Just Getting Started

Some very clever barrel of laughs once said that everyone wants a prodigy to fail. Apparently, it makes our own mediocrity more bearable. That Dylan Browne McMonagle isn’t swamped by resentment says a lot about Irish racing’s wunderkind.

By such a bogus measure, Ireland’s new champion jockey should be swimming against a tide of bitterness. The whizzkid from Letterkenny in Co Donegal is just 22, outstandingly skilled, apparently good-looking enough to be assured of never being lonely and possesses one of the best jobs in racing as No 1 rider to Joseph O’Brien. But grudges appear to be notably absent.

On top of all that, it seems almost predestined that he should reach the sport’s summit. Perhaps the most startling element to being crowned champion jockey is how ‘ho-hum’ most people’s reaction has been. This is a young man who has shouldered huge expectations since he was a child and appears to be on course to maybe even exceed them.

By any measure, no one expected him to break his duck at the Breeders’ Cup on Ethical Diamond in the $5m Turf. Even the horse’s trainer, Willie Mullins predicted fifth or sixth at best for the ex-hurdler. At worst he feared being made “a holy show” of himself if Ethical Diamond was tailed off.

However, there was no more daring ride during the 14 Grade 1 races at US racing’s greatest show in Del Mar. Browne McMonagle made nothing of an outside draw, dropped his 28/1 mount out the back, and let racing’s superpower operations duke it out in front of him. A couple of minutes later and flat racing’s grand order had been turned on its head as Ethical Diamond swept through.

“He was tiny, so much smaller than the other kids, but you know when you meet somebody who has just got a presence”

Mullins looked stunned. His jockey, 47 years his junior, looked the most cool, calm, and collected figure in California.

“He can be a very difficult ride. Now that we have figured out the best tactic for him, it’s turned him inside-out. And Dylan being the guy he is, he’s very cool, and he executed it perfectly,” said Mullins, famously no bad judge of a top-flight jockey.

Even then, Browne McMonagle was thinking ahead, eager to get a flight home. He made it back to the Curragh in time to receive his championship trophy, and even if the stewards wouldn’t let him ride, there was no disputing who the star attraction was. Family and friends who had helped him through pony racing to the pinnacle rapturously acclaimed their new champion. 

“It’s the main one (championship). To get your name on the trophy is very important. It’s a huge achievement and I’m lucky to be beside those (other) names. But hopefully we can add a few more,” he said. “It’s what dreams are made of, why we get up in the morning. It wouldn’t happen without the trainers and owners. Hopefully it’s the first of many.”

That preternatural poise is rare in someone so young, but perhaps not altogether surprising. He has been on racing’s radar for a decade, famously the focal point of a short film that captured him at the start.

Five Stone of Lead was made by the English filmmaker, Jonny Madderson in very unlikely circumstances. Madderson knew nothing of pony racing when he heard about it first, but recognised a story when he saw it, and a star.

It’s now part of the vernacular how he pitched up at Glenbeigh in Co Kerry looking for a figure to spin his pony racing short film around. All the jockeys were in a pub the night before in an unlikely casting scenario.

“I remember it so well. All these kids were there, all lovely kids, and we met their families and stuff. And then Dylan walked in. He was tiny, so much smaller than the other kids, but you know when you meet somebody who has just got a presence. There was a touch of James Dean about him. You see him back then and he’s got a cool haircut, and he’s got just a swagger about him,” Madderson recalled.

“I asked him about his horse, which compared to him was absolutely enormous, and he said he was ‘a wee lamb’. Dylan was the underdog which was part of the attraction. I felt like he was this little Rocky. He was going for it basically. The horses running on the beach is a really visceral thing and we knew it was going to be a visual, cinematic film. We just needed someone to lead it,” he added to the Irish Times.

Such foresight suggests Madderson would be a bookie’s nightmare if he ever turned his hand to punting rather than editing stunning images together. In the film, the cherubic star attraction bluntly says his aim is to be champion jockey, and that’s it. It’s a matter-of-fact statement that chimes with his obvious ease in front of the camera. Dealing with attention was clearly not a problem, to the extent it quickly became almost second nature.

“When you look back on it, it’s crazy what can happen in such a short space of time,” Browne McMonagle considered. “It’s cool to look back on (the film). Plenty of hard work has gone in since then and that’s what it’s all about. Whatever you put in you’ll get it back out.”

The route to stardom took in 218 pony race winners, twice leading national rider, and with the prestigious Dingle Derby in the bag before becoming an apprentice with Joseph O’Brien at 16. Already familiar with the national road system, moving away from home permanently was still a significant step, but one made with little apparent fuss.

Champion apprentice in 2021, the young Donegal man successfully defended that title the following year when he also broke through to the top level, landing the National Stakes on a horse who has proven to be his mainstay, Al Riffa. Once again, the startling element was how little surprise there was at the teenager on board delivering with style when it counted most.

There is an understated ease to the jockey’s progress that makes it seem like all those predictions of future success were just a featherweight to carry in his rise to the top. There is a fluid swagger to Browne McMonagle when he’s off a horse. It testifies to the All-Ireland juvenile boxing champion he once was. It’s a fluidity that reaches its full expression in the saddle.

It’s reflected in 95 winners in Ireland this season, and the readiness to pounce upon an opening that appeared once Colin Keane’s championship attentions were diverted by the new Juddmonte job. Keane tried manfully to juggle his domestic and overseas commitments but was always playing catch-up. With a week of the season to go, the sums finally didn’t add up for Keane.