Gavin Ryan

It has been great to keep the momentum of a good season going through an unforgettable Galway, and an equally memorable week to date.

Galway was fantastic, riding five winners including two feature events and finishing up as leading rider. Then on Monday, I rode a double at Naas to lose my five-pound claim and yesterday (Thursday), registered my first group winner as part of another double at Leopardstown. All in all, that was 13 winners in three calendar weeks.

When you are riding winners your confidence is up and things flow better and that’s how it is at the moment.

Last week in Galway I won on a horse for Mr Weld and Juddmonte, called Centroid, who is Enable’s brother. I had a winner in the Michael Tabor silks for Donnacha O’Brien. And you are being legged up on other horses with serious pedigrees. To get rides for those trainers and owners is putting a lot of faith in you and I am thankful to them for that.

Then when you are riding for someone like Ado McGuinness at Galway, you always have a chance. Ado and Stephen Thorne are so astute and the lads in Dooley Thoroughbreds love having winners in Galway. That’s their Derby to do the business on Salstonstall, Sirjack Thomas and Current Option was great.

They don’t put pressure on you, which is great, so you can ride for luck and that’s what you have to do around Galway a lot of the time. The important thing is to be patient. Thankfully, it paid off.

We had a long wait for the verdict of the photo finish in the Colm Quinn BMW Mile. I didn’t think we had gotten up on Saltonstall. He hit the line well, but the last few strides with my head down I was really just giving it my all. Next thing when I looked up we were three strides past the line and I was only after getting in front at that stage. I thought I was beat. ‘Socks’ Madden thought he was beaten too.

I was delighted we came out on top but it was hard luck on Socks and the connections of Njord. He gave his fella a great ride.

I was hopeful we were going into the two group races at Leopardstown with a chance and Shale did it well in the Group 3 Frank Conroy Silver Flash Stakes for Donnacha and the owners Derrick Smith, Mrs Magnier and Michael Tabor. I won a maiden on her in Gowran on her last start and she won it well. She is out of a Guineas winner, Homecoming Queen, and is by Galileo. So we fancied her chances and she was a big price at 14/1.

It is unbelievable to be getting these opportunities, especially after I fractured my L2 vertebrae following a fall in Dundalk in March. As it turned out, I only missed a few days of actual racing action as we went into lockdown the following week and by the time we were back I was ready to roll.

I served my apprenticeship with Jim Bolger, after I started there in August of 2016. I stayed another six months after my three-year term was up but there are a lot of riders down there and I figured it was time to move on. Donnacha was starting off and he said it to me towards the end of last year if I fancied going down to him. It didn’t take much thinking about, to be honest. Since I went down I have got great chances. Donnacha has been great to work for and Coolmore have been great to back his judgement in putting me up.

My agent Dave Keena has been with me since the start and he has been great in making sure that I built up experience before I started riding lost of winners so that by now, as I start to lose the claim, I have a lot of connections made and hopefully when I become fully fledged, they will stick by me. If you lose it very quickly, you might not have built a connection but hopefully I have with these trainers now.

So the goal is to ride as many winners as I can now and it would be lovely to be champion apprentice. But there’s a long way to go yet so we’ll keep the head down and take each day as it comes.