AIDAN Coleman is full of chat, and if last season was a little disappointing in not registering a ton of winners for the first time in four campaigns - he fell just five short - the calendar year of 2019 must rank up there with the greatest of his professional life.

In truth, it started in the dying embers of 2018. It was three days before Christmas when the first Grade 1 triumph of what had already been a very successful career arrived for the South Cork pilot, Paisley Park astounding onlookers with his acceleration from off the pace to claim the Long Walk Hurdle.

By the time Cheltenham came around, the Co Limerick-bred son of Oscar and Presenting Shares (by Presenting), was a warm order for the Stayers’. Fortunately jockey and horse made light of the expectation to take the spoils amid raucous scenes of jubilation all around Prestbury Park.

From there, Coleman marked the onset of June with his 1,000th winner, on Western Miller at Stratford. Three months later, he picked up his first success at Kelso, thanks to Theflyingportrait, and that put him in a select group of jockeys who have won at every NH track in Britain. The latter milestones are a reflection of Coleman’s endurance and he has had to show a considerable degree of bouncebackability to reach this juncture. And at 31 since last August, it is reasonable for him to hope that the best may yet be to come.

Racing excellence

Though reared in a pocket of racing excellence in Upton that meant he had future multiple classic-winning jockey Wayne Lordan and long-time point-to-point rider Don Atkinson as neighbours, Champion Chase-winning trainer John Murphy just over the road and Grade 1-winning producer Robert Tyner on the other side of Inishannon, in truth it was the typical scenario of aping the older brother that got Coleman into horses.

Kevin would go on to win a Galway Plate on Sir Frederick in 2007 before a catalogue of injuries put paid to his ambitions. Now, with a degree in sport and exercise science in his back pocket and a stint with Michael O’Callaghan behind him, he is training in Carrick-On-Suir.

“Despite the people that were around us, we are not from a horse racing background. My parents were both teachers. I was lucky enough, Kevin got into it.”

Coleman has a common-sense outlook to the achievements of the latter end of 2019.

“All those milestones are great and personally they mean a lot but, to be fair, they are only personal milestones. In the grand scheme of things you don’t get anything out of them. But I am proud of them and delighted to have done them. As far as the career goes, it is not really going to open any more doors. I am around long enough that you just have to keep doing what you are doing, these targets come and go.

“This is my 14th year riding. I have seen a lot and you are still learning every day. But the turnover of young lads coming through over the years is a lot bigger than you would think. When you are doing your job every day you have tunnel vision. But while you see most of these lads come, you see most of them go as well.

“It’s all well and good making a name for yourself and flying through the claim. But it is the longevity and endurance; if you are making a good living out of this game for five or 10 years that means you have probably crossed a fair amount of bridges; you have been injured, you have been banned, jocked off, you have been talked up and talked down.

“They are the knocks, the ebbs and flows of the game. They define you as a rider as you go forward. It’s longevity you want in this game. Thankfully, I have been doing well for a few years and it’s still going well.”

Stay in school

If there was one message he could deliver to the weigh-room newcomers, it would be to take their time and stay in school as long as possible.

“I know I am the son of school teachers so I would be different but I do think education is important. You see these lads come in now and they fly. I did my Leaving Certificate. My advice to young lads going forward is finish school. Maybe not get a third level education, but finish school and get that.

“I hated school more than anyone but I did appreciate it instils a bit of discipline in you. People are afraid of hard work these days. There is nothing wrong with work.

“When you go to school, that sets you up for a working life. A lot of this job, the driving and all that stuff is tedious. Take your time and go to school. Get that bit of maturity. Those you see come and go, it is often because it is happened too quick for them. Everyone seems to be in a rush. There is no panic.

“I would be much tougher, hardier and much better than I was five years ago because of the longevity and experience. You mature and keep getting better in this game as long as you keep your nerve.

“That’s why jockey coaches are a fantastic idea. I was lucky because I had Kevin. I still speak to Kevin every day after racing. You are never as good as they say you are when you win and you are never as bad as they say you are when you lose. If you keep that in mind by you won’t go far wrong.”

He knows about quick starts and considers himself fortunate that while he got the odd metaphorical kicking early, many of his setbacks have come in recent years, when he was better placed to handle them.

From the outset, he had eyes only for England.

“I was very lucky when I started. It fell right for me. I went to Venetia (Williams) as a claimer and she is brilliant. Sam Thomas was her first jockey and also second jockey to Paul Nicholls. Ruby (Walsh) got hurt, Sam got his rides. I still hadn’t ridden a lot of winners. But I won a couple of conditional jockey races for Venetia in a short space of time. They won 10 lengths on the bridle but they were for two of the biggest owners.

“That coincided with Sam riding all of Paul’s at the time and not being available as much so Venetia put all of her faith in me. It was just amazing how it worked. How it just clicked out of nowhere. Then all of a sudden you are going. Then I was lucky to keep it going and secure my position at Venetia’s.”

After just five rides in the 2006-’07 season, he booted home his first winner the next term and finished with 28. After that it was 55 and then 69. He experienced the Cheltenham Festival thrill for the first time as a 20-year-old, steering Kayf Aramis to victory in the Pertemps Hurdle for Williams in 2009.

A first Cheltenham winner on Kayaf Aramis in 2009 / Healy Racing

By then, Aramstone Stables had also provided him with a number of graded winners. Stan garnered three of them and though Mon Mome captured a listed chase, it was his more fancied stablemate that the young stable jockey plumped for in the Aintree Grand National, exactly four weeks after his Cheltenham glory.

Parted company

Liverpool would not be so kind however, as it was Mon Mome and Liam Treadwell who would prevail. Stan and Coleman parted company early on, ironically at the Foinavon, named after the previous 100/1 victor 32 years previously.

“You need these” is Coleman’s take on that disappointment now. “They give you an edge, a hardiness. All of them things, they stand to you in the long run. They give you a resilience. They make it easier to endure. But it’s a tough game.”

He mentions having the rides on Thistlecrack and Cue Card, but losing them due to other commitments. That was why he appreciated the maiden Grade 1, though probably as a defence mechanism, he hadn’t defined it as some sort of Holy Grail, and thus didn’t think it would mean as much before it came.

“I leave racing at the races. I go home and it is not 24/7 to me. It is a fairly hectic lifestyle but I never really thought I dwelled on it. When you are at the races you are thinking about what you are doing, but you are not thinking about what you haven’t done or what you have done before.

“When I go home I have other things to be occupying myself with. I half kicked it into the long grass but when I did cross the line (in Ascot) it must have been nagging me deep down somewhere because I was surprised how excited I was.

“Now I think, ‘How did that not get to me more before I had that Grade 1 winner?’ It was slightly embarrassing to me because all of the rides I had before that. But, like any jockey who has ridden for as long as I have, I had the ride on Thistlecrack and I got off him to ride another horse. It could have happened before, had I chose differently.

“I had the ride on Cue Card but I got the John Ferguson job and couldn’t commit to him. So Cue Card was easy enough to forget about because the John Ferguson job was unbelievable. But you are watching Thistlecrack for the following years thinking, ‘That is one that got away.’

Triumph and disaster

“You have to realise there will be more to come, so you might as well get on with it. That is sport in general. I am a massive sports fan, and I do a lot of reading. No matter how different the sport is, there are always things in common. It is all about the triumph and disaster, those two imposters, as the poem goes. You just have to get on with it.”

He still beams, talking about the horses, the winners and the man at the top from that Ferguson stint.

It ended very quickly after the boss moved on to run Godolphin’s global affairs. After that, he joined Jonjo O’Neill but now that Jonjo Jnr is on the scene, is back on the freelance beat.

And while that means he is up against it to record another century, it is evident that he is riding as well as ever, benefiting from the support of countless trainers who have been using him from his claiming days, not least Williams, to register a 20% strike rate from in excess of 300 rides to date.

J.P. McManus comes calling regularly and Coleman has won on Epatante, who subsequently advertised sound Champion Hurdle claims, though the jockey reckons that it is foolish to write off the Willie Mullins team.

And there is Paisley Park.

Andrew Gemmell’s eight-year-old gelding makes his second appearance of the season in the Cleeve Hurdle today, after dusting off the cobwebs at Newbury.

“I was so impressed with that. I was as impressed with him as ever. I thought that was unbelievable. I didn’t think people were on the same wavelength as I am with that but that is everyone’s prerogative. I don’t mind, it doesn’t bother me. I was delighted with it. I couldn’t be happier with that run. I am not saying he is improving but he definitely felt as good as he ever felt.

“He is a fairly cool customer. Barry (Fenton) rides him all the time. I would only sit on him to school the week before he runs. He would drop you and have you on the ground looking at him fairly sharp if you weren’t careful. He is ready to go like a coiled spring. He has got a great character, to be fair. He has no malice in him by any means. He goes up to the schooling ground on that grass and you need to keep him going forward. The week before the Stayers’ he did it and I wasn’t letting go of him no matter how many fields he wanted to run across!

“People ask how you deal with the expectation. You study the psychology of any sport. I have waited 12 years for Paisley Park to come along. Thousands upon thousands of rides. So I am going to enjoy him. I can’t wait to ride him. I don’t mind the pressure of that.

“I could more than likely go the rest of my career without finding another one like him. I am very fortunate to be associated with him.”

Aidan Coleman celebrates after winning the Sun Racing Stayers' Hurdle on Paisley Park \ Seb Daly/Sportsfile

“It is interesting because it has gone from being a welfare issue. Everyone in racing knows it’s not a welfare issue because they have changed the whip.There should be more done on educating the people outside of racing.

Now it’s perception that we are fighting. You can’t be ignorant. It is a broad sport and it is watched by people outside of racing. But if you stopped a man on the street and asked him, ‘What do think about horses being hit?’, he is going to disagree with it.

But if you educated him on what you are actually asking him and phrased the question differently, you might get a different answer. “

“WHY not? I live five minutes from Cheltenham Racecourse. If it keeps me out of the car then happy days! I would imagine jockeys would want a five-day festival. It is different for us, we come to it from a different angle.

“There is an argument about diluting it and all that but Galway is a great festival, Punchestown and Royal Ascot are great festivals. Why is it considered differently for Cheltenham? Is it because jumping is more traditional? I don’t know. For jockeys, it would be more chances to ride winners. And there would still be big fields in all the handicaps.

“The Ryanair hasn’t taken away from the Champion Chase or Gold Cup. Would a two-and-a-half mile hurdle take away from the Champion or Stayers’ Hurdle? Definitely not, I would imagine. I don’t know the fundamentals enough to see what negatives there are.

“People talk about dilution but Frodon wouldn’t have been in the first four in the Champion Chase or won a Gold Cup. What did he take away from either race?

“The New One probably wasn’t suited to either a Champion or Stayers’ Hurdle. If they’re not going to win those races, what are they taking away from them by not being in them?”