Roger Loughran

I announced by retirement from race riding last week after more than 20 years with a licence. I loved every bit of it.

The decision has been coming for a while. I’m nearly 40, the pre-training business is growing and it was hard to get enthusiastic about driving around the country for one ride that might not have much of a chance. It doesn’t pay you to do that and you might as well be at home, have a bit more time with my partner Jessie, my daughter Hannah, who just turned four on Saturday, and the horses.

For the first time, I wasn’t really enjoying it and I had loved every minute of it from my first ride in a bumper. I didn’t want to grow bitter about something I loved.

Having said that, the last few years before this one were actually quite good. I rode 18 winners last season and that was my best since 2009-2010. In 21 seasons, that is my fifth highest tally so it was good to show that I was still able to do the job. And that was important for me. That I would go myself as a jockey, rather than people saying ‘He should have retired years ago.’ Not being forced out through injury is good too.

There’s no-one happier than my mother Brigid. She used to find it hard to watch the races and would always look away when I was coming up to a fence.

Peter Fahey has been very good to me and I’m still riding out and schooling for him, as well as pre-training for him. I know Peter a long time, from when we were both amateurs. We used to share lifts with Aidan Fitzgerald and Alan Crowe.

Peregrine Run has been great for us. He’s won 10 times and I was on his back for nine of those — the other was a bumper that Katie Walsh won on him. To win at Cheltenham, beating Wholestone and West Approach in the Grade 2 novice hurdle in November 2016 was just brilliant. I thought those days were gone. He gave me a new lease of life. He’s a lovely horse, and won plenty of nice chases subsequently too.

I loved Gaelic football growing up in Cortown, and might have dreamed about playing for Meath when I was very young but if I did, that soon changed. Johnny Henry Snr, who was head huntsman with Meath Hunt for years, got me into horses and encouraged me from the start. I kept onto my father James to buy me a horse. He finally gave in to me when I was 12, taught me how to ride and has been there ever since to help me.

I went to RACE when I was 16 and was placed with Pat O’Leary. After a stint with Pat and his son Ger, I moved to Christy Roche’s on The Curragh. That was great but Paul Moloney, Alan Crowe and Adrian Lane were all there and it was hard to get rides. Kieran Kelly told me Dessie Hughes was looking for an amateur.

I’d do anything around the yard, I’d cut grass or anything, so Christy sent me over on the tractor with a few bales of hay for Dessie. I took the opportunity to ask for a job. Christy didn’t hold it against me and I was delighted to win the Galway Plate for him on Far From Trouble in 2006. He was a brilliant horse but unfortunately he got hurt and never had the chance to show just how good he could be.

I was still an amateur when I rode Central House to beat Moscow Flyer in the Fortria in November 2005. Dessie brought me into the kitchen after that and said ‘If you want to have a go at this, we’ll have a go at it. And if you do you’ll have to do two things. You’ll have to make 10 stone and you’ll have to work hard.’ So I turned professional, because Central House was there for me, and I was disciplined about my weight from then to the very last day.

We won the Hilly Way a few weeks later and it was going great when we went to Leopardstown at Christmas and I misjudged the finish line on him in the Paddy Power Dial-A-Bet Chase, thinking I’d won my first Grade 1. Hi Cloy and Fota Island went past us in the last 50 yards.

Dessie Hughes had always been a father figure to me. I felt terrible and people were giving out but he put his arm around me, said ‘These things happen. Forget about it now.’ It meant everything and from that day to the day he died, he never mentioned it again. Not once. He was some man.

The owners, John Kenny and Joe Doyle were great too so it was fantastic to win the Tied Cottage Chase on the horse six weeks later. My parents were there that day and we got a great reception coming back to the winner’s enclosure.

I won a lot of good races on Central House and two Grade 1s on Schindlers Hunt. There were more graded races on Grangeclare Lark, Black Apalachi and Kyrie Eleison but things started getting quiet, not because Dessie didn’t want to use me but a lot of owners didn’t. In 2011-2012, I had one winner from 116 rides. The following year, it was four winners but only 92 rides, but thankfully it improved again from there because I had a lot of great support.

Someone told me recently that I’d had more winners for Dessie than any other jockey that went through Osborne Lodge. I don’t know if that’s true but I was with him a long time, he gave me a lot of opportunities and I’d like to think I repaid him.

I was very lucky compared to a lot of lads. I rode a lot of top-class horses and won a lot of top-class races. I lost my seven-pound allowance when I was still an amateur in a Grade 3, the Woodlands Park Chase at Naas on I’vehadit for Dessie. For a young lad, that was unbelievable.

Central House could go around with his eyes closed. I’ll never forget in the Fortria at the ditch in Navan, the fourth last, myself and Barry Geraghty, who was on Moscow Flyer, were booting down to it and he flew over it. You know a horse that comes up along and then he goes again in the air. You could feel him stretch again in the air. That’s how good he was.

Real good horses have that. They come for you and then in the air, when they’re not getting there, they get that extra bit. It’s a great feeling when you’re up on their back.

Acapella Bourgeois was like that too. He was class. The day he won the Ten Up Chase in Navan by 32 lengths was some exhibition. I might as well have ran around myself, for all the effort he had to put in that day. It was so easy for him.

I didn’t want to make it but was let off. He hacked around and I gave him a kick in the belly down the back to let him roll down the four fences and then slow him down coming to the ditch. I jumped the second last and never looked around and people asked afterwards, ‘Why didn’t you look around?’

But I’m originally hail from near Navan and there was a fella standing at the fence that lived beside us at home. He was standing at the second last and he roared, ‘There’s no panic young Loughran, you’re a mile ahead!’ Such a laugh. So I didn’t have to look round then.

I have been preparing for this phase of life now for a few years, building up a yard at home and pre-training for different people. I have 10 boxes and room for more. I’m looking for a bit of ground for a gallop at the moment.

I still ride out and do a bit of schooling for Peter and I really love doing that. A friend of mine told me that Dessie said to him once about me, ‘That’s some man with a young horse.’ It was something that was in my head a long time. When you ride horses that are badly broken, it used to go through me and I always said I’d love to do it right. As they say, if you rear your pup, you have your dog. If you teach a horse the right way from the get-go, he’ll never forget that. They’ll always try you but if they’re shown the right way, that’s it. It’s the ruination of a lot of horses being broken by cowboys.

I’ll be straight and honest with people that send me horses and I haven’t been too wrong so far. I did Coeur Sublime and Dinons, who were both owned by Tim O’Driscoll. Tim has always been very supportive and is a real good friend. Coeur Sublime is a very nice horse and though a lot of juveniles don’t train on, I bet you this lad will train on. I just think he’s a little bit immature still and needs to harden a little bit, so there’s more to come. I do a bit for Pier House Stud and Oghill Stud as well as Peter and Tim. Hopefully it will keep growing.

So there’s a lot to look forward to. I think of a lot of people that supported me and stuck with me over the years, all the owners and trainers and apart from the people I’ve mentioned already, there were the likes of Sandra Hughes, Tom Foley, Mick O’Dowd and my agent Ruaidhri Tierney.

Thanks to everyone and we’ll kick on now for the next bit.