FOR anyone who’s met Jody McGarvey, they don’t need me to tell them he’s a likeable and popular guy. For those that haven’t had the pleasure of meeting the charming Derry native, they need only look at how his weighroom colleagues showed their support when McGarvey announced his retirement during the Punchestown Festival last week.

“I’ve had it in my head that I’d retire at the end of the season,” the 34-year-old explained, six days on from his final ride aboard the third-placed Mirazur West. “I actually had another ride the following day, but I didn’t think I had much chance and it ran accordingly; it was pulled up.

“Although Willie’s horse got beat, I made the running, he jumped like a buck, I got involved in the finish, and I still got a kick out of riding it.”

Jody didn’t expect the reception that followed, he admits. “The way it unfolded over the next 10 or 15 minutes kind of took me by surprise. One minute I was walking back into the weigh room and the next minute, I was called out, and there were cameras in my face everywhere, and people congratulating me. I turned around and all the lads had come out of the weigh room. So, that was really nice.

“I was quite sad walking across the car park knowing I was driving out for the last time as a jockey,” he adds, but I point out he wasn’t the only one mourning his departure. “Judging by the send-off I got at Punchestown, I think I’ll be missed,” he admits.

“A lot of fellas did come up to me to say they’d miss me, and that nearly meant as much to me as anything I’ve achieved over the years. I didn’t think I was as popular as I was, to be honest, so that was the one thing I will take away from retirement.”

Jody also counts his blessings for how his career ended, he adds: “Most lads get a fall and then they stop. Or some lads get to the stage of their career where it just dries up and they can’t get rides any more.

“So, I’m incredibly lucky for a start, and incredibly grateful that I got to say, ‘Right, this is it. This is my time. I’m finished and on to the next thing.’ I get to go out with my head held high, because I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like for lads that are just made stop. It must be so frustrating.”

Though Jody rode four Grade 1 winners during his time in the saddle, a lack of quality rides in recent times drove his decision, he explains: “It’s not that I wasn’t enjoying it; I love riding horses with chances, or horses that are good jumpers. I still get a kick out of it, and I’d love to be still doing it.

“But the reality of it is, I’d probably drive around the country there for the summer with a few rides at every meeting, and you’re just making a living, not riding many winners, and nobody enjoys that.”

New chapter

Other factors convinced him that now was the right time. “I’m getting busy here at home, I got offered a job in Gordon Elliott’s and I’m going to be kept busy. I’m still making a few pounds, and I’ve a little baby on the way now, in the next four or five weeks, too, so I’ve more than just myself to think about.”

On his new role, he explains: “I’ll be riding work and taking charge of the schooling of the young horses, making sure that any young horse that’s running soon in a maiden hurdle has the ample amount of schooling done to run. Then sitting down with Gordon, going through horses and entries.”

The constant risk of injury as a jockey was another deciding factor for Jody, he says. “If I got a silly fall over the summer and couldn’t work for a few weeks, it would just be a hindrance to me, because I’m very hands-on here at home.

“If I was riding better horses, I’d be making a lot more money, and I wouldn’t have to take as many other rides just to make the week’s wages. I could pick and choose, but unfortunately, I wasn’t in that position, so I just didn’t really want to take the risk to be honest.”

And he knows all about injuries, breaking his collarbone, arms, wrists, his leg and vertebrae in his back and neck. “Nearly every year that I seemed to get rolling, something happened to set me back,” he says. “I never really had a good team of horses to ride, so when you disappear for a couple of months and you come back here, it’s like starting all over again.

“You’re just grinding and grinding the whole time. I ground it out there for years and luckily salvaged a good enough career. I suppose I got to ride a lot more good winners than some people ever got the chance to do, so I’m grateful for that, but I did have to do it the hard way.”

While injuries have always been a risk for jockeys, other changes in the industry have made things more difficult for jockeys since Jody partnered his first winner, Code Of The West for Christy Roche in 2012.

“When I first started, there were loads of lads training 30 or 40 horses, and they were training winners, but it’s the same people training the winners now,” Jody comments. “You can see that trend with the jockeys then; the jockeys that ride for those certain few yards are the only ones that are really riding the numbers of winners.

“I think the quality of rider is so good as well, so when you’re going into yards, it’s hard to break in somewhere, it’s hard to find your place. The spare rides are non-existent. Gary Cribbin has been my agent since I started and he would tell me when the entries come out, he can nearly tell you, the minute they come out, whether you’re riding or you’re not. You can nearly jock the racecard up yourself.”

How it started

Derry native Jody inherited an interest in the game through his father, a racing fan and keen racegoer, but got his first hands-on experience as a 16-year-old at RACE. “I had loads of experience riding and show jumping, but I’d never actually ridden a racehorse,” he recalls.

“I actually got a bit of a fright when I went there, just seeing how much the other lads around me all knew. I didn’t really know what to expect, because I had no background in it, but when I went to RACE, I just loved it.

“By the time I left and started working for Christy [Roche], I was 17, nearly 18, so the lads were streets ahead of me, experience-wise. Thankfully, I did plenty of jumping in the past and I’d say that stood to me.”

It’s Christy Roche that Jody credits with putting him on the road to success, he says: “He really nursed me along in the early years and, I’d say if I started riding nowadays, I probably never would have made it as a professional jockey, because I just wasn’t good enough starting out and the other lads were so far ahead of me, but Christy was such a great teacher.

“In those days, when you worked for a trainer, they’d look back at races with you and help you, whereas these lads are just thrown in the deep end, into big yards. There’s not really much support for young jockeys, or coaching for jockeys, as such. I know they’ve started jockey coaching with Equuip now, which is a great incentive.”

Five years after riding his first winner, Jody was legged up on Great Field, a talented but unpredictable jumper who showcased Jody’s horsemanship and fearlessness. The pair won their first five races together, the highlight being Jody’s first Grade 1 success in the Ryanair Novice Chase at the Punchestown Festival, which Jody nominates as his career highlight.

“I’d nearly succumbed to the fact that something like that would never happen to me – the Grade 1 winner – because every year was a struggle to get rides and get winners. But I kept doing it and doing it and just by chance, out of blue, I got on him.

“Thankfully, J.P. [McManus] and the team let me keep the ride on him, and he crept up through the ranks. I went to Punchestown riding an odds-on shot in a Grade 1 and he went and won; that was the icing on the cake. If you’d said to me a year previous, you’ll ride a Grade 1 winner in the next season, I wouldn’t have believed you.”

Attitude is key

Great Field’s low jumping that day brought his girths dangerously far back - one of many difficult-to-watch instances in the chaser’s career, his regular blunders requiring considerable skill from his rider to retain the partnership.

Jody’s outlook was key, it seems. “When he was good, he was very good, but when he was wrong, he was very wrong; he’d frightened the life out of most. I never felt any pressure riding him, because I knew if something went badly wrong there was every chance it was going to be his fault.”

Jody adds that owner J.P. McManus was another positive influence, as he never put any pressure on him, and the same applied when Jody partnered Janidil to Grade 1 glory at Fairyhouse. Jody was completing a Grade 1 double on the card, having landed the mares’ feature aboard the Shark Hanlon-trained Skyace.

Unfortunately, Covid meant there were no crowds or celebrations - something Jody is known for embracing, especially if it involves a microphone and a guitar. Fortunately, life had returned to normal when he gained his fourth Grade 1 in December 2023, when landing the Drinmore Novice Chase aboard I Am Maximus at 11/1 for Willie Mullins and J.P. McManus. The same combination returned a few months later to win the Bobbyjo Chase.

“That was another big day,” Jody comments. “I know it was a Grade 3, but it was a big winner and it was great to be left on them horses, because if I did get passed over for Mark or Paul… I understood the position I was in. Obviously, I wouldn’t be happy about it, but I wouldn’t have a chip on my shoulder about it.

That’s life

“I knew where I stood in the pecking order, and that was it. But that’s the measure of J.P. and Frank Berry, to give me the chance, like he was a steering job that day. So, I’m incredibly grateful for that.”

Unfortunately for Jody, Paul Townend took the ride on I Am Maximus next time out, when he won the Aintree Grand National, but as ever, Jody took it on the chin “Look, it was disappointing, but it’s nobody’s fault, that’s just the way it works,” he says. “I think that’s probably why I lasted it as long as I did in the position I was in; I knew where I stood. It doesn’t mean you have to like it, but I just kept my head down and got on with it and said nothing.

“We’re all only human. We all want what’s best for ourselves and we’re all competitive. I’d a lot more disappointments in the game than I had good days. But when you do get the good days, it makes up for all the bad ones.”

Considering the highs and lows, would he support his future child following in his footsteps? “Jeez, I don’t know,” he says. “I would stand behind them whatever they wanted to do, but at least I’d be there to mentor them in the early stages and get them the experience they need. I was so inexperienced starting off that I was miles behind the rest of the lads.

“I just hope that if a son or daughter of mine was going to be a jockey, that they’d be very good at it. Otherwise, I’d be pushing for an education or a trade on them – something to fall back on because it’s so tough.

“I was lucky. I got to ride for a long time and got the chance to make a few quid, but I’ve seen so many lads that have tried it, and things just didn’t happen for them, and they had to give up and go and do something else, maybe when they’re in their mid-20s. That must have been hard, so I’m incredibly grateful that I got to make a career out of it and I’m ready to do something else now.”