December 29th, 2011

THE move to England just wasn’t working out. The lifestyle was fine and Evan Williams couldn’t be nicer. The lads in the yard were great. But Sean Flanagan just couldn’t buy a ride.

Paul Moloney had first pick and Adam Wedge was the stable conditional. Flanagan was picking up the odd scrap here or there.

He was paying the price for blasting out of the blocks like an EPO-fuelled cheetah. He was fully-fledged before his 21st birthday, thanks to a stunning run supported predominantly by Liz Doyle and Dusty Sheehy.

Having ridden his first winner at the end of 2006, he finished the campaign with 14. The rising star clocked up tallies of 19, 23 and 20 in subsequent seasons, in the process winning a Grade 2 novice chase on the Sheehy-trained Merry Cowboy, bagging a Grade 3 hurdle on Colm Murphy’s brilliant mare Voler La Vedette and the Thyestes Chase on Whitstone Boy for Jimmy Mangan.

But the economy took no prisoners and Sheehy was almost wiped out. The opportunities dried up. So England it was and it was like a slow death.

So when good friend and owner Padraig Byrne called offering the ride on Gamede in the Pertemps Qualifier at Leopardstown’s Christmas meeting, Flanagan jumped at the offer. He had been on board when the five-year-old won his maiden. This might turn things around.

It didn’t. In fact it nearly brought a full stop to life as a jockey for the Wexford man.

“We were tipping away down the back when he broke his hind leg and got fatally injured” explains Flanagan.

“I pulled-up, got down off him. walked into the middle of the track and sat down on the ground for 20 minutes. I didn’t ride again for a month. I gave up. I didn’t even go back to England. I just went home and never went back.”

October 31, 2016

In Galway on Tuesday, Flanagan rode his 21st winner of the season. Were he to increase that tally at Down Royal yesterday, it would have been fitting, as it was 10 years ago to the day, at the same meeting, that he rode his first winner, on Keevas Boy for Sheehy in a handicap chase.

Then, it was all ahead of him, and given the way the graph spiralled upwards in the next couple of seasons, a big job seemed inevitable. The journey took a little longer, through no fault of his own. You need horses, fortune and confidence. The latter takes a severe pummelling when you’re pushing and kicking and grinding for three miles, having driven a couple of hours just for this chore – perhaps the only ride in a few days.

“There was a point-to-point trainer said to someone about me one day, ‘Don’t worry about that lad. You get one chance of being a jockey and he made a balls of it.’ When I got the job (as Noel Meade’s stable jockey), I was nearly going to ring him but sure leave him on. It’s proof that you just never know.

“The thing about racing is there is just no law to it. You could be on the breadline today and be eating with the king tomorrow.”

REGAINING CONFIDENCE

He was back home in Wexford, doing odd jobs for people around, clearing his mind completely of horses. There was no turmoil. Racing was a closed chapter and needed to look forward, to find something new.

Then, out of the blue, neighbour Andrew Doyle – now pupil assistant trainer with Paul Nicholls – called to ask if he had any interest in doing some work on a few horses he had with his brother Gordon.

Flanagan tried to fob Doyle off but, whether Doyle just needed someone badly or was on a mission not to let Flanagan walk away from the game, he persisted, until he wore Flanagan down. He hasn’t looked back since, establishing a relationship with another neighbour along the way that has been critical to his progress in recent years.

“I’d be great friends with Jimmy Kelly now. He took me under his wing and filled me with confidence. I started riding for Harry (Kelly) and Jimmy a lot more and you were riding horses that travelled, had a bit of ability and could take you where you wanted to go. That boosted the confidence again.”

Jimmy encouraged him to accept an offer to ride in America in 2013. It went well but even better, when he returned the following year, the raft of nice young bumper horses the Kellys had were ready to go hurdling.

Meanwhile, he re-established contact with Doyle too and she had real quality in her yard. Everything was falling into place. The winners came and have kept coming since.

If he mentions the word ‘confidence’ once in a 37-minute conversation, he mentions it 10 times. And his unofficial jockey coach/sounding board is one of the primary reasons for that.

RIGHT OR WRONG

“Jimmy is the little man on my shoulder going around. He’d ring you after a ride, whether it’d be for him or anybody else. If you’d done something wrong he’d be the first man to tell ya. And he’d tell ya. He keeps me on my toes all the time. You need that because you’re confirming in your own head then whether you were right or wrong.

“There’s nothing as bad as going home from the races wondering ‘Why?’ or ‘Should I have done that?’ Whereas you’re going home after the races and you ring Jimmy.

“‘What you think?’

“And then you either go ‘Yeah you’re right, there’s nothing more I could have done’ or ‘Yeah, I should have done that.’ It works both ways but the big thing is to put your mind at rest.”

After Davy Condon retired in April 2015, he called up Meade wondering if he might need another body. It was leading into the summer and things were quiet but the trainer told him to stay in touch. He was keeping busy though, doing well and never really got around to it.

Then he met Lauren, and in the course of visiting the Armagh woman more and more regularly, he realised he was passing Tu Va a lot. So he made contact again and started riding work. He was there a couple of months when in September, Paul Carberry suffered a broken leg at Listowel, an injury from which he would never return.

In 35 rides for Meade last season, he proved his mettle, particularly on the Patricia and Paul Hunt contingent, winning three times on the exciting staying chaser Bonny Kate, once on Snow Falcon, and twice on the talented-but-brittle Monksland.

Two of those successes were in Grade 2 contests. With the artillery, he could deliver.

Little wonder that Lauren is taking the credit for the upward trajectory of his career!

TAKE IT AS IT COMES

“When I started last year, you could see what was coming. I was looking at all of these horses, all three-year-olds, thinking ‘These are going to be some horses’ and they have all progressed as they looked like they should have done. And Mr Hunt… what a legend! He’s some man to buy horses.”

Meade’s easy-going manner made it easy too.

Perhaps it was the many years with Carberry but he isn’t big on giving instructions. He trusts the man in the plate and that is a huge boost to Flanagan. So was being named stable jockey, although you wouldn’t call it a formal arrangement.

“Paul was just awesome, a top-class jockey and we’re never going to get anyone like him. He was at that age that I’d have been delighted to see him come back, whether it was for six months or a year, so that he could go out the way he should have, after the career that he had and the legend that he is, on his own terms, with all the boys clapping him as he walked into the parade ring for the last time.

“I never had horses like I do now to ride before and to have someone like Noel to back you… We get on really well and we’re getting to know each other better every day. But as regards him saying ‘I want you to be the stable jockey’ or anything like that, there’s been no real conversation. I read it in the paper.”

He isn’t about to bring it up either. The boss tells him what to ride, be it at home or on the track and he hops on board. The injuries to Condon and Carberry that provided him with this golden opportunity are a reminder of the vagaries of racing and he is not going to tempt fate.

“You just take every day as it comes. I’m absolutely thrilled to be where I am today.”

For a long time, Flanagan was just waiting for a chance, but chance has been had the very epicentre of his story. There was never any master plan. There was plenty of luck along the way, at both ends of the spectrum. It was there at the very beginning.

Like many kids, he hated school but it was there the window to his future opened, as a fella landed in asking if anyone was interested in riding horses.

“That might be a bit of craic” thought young Flanagan, but he wasn’t moved sufficiently to offer his services. Not, that is, until it was emphasised that they would have to leave school early on a Friday. His hand shot up lively then.

WHERE IT ALL STARTED

From the time he sat on a horse’s back, he loved it. Loved the feeling, the energy. He rode as much as he could. Not long after, a guy he did some farming with, Tommy Fleming, asked him if he had thought about becoming a jockey.

He hadn’t but when the seed was planted, he knew it was what he wanted to do. Fleming owned a couple of horses and had the 14-year-old in at Doyle’s by the following Saturday.

He went to RACE two years later and enjoyed his time with Martin Brassil. He became friendly with Shane Foley and his fellow Wexfordian got him work with Sheehy, the trainer Foley would inherit a nickname from.

He soared and then he plummeted, but now Flanagan is back. He still rides for his former supporters when he can. He schools for Doyle and the Kellys, as well as well-known point-to-point handler Mick Goff, who trains a couple for Flanagan.

Ruaidhri Tierney is a “brilliant” agent and Lauren knows to take him away somewhere when he starts getting a little quieter, which means he is thinking a little too much about an upcoming race.

This weekend it’s Down Royal and the major fixtures will roll into one another now in the coming months. It’s a long way from being sat on his hunkers in the middle of the track at Leopardstown, deciding that he was done with racing. The game has taught him never to get ahead of himself but he has begun setting targets.

“Last year was the first year I ever set myself a target. Half-way through the year I said I’d love to ride 30 winners. After a day or two of saying that I said ‘Don’t be silly, where are you going to get 30 winners out of?’ and my last winner of the year was my 30th. So I stretched it to 40 this year… If I could ride 40 I’d be delighted.”

It has taken longer than expected, but the rising star has finally arrived.

FLANAGAN ON

MONKSLAND

“He will run in the Grade 1 (JNwine.com Champion Chase) at Down Royal and is in great form. The last day at Galway was probably one of his better days. He’s come back in this year and seems an awful lot better. Barry Reynolds is a young lad in the yard who rides him out and he gets on really well with him. He seems to be settling better. Noel always said that he probably wants better ground and Galway was the best ground I ever rode him on. He actually had a little bit of scope.

“He just falls short a little bit in the jumping department. He is a bit flat in his back and wouldn’t have a whole lot of power from behind. So he might lose a little bit of ground but, touch wood, he always keeps his backside down and his head up and that’s why he’s never turned upside down.

“He is made of china. I rode him in his last piece of work before he was to go to Cheltenham. He never worked as well and then he pulled-up after fracturing a bone. He’s very talented though. When he’s fit to run, you run him and he should go well.”

DISKO

“He is probably as exciting a horse as I’ve ever ridden over a fence. I know I’m only starting off but when I was in Dusty’s, I was riding a few horses that were in the back-end of their careers like Justified and Rathgar Beau, and Trafford Lad was there too but I’ve never ridden a horse like this. He’s very unexposed and only had three runs over hurdles. For him to go out and give the display he did in Punchestown, I think he’s very, very special. He’s some engine and it was a fair thrill to get the chance to ride him, with Bryan (Cooper) out injured.”

ROAD TO RICHES

“He seems to be tipping away the finest. Ger (Fox) rides him most of the time. It’s all systems go I think for the Lexus. He had something like five or six kissing spines. He was brilliant to jump but in the Galway Plate he made a couple of horrendous mistakes so there was obviously something holding him back. Now that he’s got that sorted, he should be ready to go.”

GIGGINSTOWN AT TU VA

“With Bryan out at the moment, Gigginstown and Noel are giving me the chance to ride the horses like Disko, which is brilliant. On the bigger days, Gigginstown have so much firing power, there’s going to be a spare. Noel has 23 or 24 for them so there’s going to be an overlap somewhere. I’ll take what I can get.

“Le Martalin is a really good horse. I was on him when he won his maiden (by 17 lengths at Galway) and I rode the lad that was fourth (Presenting Percy) to win his maiden impressively the other day. He was nearly a furlong behind Le Martalin. Le Martalin did everything wrong that day. He was too keen, rushing his hurdles and making mistakes because he was fresh. It was very impressive but he’ll be nothing until he touches a fence next year.”

YOUNGER HORSES TO NOTE

“There is oceans of them. Gettysburg Address won a bumper on his only run last year and he’s a nice horse. There’s another who hasn’t run yet Super Follo, who won a point-to-point for Donnchadh Doyle who’s a very nice horse and Noel likes him a lot. The one I really like is Moulin A Vent (who made his debut over hurdles at Down Royal yesterday). He won his bumper really well in Galway a few weeks ago and jumps well. I schooled him last week and he was very, very good.”