, and to be fair he was bang on.

“That November, at one of the Ascot meetings before Christmas, I rode Double Shuffle in a Grade 2 and Sir Valentino in a £100,000 handicap chase for Tom George. Adrian Heskin was riding first jockey to Tom at the time but he had to go up to Haydock to ride The World’s End for the McNeills. I hadn’t ridden for Tom before but he knew me from buying pointers off Dad down the years so there was a connection there.

“I finished second on Double Shuffle and won on Sir Valentino. Up to that point I was just riding mainly for Charlie, he was my only contact, but off the back of that win, I just started to go in to George’s once a week just to show my face.

“Then Adrian got the McNeill’s job and Charlie decided he wanted to use the best available and I kind of fell into George’s by accident that summer after. It was kind of a case of being at the right place at the right time.”

Burke went on to enjoy good success with the likes of Bun Doran, Clondaw Castle and Summerville Boy. He has surpassed his own benchmark of staying in Britain until he was 25 and he says he’s settled now, having bought a house last summer in Broadway, where he lives with his girlfriend Frankie.

Fighting Fifth Hurdle with fellow Cork man Aidan Coleman - the pair fought out a dead heat on Not So Sleepy and Epatante. It was the first dead heat of Burke's career \ Healy Racing

Content

The move to Britain has worked out and he is content with his lot, while remaining wholly ambitious to achieve more. Ask nearly anyone in racing and they’ll tell you Johnny Burke is a gent to deal with. His steady tone of voice is that of a guy unfazed by most things thrown at him. Part of that is the experience he attained at such a young age but also from a close-knit racing family background.

“Dad would have been very busy with horses when we were growing up,” he recalls. “For about five or six years he had 100 horses, a lot of point-to-pointers, and horses for Paul Nicholls’s owners, along with a lot of owners that are still with him today.

“My mum passed away when I was five and my sister was nine, so she kind of took care of me when Dad was out working. I’d be very close to her. She is in Australia now, working in a racing office for a trainer. We had great staff and great neighbours to help bring us up.

“We’d great jockeys as well - Derek O’Connor was in, Richie Harding, Davy Russell, and I was just looking at these guys and absolutely idolising them so it was always going to be that way for me.

“I was quite heavy growing up actually. I was nearly 10 and a half stone when I was 12. I remember a prolific owner, I won’t mention his name, he said I wouldn’t make a jockey because I was overweight and it had never crossed my mind because there were always horses at home and I just took it for granted.

“From that day it dawned on me that I maybe had to do something about it so I started running in the evenings and so on. It was just the harsh reality that I needed.”

Vital

It’s obvious from speaking to Johnny that his father plays a vital role in his career and life. Liam Burke has his own list of achievements to be proud of, having sent out winners of the Galway Plate, Thyestes and Tim Duggan Memorial. He also had a Grade 1 winner in Thyne Again. The evolution of the point-to-point scene has seen his string decrease but he’s still training away, and sent out a nice bumper winner at Fairyhouse in January, Heliko Conti.

Remarkably he has also taken out his riding licence again at the grand old age of 64 and has had plenty of rides in recent months.

In November, he had been caught up in the John Warwick case when he arrived at Ballintogher Stud as Gardai and officials from the Department of Agriculture, Food & the Marine raided the premises. It was a case of stepping into the wrong place at the exact wrong time, and though he had absolutely nothing to hide, the trainer confessed to having sleepless nights and panic attacks after his name was associated with the story in mainstream newspapers.

“He’s fine now, he’s gotten over that thankfully,” Johnny reports. “He was doing a favour for a neighbour - that’s the only reason he actually ended up there. He was dropping a horse off for a neighbour on his own way to the races at Fairyhouse.

“He’s a quiet and hard-working man that just wants to get on with his day and to be caught up with a story like that would be his worst nightmare and I’m sure it was for the two or three weeks but everyone knows him and knows he was just caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“I speak to him quite a lot. He’d always be watching my races - sometimes I think he thinks he trains every horse I ride! If I knew I’d done something wrong, I wouldn’t even ring him, I’d leave him off for a day or two. But I think since he started riding again, the shoe is on the other foot, and I’ve rang him up a couple of times and had a right go at him!

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw he’d taken his licence out. Even the lads in the weighroom here think it’s amazing. Fair play to him, he gets a great buzz out of it. I’d love him to ride a winner. Maybe he can get one during the summer. It would be some achievement.”

You wouldn’t bet against it. It has been another year of big achievements for the Burke family and it could get better again with Cheltenham around the corner and then Aintree, where Johnny could be in line for the ride onSnow Leopardess, who has the potential to capture the imagination of the racing and general public heading into the Grand National.

Particularly, a Cheltenham winner is a void in his career that he’s keen to fill.

“I’ve a couple of sporting chances for the week. I’d obviously love to get off the mark. I’ve ridden there enough times now and ridden winners at the track outside of the Festival. It’s hard taking on the Irish horses coming over, even at the entry stage, they look so strong.

“You just have to put the head down, do your best and I’m sure the wheel will turn back eventually.”

Johnny Burke knows that better than anyone.