Sean Davis

I’m excited to be going into a new business venture with my weighroom colleague Gary Halpin. We have rented Ulundi Lodge on the Lumville side of the Curragh from Kathleen Kennedy. Her late husband Vivian used to train from there and my former boss Michael O’Callaghan used it as a second yard in recent years.

Gary and myself are going to be preparing Breeze-Up horses from there and we have learned from plenty of the right people. It’s an ultra-competitive sector but I’m very competitive and I really want to succeed.

I’m from Maynooth and, after going to RACE, I joined Michael O’Callaghan’s stable and later spent a year with Ger Lyons. I had plenty of success in the saddle in those years and Michael’s success on the track with Breeze-Up graduates has certainly inspired me to get involved in that side of the game. When I relocated to Britain things were going really well for me with Richard Fahey but I was still very young and maybe not living my life in the proper way off the track.

I came back to Ireland which I knew was maybe not the way to advance my career as a jockey and I got some criticism for that, but I knew it was the right thing for me to do. Myself and my partner Sinead have a young family. My son Roan is two and Aine is seven months. There is more to life than just riding winners, there are other factors to consider. I would like to continue race-riding for the foreseeable future and I’ve also done the trainers’ courses, so it’s possible that I might be sending out runners from the yard as soon as next season.

Just on a personal note, it’s great to see my brother Daire doing well over jumps in England. He started with Jim Bolger and spent time with Joseph O’Brien before heading over. He's a tall lad and it was always only a matter of time before he went jumping. Olly Murphy has been brilliant to him and is helping him learn his trade. I speak with him regularly and my dad is his number one fan and follows his career closely.

I met Roger O’Callaghan of Tally-Ho Stud at Doncaster Sales a couple of years ago and he told me to get in touch if I came back to Ireland. I now work in Tally-Ho in the mornings before coming back to our own yard where we have some great people keeping the show on the road when we are elsewhere. Tally-Ho has a brilliant team of riders and Roger has been like a mentor to me. Gary has worked there for a number of years and it’s a top-class operation.

I’ve been back riding out for Ger Lyons too and he’s a great man to offer advice and talk things through with. I appreciate that I have some really good people to discuss things with and learn from.

Gary and myself have had shares in yearlings and breezers over the last few years and we doubled our money last year which encouraged us to go the next step along the road. We’ve bought a few yearlings recently and by the end of the year we’ll probably have ten or so in the yard. We’ve 18 stables, paddocks and a walker and the Curragh gallops are close at hand. If we feel we have stakes prospects we’ll be looking to breeze and sell them next year, and we also have some clients that are looking to buy at the Breeze-Ups and send horses to us to train as two-year-olds and subsequently trade on.

I’m competitive by nature and it’s fair to say that rides have dried up for me since I returned to Ireland. I don’t feel bitter about the way things have turned out. It’s more a case that I’m excited and ambitious about this new chapter in my life. I only want to race-ride if I’m competing and if that isn’t quite happening, then I want to be competing and succeeding at something else. It’s good to be going into the new venture with Gary as two heads are better than one and we can bounce ideas off each other. We have a nice bit of experience built up but have youth and energy on our side as well.