“I’m getting chances, but it’s going to get tougher as my claim drops. But you just have to put in more work. When your claim goes, you soon find out where you are with the top lads” – Darragh O’Keeffe, The Irish Examiner, September 10th, 2019

AGED 21, Darragh O’Keeffe is already used to riding lots of winners during the summer. In the season of 2019, he had 40 winners on the board as early as October. That in itself was remarkable because just three years previously, Jack Kennedy had broke the record for number of wins by a conditional jockey in one season with 44.

O’Keeffe, yet another bright graduate from the pony racing circuit, was high in demand, in particular by J.P. McManus, with both Barry Geraghty and Mark Walsh on the sidelines. His total had him in second in the overall championship, sandwiched between Paul Townend and Davy Russell.

And yet, there seemed to be a collective sort of uneasiness among some regarding his unrelenting progress, with regard to his claim, which was whittling down rapidly.

In particular, Richard Forristal wrote a well-articulated article in the Racing Post fearing for O’Keeffe’s future when suggesting there was a chance he hadn’t built up enough time to establish a secure support base and to develop his skills further.

“Yeah, I remember a few people said it to me and there was a bit of talk about it at the time,” O’Keeffe reflects this week. “But Enda (Bolger) never said it and he was looking after me. My agent Gary Cribbon never mentioned it to me either. I wasn’t too worried to be honest. It would be worse if you couldn’t get rid of it (the claim) I suppose. I was just going with the flow.

“You can’t just say right we’re holding back now and stop taking rides because you never know what is around the corner, there could be a fall and you could be out for a long time. I just kept going and I think it was the right thing to do.”

O’Keeffe rode out his claim on The Gatechecker in the Cork National in November of that season and so, at the age of just 19, with just one and a half seasons’ worth of experience behind him, he was out on his own.

He admits now that the winners and rides dried up a bit, given the time of year it was with trainers well linked up with jockeys, but he put the head down and kept going, kept taking each day as it came.

Last season he was back up at 44 winners again, but significantly, it was his first year as a fully fledged professional, with no claim incentive. One of those winners was A Plus Tard in the Grade 1 Savills Chase, on what was just his first ride in a Grade 1. He also rode Chatham Street Lad to a famous win in the Caspian Caviar Gold Cup for neighbour Mick Winters and he had his first ride in the Grand National.

So it’s fair to say O’Keeffe found out where he was with the said good lads and he’s not doing too badly at all so far.

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It’s still early days in this National Hunt season, indeed most will only turn their attention fully to the jumps until during or after Listowel, but Darragh O’Keeffe has had another good summer behind him. His 29 wins have him six clear at the top of the jumps jockeys’ table (before racing finished at Ballinrobe yesterday evening) and with that he has built a solid foundation for another good season.

“To be honest, I wouldn’t look at the table at all,” he says. “I think it was two weeks ago I rode a winner in Tramore and someone said to me you’re at the top of the table, but it’s too early to say anything, all I want to do at this moment in time is to stay injury free and obviously to get as many rides as I can and hopefully the winners will follow.

“I suppose the summer for the likes of myself, it’s a big chance. The other jockeys that have the big jobs, their trainers might not run as many horses. There might be that bit more of a chance to get on horses and win.

“I said after Punchestown this year, I was going to try and hit the ground running this summer and get as many rides as I possibly can. It’s nice to have a bit of momentum behind you because once the drop of rain comes now after Listowel, you can be sure that all the good horses will be coming out and the racing will be getting better which makes it harder in one sense.”

O’Keeffe had a few rides on the flat in his first year holding a licence, but really, he was destined to be a jumps jockey, given he comes from to home of steeplechasing in Doneraile, Co Cork and his family are well versed in the point-to-point sector – his grandfather Jimmy O’Keeffe was a champion point rider in his time.

But it was actually the pony racing sector where O’Keeffe honed his craft.

“It was huge for me,” he says. “You do pony racing at a young age and it’s something that really helps you. You learn the basics of riding – how to ride a finish, how to use your stick in the opposite hand, how to pace your horse – but you also learn about the process of building yourself up.

“You start off and you might have only one ride on a day but as you get more experience you might have two or three and it goes from there. You also learn that you can’t win all the time and that’s important, learning how to deal with losing races.

“It’s nice to see the sector back in action again. A lot of the jockeys, we did our best to sponsor races for a couple of meetings this year. It’s hard for the meetings to fundraise and a lot of us came from pony racing, so we tried to do a bit to help it, by making a contribution to sponsor a race at a few meetings. Thankfully it’s going again now and hopefully they can keep it going because pony racing has been very important for a lot of jockeys.”

Flat to jumps

O’Keeffe started pony racing when he was just 10 and had five seasons of experience before he joined Johnny Feane at the Curragh to launch his career on the track. He only had six rides on the flat in Ireland, so it didn’t take long for his head to turn to the jumps.

“There is a big difference between riding on the flat and riding over jumps and I needed to learn as much as I could,” he recalls. “Just from talking to people, you’d be hearing how good Enda Bolger’s horses jumped, the amount of schooling he does.

“Bruree is only half an hour away from Doneraile and obviously everyone would know the success Enda has had. So after a chat with my mother and father, I decided I would go down there and give it a go, and I haven’t looked back since.

“The routine is different at Enda’s, the horses are doing something different every day. I don’t think there is any other place where you get to do as much schooling. And you don’t get away with doing something wrong because Enda will correct you straight away, and that’s the way to learn.

“Enda has had a huge effect on my career, by putting my name forward when I started to get going. He put me on Ballyoisin in the big Grade B handicap hurdle at Listowel and that was a huge win to get. I had only ridden four winners previous to that.”

O’Keeffe would go on to ride nine more winners in his first full season before his breakout year in 2019-20 but while he has the individual trophies at home for what he achieved that year – he also won the Emerging Talent Award at the HRI Awards – last season was probably even more important.

And if he can kick on and establish himself further in the coming years, he will always look back on the Savills Chase of 2020 as crucial moment in his career. His winning ride on A Plus Tard was a sensational effort and one that showed he has what it takes to compete on the biggest occasion.

The story is well told by now, he had been going down to Henry de Bromhead’s to ride out only a few weeks before Christmas and he didn’t know he’d be riding A Plus Tard until he saw the declarations come through and his name down beside the horse two days before the race.

When those opportunities come you have to take them. A couple of weeks before he had ridden Chatham Street Lad to a 15-length win in a big Saturday feature race at Cheltenham. That was an opportunity taken but with due respect, his role in that victory was minimal. In contrast, he was influential in the victory of A Plus Tard, cooly waiting on the seven-year-old until after the second last while all the time Kemboy and Melon kicked on from the front.

On a horse with stamina questions to answer coming into the race, he rode the perfect race, delivering his challenge late on to get up in the shadow of the post to win by a half length. If both O’Keeffe and his mount came into that contest under the radar, they rode out of it firmly on it.

“‘Twas really special to get the Grade 1,” he says now. “Around Leopardstown as well, it was incredible. Even without the crowds, when I was walking back in, it felt like there were thousands there. It was great because all the people you’d see racing everyday, they were all congratulating me. It was a special day.”

Goals

Going into the jumps season proper, O’Keeffe would love to beat last year’s total and reach a half century. With 29 winners on the board, he’s in a good place, but it will get a little tougher now when Jack Kennedy, Paul Townend, Rachael Blackmore and Davy Russell get into full flow.

Still he has plenty going for him. He’s light for a jumps jockey and he says that’s a big advantage, riding against other jockeys who may have to waste to get down to low weights in handicaps.

“The bottom weight is 9-12 now,” he explains. “I’d be in and around 9st 7lb and 9st 10lb everyday. I don’t struggle and I can eat what I want. It’s a big advantage, especially when you’re on the light weights.

“I don’t know how lucky I am to be able to do it. Even yesterday in Galway, I had seven rides, it was 20 degrees hot, and when you’re in between races, it’s nice to be able to drink fluids and that. If you can’t drink fluids in between the races, it must drain you as well. I am very lucky in that regard.”

O’Keeffe has little time for social media promotion and doesn’t bother with Twitter and the like, after reading about the bad stories some of his colleagues have had to go through. The 21-year-old would prefer to let his riding do the talking, and that seems like a solid strategy with his talent.

He rides out at as many stables as he can and tailors his schedule to suit different trainers and timings of different race meetings geographically.

Maybe the time will come when his ambition outgrows his opportunities in Ireland and he takes the well worn path to Britain.

“Definitely,” he replies when asked about possibility. “It’s something I’d think of a bit. At the end of the day I’m happy enough with how things are going at home but at the same time if a top job was up for grabs and someone came and asked me, you’d definitely consider it.

“It’s tough in Ireland of course, if you’re not with the powerful stables, it’s very hard to get good rides in the winter time at the big festivals.

“Definitely in the next few years, if an offer came or someone approached me from one of the big powerful stables over there, you’d have to consider it.

“But it’s great to be able to do well in Ireland. I’d love to break 50 winners this season and of course I’d love to get on another good horse like A Plus Tard.

“So I’m just going to keep my head down, try and stay injury free, and see how it goes.”