IT’S 19 YEARS since Barry Geraghty rode his first winner, on Noel Meade’s Stagalier in Down Royal, and the Meath man finds it hard to believe.
It’s a restless life, that of a jump jockey. There aren’t enough hours in the day to reflect or look forward — there’s too much going on in the present.
The Cheltenham Festival is less than five weeks away but Geraghty can’t afford to give it too much thought just yet.
“I’m looking ahead to Cheltenham but it’s still a long way away,” Geraghty told The42.
There’s so much talk and hype. You’re looking at the horses that are shaping up for each race but it’s still too far away to be getting wound up about for it.
“You try not to get too caught up in it until you’re nearly there.”
Life in the saddle can be repetitive but Geraghty’s career witnessed a major sea-change this season, the 36-year-old replacing the retired AP McCoy as JP McManus’s retained jockey.
It has given Geraghty a new lease of life, he can spend more time in Ireland these days with his family, something that was impossible when he was attached to Nicky Henderson’s Seven Barrows yard in England.
So what else has changed?
“I would have struggled to give commitment to Irish trainers, it was very much lopsided as regards England. And it’s shifted the other way now,” Geraghty explained.
“Travelling was never a problem, it was the long stays in England.
“I’m still commuting now. But I used to be gone from a Wednesday to a Saturday and you wouldn’t see the kids (two girls and a boy) from a Tuesday night until the Sunday morning.
“That was probably the hardest part of it. Now I’m probably over in England twice a week but I have a short turnaround.”
After so many years in the saddle, his body has been through the wringer. But Geraghty has no plans to follow McCoy into retirement any time soon.
I have no plans to retire, I don’t know any other way of life.
“I’m in good shape now. I’m injury-free at the minute. I broke my leg back in the spring but that isn’t giving me any trouble at the minute.”
Cheltenham
While Geraghty is keeping his blinkers on his short-term goals, he does admit that he is looking forward to riding Ivanovich Gorbatov (Triumph Hurdle) and My Tent or Yours (Champion Hurdle).
Ivanovich Gorbatov, Aidan O’Brien’s gelding, was well off the pace on heavy ground in Leopardstown last weekend. And the four-year-old’s fourth-place finish was certainly a concern for Geraghty.
“I was disappointed with Ivanovich Gorbatov in the Gain Spring Juvenile Hurdle,” he wrote on his blog for At The Races.
“It just all seemed to be happening a little too quickly for him.
“I’d love to think that Ivanovich Gorbatov will be better on better ground, but I would have liked if he had taken me into the race for longer even on that soft ground.”
It wasn’t all doom and gloom at Leopardstown for Geraghty with wins on Bleu et Rouge and Blazer on Irish Gold Cup day.
The latter has been backed into a 7/2 favourite for Saturday’s Betfair Hurdle at Newbury, Britain’s richest handicap hurdle.
And Geraghty will be in the saddle on Willie Mullins’s mount, which is owned by McManus in two days’ time. It’s no wonder he has no time to be thinking about Cheltenham just yet.
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