AS Gary Carroll flashed past the line on Snellen in the Chesham Stakes, he was pretty sure he was beaten by Pearls And Rubies and Ryan Moore on the far side. Indeed, as both his mind and his filly gradually wound back down in that area of Berkshire where victory and defeat is felt at its most sharpest, he was sure he had come off second best.

Whatever the case, he thought Snellen had run a huge race. In this game, how you deal with your wins and with your losses is imperative to self sustainability. It’s about weighing up the positives and negatives, and balancing the books each time.

Carroll had done a fair job of that mental equation by the time he turned around to head back through the grandstand, but it was then that he looked up and saw himself on the big screen. Bingo.

“Usually, that’s a fair sign you’ve won, you can be nearly sure of it” he reflected this week. “It was brilliant - for Gavin, for the owner Lindsay Laroche, a lovely man from America, to be able to provide that for them was very satisfying and, look, it was great for me as well. A dual Royal Ascot-winning jockey definitely has a nice ring to it.”

Two wins at Royal Ascot, both for Gavin Cromwell, the Meath trainer’s only two runners at the track. The pair combined with another filly, Quick Suzy in the Queen Mary in 2021.

That filly was a little more fancied. She’d run three times, bolting up on her second start and while she was beaten in the Group 3 Lacken, Carroll and Cromwell felt she’d be better back at five furlongs and that’s how it panned out. She blasted up the stands’ side for a memorable win.

Snellen had just one run to her name, two if you count her barrier trial at Naas, but only one real test. While Quick Suzy was a here-and-now type filly, all speed, Snellen was tomorrow’s project. So the ratio of hopefulness to confidence tipped heavily to the latter at Ascot two weeks ago.

“It was Lindsay who thought of the Chesham,” Carroll reveals. “It’s a unique race - either the dam or the sire had to win over at least a mile and a quarter and she qualified through her dam.

“He suggested it after her barrier trial. He was really keen to have a runner at Ascot and after winning her maiden, although it was only 10 days before the race, we all thought it could be a nice step for her, with a view to giving her a little break after that and coming back in the autumn.

“When we were discussing tactics, Gavin was thinking along the lines of sitting mid-division and have her coming home, hitting the line strong. What I thought I’d do, was let her jump out handy, see what comes around me and take the race from there. When she won her barrier trial and on her debut at Limerick, she was very good out of the stalls and I didn’t want to disappoint her.

“It worked out great because as it turned out. We didn’t go much of a pace in the first few furlongs so I was probably in the right position and from two furlongs home I was trying not to get there too soon.

“She probably got a bit tired in the last furlong, a bit lonely and rolled a little left. I should have pulled my stick through but I corrected her in Limerick and lost momentum and I didn’t want to lose momentum here.

“For the sake of proper riding, I should have pulled my stick through but I barely would have got one slap into her if I did and I didn’t interfere with the horse beside me at all, so it just worked out and thankfully we held on at the line.”

Icing on the cake

A Royal Ascot success for Carroll has been the fancy icing on the cake of what has been a fabulous year so far. He has 33 winners for all of 2023, 31 of them coming within the lines of the Irish flat championship which is enough to have him in second place, just one off Ryan Moore, and ahead of Billy Lee and the four-time champion Colin Keane.

Bar Moore, nobody inside the top 20 has a better strike rate than his 16.3%, with his 31 winners coming from just 190 rides. This return comes after two of his best ever years, having ridden 45 winners in total in 2021, and 44 last year.

It is all the more impressive when you take into account that Carroll has put these figures together without the support of a major yard, instead combining with a number of smaller yards.

“I’m delighted with the way the year has started,” he says. “I’ve probably four main trainers in Michael Mulvany, Joe Murphy, Gavin Cromwell and Ger Lyons. We’ve been working together for a long time and they’ve all be very good to me.

“Joe Murphy has had a great start to the year. He spent a lot of money refurbishing his gallop since last year and he has a really good sand and fibre surface there now. Joe’s used to always take a run whereas this year, while they’re still improving from one run, they’ve been getting to the line well and they’ve won.

“Mulvany’s has always been rock solid every year and I always a ride a few winners for Ger. Maybe the difference in the last few years has been riding for Gavin. I only started riding for him five years ago.

“Look, winners breed confidence. I don’t think I’m riding much differently but I’ve more confidence. Every year you’re just trying to build on the previous year and I suppose once you’re riding winners, you become popular with other trainers.”

It seems like only a few years back since Carroll was winning on Sesenta for Willie Mullins in the Ebor. It was a breakout success in his breakout year, as he went on to secure the Irish apprentice title. Memorably, he was involved in a three-way race for the title the following year, sharing the championship with Ben Curtis and Joseph O’Brien.

This is now his 17th season riding and as he approaches 500 winners, he has firmly established himself in the weigh room. He is a son of Raymond Carroll, a classic-winning jockey himself, yet somewhat surprisingly, he was urged away from becoming a jockey by his dad.

“Dad would have stopped riding around the time I was born so I never saw him riding,” Carroll says. “A jockey’s life is not an easy life - the hours you put in, the miles you put in, the dieting. He went through it and knows exactly how hard it can be and how disheartening it can be.

“He just wanted me to stay in school anyway. I got 420 points in my Leaving Certificate. I was good at tech graphics and enjoyed it. I think I had architecture or engineering on top of my CAO forms but by that stage I had been pony racing and I knew where I was heading for.

“I’d talk to Dad every day now on the way back from the racing and he has always been supportive since I got going. He’d always ring me and discuss my races. Thankfully I haven’t had any bollockings this year so far!

“My mother (Sally) worked on the Irish National Stud course for years and she works a bit in the Curragh now. My parents have always been supportive and a huge help. My job is just wanting to make them proud and keep them happy.”

Cromwell contribution

As Carroll suggests, the Cromwell contribution to his tally could be key to his recent surge and could well progress even further after this latest display of his talents. Two juvenile winners from just two runners at Royal Ascot is an extraordinary achievement for a trainer whose two-year-old representation is miniscule quantity-wise compared to what he has to take on at that meeting and at home.

“I’ve said this in a couple of interviews now, Gavin Cromwell is one of the most ambitious men I’ve met,” Carroll explains. “When I started riding out for him, he only had 20 stables, he didn’t have a lot of land and he only had one small gallop. Now, he’s between 150 to 200 stables, he has bought plenty of land and he is always adding on.

“The horses do a lot of conditioning work so they have a great base in them. Then when they move on to faster work, it doesn’t take a lot out of them

“He is after putting in a six-furlong straight gallop up a hill and he will have that in place for next year. He is always up for increasing the quality and making himself better. The bit I like is that he has no airs and graces about himself.

“He went down to Joseph O’Brien’s for a day earlier this year just to see if he could pick up anything. He went to Paddy Twomey’s as well. He is a trainer on the up and he has a great team around him, with Garvan Donnelly as the head man. He deserves everything he gets because he puts a lot of work in.”

You could say something similar for Carroll. He will tell you himself Irish racing is a closed shop andm with no constant steady source of winners, he has to get busy, but he’d have it no other way because the reward is there for the hard work. More hours, more miles in return for more rides, more winners.

“I think in Ireland, you simply have to work hard,” he says. “That is the base of everything. I’ll go to whoever wants me to ride work.

“I try to organise myself so that I can get on as many horses as I can, try and keep every trainer as happy as I can. You get what you work for.

“I’m usually very straight with trainers and owners. I think a lot of trainers are happy that I can point them in the right direction and assess a horse very well. Maybe that stands to me.

“I can tell people exactly what I think of a horse, ground, trip, ability, track - all that is very important as well. It’s very easy to get out and ride the horse but trainers appreciate good feedback.

“I suppose over the years I’ve gotten better at dealing with the wins and losses as well. When I was young, if I got beat on something, it would annoy me for a couple of days and I’d be watching the race back over and over again. If I ride a winner now, it’s great, and if I don’t, there is nothing you can do, you have to move on.”

Perspective

Carroll has his own family now and undoubtedly that helps with the perspective. He got married to Joanne in December and they have two children, Annabel (three) and Max (one).

“They’re the best in the world, whatever free time I have now is spent with them,” he says. “It’s no good having a long face when you come home anyway because I’ll have to come in and entertain them.

“It really changes your life. I suppose everything I do is for them now, and I’m doing the best for them so they can have the best life as they can. It makes you go that bit further as well.

“Joanne works for Tattersalls and we’ve a yard of horses at home which she runs. She is big into the sport horse side of things as well. We’ve a couple of store horses in for breaking from the last store horse sale, and during the winter we break and pre-train a lot of yearlings that come from the yearling sales so we’re fairly full-on here.

“I’ve started to buy foals with a view to selling them and I enjoy that side of the game as well. The couple of yearlings we had sold okay last year and I bought nicer ones this year.

“It’s all about improving and getting better. I’d love to grow this side of the business as we go. If we can be successful this year hopefully we’ll go back and build a bit more, so listen, we’ll keep tipping away.”

And that fits in with Carroll’s general attitude to race riding as well.

“My goal is always to build on the previous year,” he asserts. “The trainers I ride for want to keep stepping up and keep improving. I want to keep them on the improve as well. Every year you just need to keep stepping up and earn as much money as you can along the way.

“Ireland is probably the most competitive country to try and compete in. We’ve the best horses, jockeys and trainers and it’s shown around the world. To be at a level with them and competing away is fantastic.”