RUBY Walsh isn’t known for suffering fools or dishing out effusive praise without good reason, so when he describes a rider as “magical to watch”, you know it’s an endorsement to be proud of.
For a number of years, Keith Donoghue’s achievements could arguably have been viewed as being especially noteworthy, due to the fact they were being achieved in spite of a considerable battle with the scales. Nowadays, however, that factor rarely appears in the discussions surrounding his biggest successes. He is simply renowned and established as one of the finest National Hunt riders you’ll find anywhere - and rightly so.
Still, any jockey will tell you the importance of finding proper horsepower in having success, and Donoghue crystallising his partnership with the rising juggernaut that is Gavin Cromwell has been an important catalyst in bringing his career to new heights.
In the five seasons before 2022/’23, the proud Meathman recorded 12, 17, 6, 35 and 25 winners apiece in Ireland. In the three seasons since, with his Cromwell link in full flow, he has managed to set new career-high marks each year - breaking into 48, 61 and 63 winners domestically. That is no mean feat when he hasn’t ridden below 11st 1lb here in the last year.
A love affair with Cheltenham’s cross country course, which started with three Festival wins on the legendary Tiger Roll, and another on Delta Work, was cemented last spring when the Cromwell-trained Stumptown admirably defied top-weight in the Glenfarclas-backed highlight.
Donoghue now has the honour of being the outright most successful rider in the race’s history, while Cromwell also supplied another of the 32-year-old’s six Cheltenham Festival wins, striking aboard Limerick Lace in the 2024 Mares’ Chase.
The same duo combined to become the first Irish winners of the historic Velka Pardubicka in Czechia last October, capping a groundbreaking year for the stable, but now the gaze is very much forward-facing ahead of a big spring; kicking off this weekend at the Dublin Racing Festival.
A quieter-than-usual spell for Cromwell had been the subject of discussion prior to a high-profile Goffs Thyestes Day treble at Gowran Park. The winning theme has continued into this week, with the pair combining for success at Punchestown through The Passing Wife. It might just be the perfect time to hit form.
There’s been plenty of chat about how the winter has gone for Gavin. What’s your assessment of how the horses have been performing?
I think there are a couple of ways you can look at it. There were definitely a few horses running below par, but there are also a lot of horses who have done well and are now up to career-high marks. That obviously makes life tough for them. I think a lot of it is probably that, and we might be missing a couple of standout novices as well. There’s never just one factor with these things, but there were some of the horses running below par.
I also wonder, when you make progress in such a big way like Gavin has over the last few years, everyone’s expectations are probably higher than ever before. It isn’t always realistic to keep exceeding those standards every season.
I would definitely say that Gavin overachieved with a lot of horses last season. We ended up with some who got to marks close to the 140s, and you might never have dreamt they’d get there before. He did extremely well to keep some of those horses winning beyond what you would have initially expected of them.
Gavin is a quietly-spoken character, but you know him better than most people. How would you describe him?
I get on very well with Gavin, both in a professional sense and being close outside of work. Gavin is a quiet man but when he speaks, you listen to what he says. He’s got a great team around him too. Someone like [race planner] Troy Cullen is very good to have on board, and you won’t find better than having the likes of [assistant trainer] Garvan Donnelly around. There are too many names to mention everyone, but it’s a great team of people that Gavin has brought together.
Now Is The Hour was a massive winner for the yard in the Thyestes last week. I thought it was interesting to see that the handicapper raised him 8lb for winning by a head - and that came in a race where only five of the 18 runners completed. Had Spanish Harlem got over the last, I’m not even sure Now Is The Hour would have definitely won.
To make a comparison in Britain, the winner of the £100,000 Silver Cup Handicap Chase at Ascot last month, Deep Cave, won by a head and only received a 2lb rise over there. He’s actually been beaten off that new mark since.
I appreciate handicapping isn’t an easy job, but the way horses are penalised in Ireland can feel fairly harsh at times. When they win here, versus what seems to happen in Britain, sometimes it feels like we’re too hard on them.
And the horses that it can impact most are the ones who get raised for finishing second and third, getting put up 3lb or 4lb. I often think that if they weren’t good enough to win on the day off their rating, how are they supposed to be good enough to win the next time with more weight? It’s not just young horses, I see it happening with older horses too. I obviously have a lot of respect for the work that the handicappers have to do, but it’s just something you notice when seeing the rises in the weights from time to time.
Talk to me about the growth in your number of winners over the last few seasons. That must give you real satisfaction to look back on.
I do take satisfaction from it, because there were plenty of frustrating years along the way before that. Plenty of years where I wasn’t getting the rides that I feel I probably should have been getting. Things just weren’t going how I wanted.
Ireland is so competitive as well when it comes to making a career of it as a jockey. I’d happily say that, if any rider can have an average of 25 or 30 winners a season in this country, they’re doing well. To have the sort of numbers I’ve had in the last few seasons has been fantastic; especially with my weight.
I definitely miss out on 20 or 30 winners a year, but I’m not complaining about that. I’m lucky to be in the position I’m in to do the weights I can. When you’re riding winners and better horses, everything is easier to manage; that includes your weight.
It sounds like you’ve managed to get your weight into a decent place over the last few years. That’s in spite of the racecourse saunas remaining closed, which caused a stir among riders when it was first announced [back in 2022].
I’ve actually got a hot tub at my house now and I use that for sweating. I find it very good, but it was necessary because of the decision to stop the use of saunas at the racecourse. Really, I think everyone is still sweating as much as they were before; it just feels like the powers that be have turned a blind eye to it by closing the saunas at the tracks.
It’s frustrating for us all. To give you an example, at Leopardstown, you can get a ticket to go and use the sauna in the gym beside the chute, but we can’t use the brand new one that’s in the weighing room. I don’t think I’m on my own in saying that’s a bit ridiculous. Before a meeting at Fairyhouse, there could be six or seven lads over at my house using the hot tub.
Surely it would be common sense for those riders to be able to do what they need to do at the races. You’re only increasing danger for jockeys when you’re forcing them to sweat elsewhere. Nobody wants a scenario where young jockeys are driving for two or three hours while dehydrated, because they’ve had to do their sweating away from the track.
I’m a firm believer that the saunas should be reopened at racecourses anyway. The bottom line is that you’ll never stop jockeys from sweating. It’s just part of the game.
Do you feel there’s anything in your own riding that has helped you improve over the last number of seasons?
I definitely think you get better with age, with more experience. I’ve got better from mistakes that I’d made in the past, and from confidence - I think confidence is the big thing. You back yourself when you know you’ll be riding the horse again the next day. You’re doing the best by them.
It sounds like you have a keen eye for the race programme book. Not every jockey has that level of interest beyond their own riding.
I’m mad about that side of racing. I love knowing the race programme inside-out. I could get off a horse and give my idea of a race for them in six weeks’ time somewhere, knowing where it is and what date it is. I get a lot of enjoyment from that.
In Gavin’s, I’m happy to have a good input into where the horses might run and work through it with them. It’s similar with my brother Ian [Donoghue], in terms of trying to pick out a few races. With Sarah [Dempsey] being my fiancée, I do a bit with Philip Dempsey as well and I love that.
Tell me about Ian. He’s been making a name for himself in the training ranks, and that takes some doing given how competitive the scene is here.
He’s doing really well and our brother Ross is a big part of the operation too behind the scenes - I think Ian would be lost without him. Ian is getting his winners and doing it the hard way; he’s not going to the sales to buy mad expensive horses. He’s been buying cheap horses, trying to improve them and, thankfully, winning races.
I try to help him out as much as I can, alongside a friend of mine, Ryan McCue. The three of us keep an eye on picking out races together. We mightn’t agree a lot of the time, but we’re trying our best to get it right!
Whenever the day comes that you hang up your riding boots, could you envisage yourself training?
I could, but obviously I see how hard it is in Ireland to make it a success. If you were to go down that route, you’d be starting from scratch again in your own name; that’s something to consider. I have a great interest in that side of racing, but I don’t know if I’d do it for definite.
Does having those interests outside of race-riding mean there’s no off-switch for you?
Honestly, I’m nearly thinking about racing 24/7. Different races, different horses; they’re always on your mind because of how involved I am. I try to play a lot of golf in the summer. I like my hunting and skiing too.
Like half the country, I’m enjoying the trend of going to the saunas and ice baths. I was in one only the other night with Gavin, Paul Carberry, Simon McGonagle, Colm Dwyer and a few other local lads - we have a WhatsApp group between us and try to go together. Things like that are great because it’s social, but I’m keeping on top of my weight in there as well.
I really enjoyed a cross country feature you did with Ruby Walsh on ITV Racing before you won on Final Orders in December. Watching it, seeing your knowledge of every part of the course, I came away curious if you’d done lots of analysis of replays around there, or how you developed the knack for the place?
I never really studied it, to be honest. It just came naturally enough. Before I rode Tiger Roll the first year, I wasn’t going back watching all the replays of the previous years - it just felt natural once you walked the course. I suppose that’s the hunting background, though. It’s what your instinct tells you.
What about Stumptown in the Pardubicka? You did extremely well to keep the partnership intact on the way around.
We were lucky, so lucky. There were two or three times I could have easily fallen off him, and you’d have felt I didn’t have much chance to stay on, but luck was on our side. It was a very special race to win. Whatever happens in my career, that’s going to be right up there with anything we’ve managed to achieve. Of all the winners I’ve ridden, it’s the one that I’ve got the most messages about, the most interaction on social media, the most interest. It was brilliant.
Even though he was well beaten, I thought another old favourite of yours, Flooring Porter, showed a bit of enthusiasm on his comeback at Cheltenham last weekend.
It was a good start back and you’d be delighted to get that run under his belt. Hopefully he shows up and gets another run in before Aintree. He’d be a fun ride around a Grand National if he did take to it, and he might be in there around my type of weight too, the way the race is nowadays.
In several interviews you’ve done before, I noticed you credit your mam [Patricia] as an especially big part of everything you’ve managed to achieve in your career. In what ways has she helped you?
She does everything for me. And when I say everything, I mean literally everything! She’s brilliant for looking after sorting the healthy food for me, but she’d go as far as putting diesel in my car for me. I’m getting married this year, so Sarah is going to have do all that now - she knows what’s coming!
In all seriousness, though, it’s brilliant having someone like her there when you’re trying to organise sweating and everything else that goes with the job. I’m delighted not having to worry about anything else.
If the first half of the winter was to be described as a shade quiet by yourself and Gavin’s standards, could that mean there’s possibly more left in those horses than might typically be the case? That it could end up helping deliver a big spring?
We do feel like that. We’ve restocked a little bit and think there are some nice horses to come out in bumpers and maiden hurdles; not to the same calibre of what Gordon and Willie might be buying, but we think there are some nice horses who can win races.
This weekend at Leopardstown, I’ll have a few chances, mostly in the handicaps; and they’re obviously very competitive races. Hello Neighbour was myself and Gavin’s first Grade 1 together at this meeting last year, and I think it might have been his first Grade 1 in Ireland for a few years [since Flooring Porter in December 2020] - he’d won two Stayers’ Hurdles at Cheltenham in the meantime!
It just goes to show the calibre of horse you need in Ireland, and how hard it is to win those Grade 1s here. It meant a lot to get that one on the board with Gavin last year and I’d love to ride more Grade 1 winners. That’s what we’re all trying to do.
The first horse that gave him the racing bug
Bobbyjo. My first racing memory is him winning the Grand National.
The horse who gave him the best feeling over the Cross Country course
Tiger Roll, in his second year [2019]. He was unreal that day [won by 22 lengths].
His favourite golf course to play
Tralee, the links course. I play off 13, but I’d describe myself as badly handicapped!
A defeat he’d like another go at
Sixandahalf in the Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle last year, although I wouldn’t mind another try on Hardline in the [2019] John Durkan, when we were second to Min.
A young rider to watch
Conor Stone-Walsh is a young jockey who has had some nice winners for Gavin.
A dark horse to follow
Ian bought a new horse the other day in an online sale called Katzoff [for 1,000gns]. He’s lowly rated and a nine-year-old, but he could be interesting.