RIDING ones first winner is a significant milestone for any jockey and I was fortunate enough to get off the mark aboard Windsor Higgins at Limerick last Sunday. It was vindication of a long journey which has taken me from Ballydoyle to France and back home to Tipperary a second time.

Although I grew up in a housing estate in Cashel, I had a family connection with racing, as my grandfather Liam Reilly was a trainer. Despite his yard being in County Longford, I visited on school holidays and long weekends. However, I took a bad fall from a racehorse at age 11 and declared there and then that I didn’t ever want to be a jockey!