Never give up

It was the late Paul Barber, owner of countless great horses, including the mighty Denman, who was the unlikely motivation for Johnny Burke.

Burke’s father, Liam trained horses for Barber, prior to them running under Rules, and the owner was in the family kitchen at the yard in Cork, when he approached a 12-year-old Johnny. “He came up to me and said, ‘Well young man, what do you want to be when you’re older?’ Burke recalls. “I told him I wanted to be a jockey and he said, ‘Oh you won’t be a jockey, you’re obese.’

“I wasn’t offended in the slightest. I’d always wanted to be a jockey but had never once thought about getting on the scales. My mum died when I was five and I received lots of attention from neighbours and the staff at the yard. In other words, I was being fed very well! “But it was a wake-up call to say the least. I was about 10st6lb and I got stuck in and the weight fell off. A few years later I got down to ride at 8st12lb in Qatar.”

Burke was obsessed by horses from a young age, not surprising given his bloodline.

His father Liam was a jockey – finally retiring when famously bowing out with a winner in a Limerick bumper aged 66 in March 2023 – and trainer, whose CV includes Grade 1 wins, and a Galway Plate in 2007 courtesy of Sir Frederick.

He also pre-trained point-to-pointers for Paul Nicholls’ main owners, the likes of Barber, Harry Findlay, John Hales and Graham Roach.

“My father has been a huge influence on me. I look back and I can’t believe how he kept the show on the road when my mum died.

“My sister, who currently works for Ciaron Maher in Australia, was nine at the time and took over that motherly role, while Davy Condon’s mother, my godmother, Susan was a massive help and still is.

“I don’t really remember my mum, just a few bits. I’ll aways be grateful for all that support I had when she passed, but it was Dad who kept it all going. He never left us wanting for anything.”

“Dad said, ‘Go and enjoy yourself,’ and she won. I was wearing Dad’s colours and it was very special”

Burke’s journey to becoming a jockey wasn’t smooth sailing, breaking his neck in a pony race in 2011.

“It in no way put me off,” he insists and through his next-door neighbour Condon, and Condon’s cousin Paul Townend, he started riding out for Wille Mullins.

Aged 14, he accompanied the superpower’s string to the Cheltenham Festival, leading up Briar Hill to win the 2013 Champion Bumper.

Aged 16, Burke rode his first winner on just his second ride. It came in a mares’ bumper at Cork on Easter Monday in 2012, courtesy of Trendy Gift, trained by his father. His first ride under Rules, Why Surrender, also trained by his father, finished 11th earlier on the card.

“The ground was soft, and we didn’t think she’d handle it. Dad said, ‘Go and enjoy yourself,’ and she won. I was wearing Dad’s colours and it was very special.”

He continued to show his potential in point-to-points for his father and in bumpers for Tom Hogan – a big supporter of Burke’s – and he was soon picking up more and more rides as an amateur in professional races. The turning point was the 2014 Punchestown Festival.

“Willie ended up giving me a ride on Very Much So in the Land Rover Bumper,” he recounts. “He went and won, which was a big deal. I ended up having 13 rides at the festival.”

“I lost my instincts as a rider. I was riding the horses how they wanted them ridden, rather than what might have suited the individual horse or the individual race”

A couple of weeks later Burke turned conditional and caught the eye of Henry de Bromhead, who requested his presence every Monday. By September of the same year, he had been offered the prized job of riding for de Bromhead’s leading owners, Alan and Ann Potts.

“I was 18, claiming five and had ridden just 22 winners. I’d only had one ride for the Pottses, it finished second at Downpatrick. It was all a bit surreal but I didn’t have a fear of failure and went for it.”

He enjoyed a fruitful start to the partnership with the likes of Sizing John, who gave him his first Grade 1 winner in the 2014 Future Champions Novice Hurdle at Leopardstown, Sizing Granite and Sizing Europe. He rode more than 50 winners in the season, was crowned champion conditional and lost his claim. He also won the 2015 Galway Plate to boot.

“In one year, I had all this success – I was only 19. It was surreal, I was living the dream,” he says.

“But I suppose it then started to go wrong in the second year. I lost my instincts as a rider. I was riding the horses how they wanted them ridden, rather than what might have suited the individual horse or the individual race. They liked their horses ridden handy, in the first couple, and I treated every horse the same. I rode them a bit like robots in a way.

“I was too young to try things differently. I’d have made a different fist of it now.”

It wasn’t just being on autopilot which curtailed Burke’s second year in the role. He broke his back in a fall at Thurles in January 2016. He was back for Cheltenham but drew a blank and after finishing fifth in the Grand National at Aintree, he broke his back again.

The Pottses’ horses were moved from de Bromhead’s care, and the new arrangements didn’t suit Burke.

“I’d had a great time with Henry and am very grateful for all he did for me. But, while some of the horses stayed with Jim Dreaper, who, along with his family have been brilliant to me - I rode his Goonyella to win the Midlands Grand National – the other horses were split between Jessie Harrington and Colin Tizzard. It was a whole new dynamic, the horses weren’t running great, and I wasn’t enjoying it. I was getting it in the neck from Alan,” he recalls.

“My father has been a huge influence on me. I look back and I can’t believe how he kept the show on the road when my mum died”