Declan McDonogh

My time in Australia has been great and really enjoyable and I’ve got a lot of support from a lot of different people including a variety of different trainers. I came down to spend time with Peter and Paul Snowden but trainers like Gai Waterhouse and Anthony Cummins have backed me and I’ve ridden a winner for Godolphin as well down here so it has been a great experience.

Hugh Bowman had been on to me for a couple of years to come down and give it a go and see how I got on and the end of last season suited me well and it has exceeded my expectations really. A lot of people have gone out of their way to help me and put me up and hopefully that will continue until the end of my stay.

It is very different down here in terms of training and riding. The horses down here are more aggressive on the bit and much faster out of the gates, even the two-year-olds are lightening fast out of the gates. They’re trained to run home the last 600m quickly and that is why they’ve got so many good sprinters down here and it’s nice to see something different and see how they train that sort of animal.

From a riding point of view initially it took a few races to get a feel for race riding and they really position up quickly down here. Unlike at home, there’s no marker poles here where you have to stay straight but they have got a two length rule where you’ve got to be two lengths clear of another horse before you cross it and you have to look around. I actually think that is a very good rule to have because I’m not so sure the marker poles in Ireland make a lot of sense and the two-length rule could work a lot better. You’ve got to be two-lengths clear and if you are not you get suspended and it’s as simple as that.

I had great respect for the other riders when I got here and they respect you back. It’s a bit rough and tumble at times at home and we have our fair share of fallers, which is not good, and you could definitely learn a lot from down here the way they do things in Australia.

My visa restricts me to staying here no later than 20th of February but I was very glad to get it as a visa is quite difficult to acquire for racing people now but returning to Ireland at that time of year fits in well with getting ready for the new season in Ireland.

There’s nothing much happening at home at this time of year and to be honest, with the heat and the experience down here in Sydney, I’m not really thinking about getting back home just yet!

That said, I’m obviously looking forward to the season starting and expanding my contacts. It’s just like being down here in Australia, you are meeting new people trying to make new connections and broaden the spectrum.

I’m enjoying riding winners down here and I guess if I was back home you’d just be going to Dundalk for one meeting a week and when it is the same bunch of horses running there every week it can become quite difficult to ride winners so the opportunities down here are far more plentiful.

I’ve been keeping some contact back at home and Mouse O’Ryan has been sending me pictures of Gordon Elliott’s two-year-olds and he looks to have some gorgeous looking types for the year ahead. Gordon did very well with his first two-year-olds last year and Mouse has been keeping me updated with how they’re training at the moment in Joey Casey’s and the reports are good so I can’t wait to sit up on some of those.

I’ll be returning to Ireland to freelance this year and I’m hoping to make plenty of connections and hopefully my agent, Kevin O’Ryan, will be able to do as good a job for me as he did last year and we can have another good year together. It’s a different challenge, riding freelance, but one I’m relishing. Riding a Group 2 winner at the Curragh for Gordon was one of the highlights last year but there was also some big money handicaps for Willie Mullins throughout the year and Willie is always capable of rejuvenating some of his jump horses for those big valuable flat races and you never know when one might come around. It was a good year all round.

The lifestyle here in Australia is a bit different to back home. We start at 4am and you might be finished about 7am or 8am but a couple of days a week you have barrier trials which are pretty much the equivalent to our schooling races. I rode in 12 the other day in baking heat and it was tough going but it’s quite a good scheme. Horses get to learn their job before going to the races and their behaviour in the stalls is also monitored by the starter so if they misbehave they’ve got to go pass the test like at home.

The heat took a bit of getting used to at first. I went up to Canterbury one day and it was 42 degrees and quite humid but the weather is quite changeable and you get used to it. One massive benefit down here is that you get time to enjoy yourself and relax but I’ve also found myself with a bit of time to work on my fitness because you are not riding every day and I’d say I’ve probably never been fitter and that will certainly stand to me when I get back home to get stuck into things as well.

I’ve really enjoyed the Sydney experience so far and hopefully we’ll be able to bag a few more winners before packing up for home. It’s been much better than I would have thought and I’ll be very open to coming back down in the future but first hopefully we can keep the ball rolling when the new season starts back home.