Double R: Reaping Rewards

Whichever measure you use it comes out with the same answer when you assess Rossa Ryan’s 2023 season - a significant step up to a new level.

More rides, significantly more winners and almost double his previous biggest haul of prizemoney lays out in hard figures just how well the year went for the jockey from County Galway.

If you throw in two winners at Royal Ascot, one at 150/1, and a first Group 1 courtesy of Shaquille in the July Cup at Newmarket, it shows that it was quality as well as quantity which burnished the 23-year-old’s CV.

But the one statistic that stands above all that array of success is that by the middle of November, Ryan had ridden more winners (179) than any other flat jockey in Britain during the calendar year. More than William Buick (162) and Oisín Murphy (165) and much more than Tom Marquand (118) and Hollie Doyle (117).

The fact that the British champion jockey title is now decided over the ridiculously truncated period from 2000 Guineas day at the start of May to the British Champions fixture in October meant Ryan finished third, 31 wins behind title winner Buick and two successes behind Murphy. But compare that to 2022, when he was 15th in the championship. Make no mistake, Ryan is now a genuine contender and he has the bit between his teeth.

Not that this should be a surprise. Expectations were huge when the teenage protégé, who had taken the Irish pony racing circuit by storm, moved to the Richard Hannon stable in 2017. But, as can often be the case for a professional sportsman or woman, it is defeat and how they react to it rather than success which defines the ultimate direction of a career.

“When I came to England I thought I would get going quicker than I did,” says the Galwegian. “I was probably in a rush. I had to learn how to be patient.

“I was second in the apprentice title (in 2018 to Jason Watson). If different things had happened I could possibly have won but in hindsight getting beaten was the best thing that happened to me.

“I had to go back to square one and build my contacts. I had to build foundations and didn’t jump in with a big job that I would not have been ready for. It has taken a while to come right but it is only now I feel like I am ready to take on a good calibre of horse.

Ryan, whose father David is a trainer, also feels those first steps were important in earning the respect of his colleagues and cementing his place in the weighing room.

“Setting out your stall to graft and keep grafting, that stands you in good stead. There are a lot of older jockeys in the weighing room and when you come in as a young rider you’d be hoping someone would grab hold of you, put their arm around you and say, ‘Come on.’

“They don’t but when they see you going up and down the country working flat out they say, ‘Fair play, you are trying your best.’ You earn a bit of respect that way.”

The big change in the 23-year-old’s professional career in 2023 was that he was no longer retained jockey to the increasingly influential Amo Racing operation of football agent Kia Joorabchian. That link ended very publicly in August last year, leaving question marks as to whether it would be a bump or a pothole in the Ryan career.

It proved to be the former. Ryan maintained a relationship with Joorabchian but it is now more on his terms. His 150/1 royal meeting winner on the Adrian Murray-trained Valiant Force in the Norfolk Stakes was in the Amo colours but the stifling aspects of being a retained rider when it restricts your options were gone.

Ryan says there is no chance of him stepping back into the Amo job after his successor Kevin Stott was released in the aftermath of King Of Steel’s unplaced run in the Irish Champion Stakes but he is and will be on the roster of riders.

“Me and Amo never fell out. I think a lot of people struggled to see how we still get on but Kia is a family friend and everything is easy. He is good friends with my mum and dad. “If I am available to ride for them they will use me but if I am not they understand that. I am pretty happy with that. I speak to Kia a good bit and go for dinner with him. He kind of has that father figure about him. His kids aren’t very old and when he took me on I was still a kid.

“It will always be a bond which will be strong whether I am Amo No 1 or not. It’s just a good healthy relationship.”

The July Cup triumph on Shaquille that gave Ryan his first elite triumph “was the maddest Group 1 race I have ever ridden in… exhilarating and fearful”