Shane Ryder

I train in Laurencetown Co Galway which is my home place and it’s located about halfway between Ballinasloe and Portumna. I’ve had my licence since 2007 and have trained about 30 winners. We've had some good horses along the way including some smart point-to-pointers that went on to do well on the track.

I rode in point-to-points and bumpers and had my share of winners I remember one year going to the Punchestown festival and ...having five or six rides and thinking that I was a jockey!! It’s a great meeting in that respect with plenty of opportunities for amateurs. It was always my intention, though, to come back home and start training.

Jenniferjo was a good mare that I won bumper on for Pat Fahy and she went on to win five races over jumps and has produced a couple of useful stayers as a broodmare. I rode a good bit for Tony Mullins as well and spent a summer with Dermot Weld and a couple of months with Pat Hughes to see what I could learn about the training side of the game.

I have six in at the moment and you could say I’m a one man band as I do pretty much all the work myself. I have facilities at home if I want to school my horses and I bring them to Charlie Swan’s gallops three times a week. Sean Bowen and Joey Sheridan come up from Denis Hogan’s yard to put mine through their paces there when I want to give them some fast work. Paul O’Neill has a very good facility in Quin Co Clare and I use his gallops sometimes as well.

I have had part-time staff from time to time but they tend to come and go. The bigger yards can afford to pay that bit more and there’s a bit more banter and craic to be had if you’re part of a bigger team. Not saying we wouldn’t have the craic here, but it’s fair to say there would be a bit more of it going on in the bigger operations with that number of staff.

Obviously it’s time-consuming when you have to take care of each horse on an individual basis but I love heading out every morning to be with my horses. It’s a way of life that is so enjoyable and is hard to match. I’ll never be a millionaire but some things are more important and I’m not someone who would be content to sit in an office all day.

We enjoy the good days when they come along. Pateen winning at the Galway festival in 2017 was like having a Cheltenham winner and A Few Bob Short was a grand horse for us on the Flat a couple of years later. He won three handicaps including one at the October meeting in Galway.

Dan Skelton has been a good supporter of mine and we’ve sold some smart horses to him. No Hassle Hoff bumped into Topofthegame in a point-to-point at Belclare before going to do well for Dan, and Ardlethen won on debut at Bartlemy before also being successful for Dan. Mister Miyagi was a bit unlucky for us and didn’t manage to win but made up for that when winning five of his first seven races for Dan and finishing sixth to Altior in the Supreme. Dan was actually underbidder on Gabynako, who was second in a point-to-point for me, and he went on to finish second in the Arkle for Gavin Cromwell. It’s all about getting your hands on raw material like that but, of course, it’s easier said than done.

The point-to-point scene has changed hugely in recent years and you need to be going down to the first like a handicapper in the four-year-old maidens these days. That’s how professional and intense it has become. Back in the day, I recall one trainer telling me to pop a horse over a few barrels the day before he was due to make his debut in a point and the horse had never been off the ground in his life prior to that! That wouldn’t wash nowadays!

So the point-to-points have been a good way of making a few bob if you can trade a good one, but I love going racing at the tracks too and meeting people and making contacts even if I’m generally going there with horses at the lower end of the scale. As they say, you’re never a prophet in your own land and my owners have come from far and wide all over the country. I like to be fair with my owners, tell them the truth and be straight with them, and they appreciate that.

This season No Hassle is flying the flag for us and she deserved to get her head in front at Tipperary last week having just been chinned on her previous two starts. I’m delighted with how she has progressed and we’ll roll the dice again at Ballinrobe at the end of the month. She’s not rated high enough to get into anything at Galway during race week but there might be something for her there at the September and October meetings. She was off the bridle a fair way out when winning over 1m4 the last day and I think she’ll get further in time.

I did the four-year Equine Science course at the University of Limerick when I was in my twenties which meant I was a little late in life when I started training but it’s great to have that qualification in the bag as a fall back. It’s not getting any easier for the smaller trainers at the moment. I’m 46 now and have a wife and two small kids. Being a one man band, I can’t afford to have a sick day and holidays are not an option which my wife isn’t too pleased about! I’m not sure I want to be riding out for a living when I’m 50 years of age and it would be foolish not to have one eye on the exit door and keep my options open but, like I said, it's a great way of life and one that would be hard to give up.