Conor Maxwell

I'm originally from Ballyboughal Co Dublin and I got into horses through a neighbour, Tommy Stafford - his son Paul trains. I started riding ponies for them and did a bit of hunting with the Fingal Harriers and Ward Union over the years. I came up through the ranks that way. I started riding track horses and point-to-pointers for Paul when he went on to train horses. As a young lad I always wanted to be a carpenter or something. Being a jockey was something I kind of fell into. I had no background in horses and none of my family were into horses. I just got hooked on them through the Staffords. I couldn't wait to get out of school. I wasn't bad at it but it just wasn't for me. I got bitten by the bug and kept at it.

I went to RACE (Racing Academy and Centre of Education) in 2003/2004 and from there went to Dessie Hughes. RACE was very good and it opened my eyes an awful lot. Moving out of home at 16, I grew up fairly quickly. It was a great experience and I learned a lot there. (Ex-jockey) Pat Malone was one of the instructors there and I have a great friendship with him from those days. I made a lot of connections there and it opened my eyes to the racing industry. I was placed with Dessie Hughes through RACE. I was probably too young and naive to really appreciate it and make use of Dessie's knowledge. I was green as grass going into the racing industry and I was in awe of the place for a long time. I was never in a big racing yard like that beforehand. An invaluable experience in terms of what I learned there. I served my time and served it properly. Great place to work and Dessie was a great mentor.

You had Paddy Flood practically stable jockey and he was a claimer at the time. Kieran Kelly had only passed away that summer when I arrived later in the year. The first winner vindicates your decision to be a jockey big time. I thought it would never come to be honest. I had about 15 or 20 rides on the Flat as an apprentice, but I was kind of in between weights and struggling to claim 10lb off any kind of weight. Dessie didn't have a lot of Flat horses but, from the day I started there, you were schooling every Tuesday and Friday. I was brought up on point-to-pointers and always wanted to go jumping. If I was going to ride horses, I was going to ride jumpers. I had a string of seconds and was getting very busy with rides for Dessie. Back then there was 30 horses in every maiden hurdle, it was Celtic Tiger times. I was going racing with two or three rides a day and hadn't ridden a winner. I finally went to Cork on a wet Sunday in November and won a hurdle race on Grangeclare Lark (in 2006). I beat Conor O'Dwyer (on Mickataine) a short head. You get hooked once you get the first winner and you want more. I rode five winners in my first season and things just seemed to happen very quickly. I was very busy. A lot of it was a blur, it was going over my head. I'll be honest about that, I was still very naive about the whole lot and thought this was very easy. I didn't appreciate it at the time.

I learned an awful lot in Dessie's from mucking out horses right to looking after horses and feeding horses, right down to going racing with horses and race riding. In Dessie's you did everything. I'm very appreciative of that now in my next career training in my own yard. People who were there with me at the time are similar. Ian McCarthy arrived a year after me in Dessie's and he runs a big yard himself, while Roger Loughran has a big pre-training yard himself. There's a lot of us still in the industry and a lot of that would be down to the grounding we got in Dessie's.

I toyed with going to England. As much as I loved Dessie's, I never really settled down in Kildare. I probably wanted to be more at home. I was itching for something else. I got a few niggly injuries and I was out for a while and came back. I was probably too young and felt things weren't happening the way they should have been and I just wanted to try something different. I went freelance for about a year and tipped along nicely. I rode a few winners for a lot of different people. I was then unlucky with injuries over the years. I had plenty of spells on the sidelines but tried to use my time as best I could through re-education. I went and got my lorry licence and did a few courses through the Jockeys' Trust. I got broke up a few times early in my career and I'm very light framed. I remember thinking to myself that I might not last too long at this the way I am breaking. I remember speaking to Helen O'Sullivan, who was a tutor of mine in RACE, and who was involved in the Jockeys Trust, about anything I could do when I was off (injured). I did a few courses and things and they have stood to me since. It was maybe the boredom that I was looking for something to do.

In the National Hunt season of 2009/2010, I had 13 winners when I was based with Paul Stafford most mornings. I was back living home and Paul had moved into a new yard with a big influx of horses. Niall Cronin was my agent and he had just started up. Everything clicked and we had a good year. I managed to stay fairly injury free up until February. I had a good November, December and January. I got broke up at the end of February when I broke my nose and cheekbone and missed March and Cheltenham. I managed to get back in four and a-half weeks to ride Will Jamie Run who was sixth in the Irish National at Fairyhouse (in 2010) for Paul.

Blueberry Boy was a good horse to me. He was my first Punchestown Festival winner, he won a handicap chase (in 2009) on the bridle. I then rode him in the likes of the Hilly Way Chase in Cork (third) as a claimer. I came across some good handicappers over the years like The Long Haul of Shane Broderick's, while Vics Canvas won a Cork National (in 2014). Glamorgan Duke was just a chance ride I got at a light weight in the Dublin Racing Festival 2010. Captain Cj won the Grade 2 Ten Up Chase at Navan in 2010. Of all the winners I rode over the years in both codes, one day that stands out for me was the only double I ever rode in Bellewstown (July 2013). I live a mile and a-half from Bellewstown and it is my backyard for the last 10 or 15 years. I had a lot of friends and family there. Ocean Bright was one for Dermot and I rode Definite Knockoff for Sean Doyle.

I took a conscious decision then, around 2016, to take a few horses for breaking and pre-training as jumping was slower for me then. It just kind of snowballed and got busy at it. At the same time, race riding always came first. I just tipped away with half a dozen horses. With that I got busier and had a dozen horses in. I was a light rider over jumps but I probably got a bit lighter due to the change of routine. I found myself very light and Dermot (McLoughlin) asked me if I wanted to ride a horse in Dundalk one winter. A '10-winner' race that I qualified to ride in from the previous season. It grew from there (on the Flat). I rode a good few winners in those '10-winner' races. I had a chat with (agent) Ruaidhri Tierney about it about keeping going on the Flat. I went down to Fozzy Stack's for a season or two riding work on a Tuesday and a Friday. Between Ruaidhri and myself, we started pushing it a lot more. I had a few good seasons at it.

My wife Karena and I got plans to build a house on the site here at her farm in Stamullen Co Meath. We renovated an old farmhouse and there was an old shed with a few stables here. We built a purpose-built shed there and the yard has been fairly full ever since. I did the trainer's course two years ago and I take great pride in seeing young horses coming on well. Play It Again Zaam was a yearling I broke and I was asked if I would take him back. In fairness, he won a couple for me during the year. He was my first winner as a trainer (at Gowran Park in May). He had a rating in the 70s and struggled to win and tumbled down the ratings. We had a bit of fun with him and it was a nice turnaround in the seven or eight months that we had him. I probably got a better kick out of training winners than I ever got out of riding winners. From start to finish you are there, you are out in the morning feeding them and the last one to see them at night. There's a great satisfaction when it is going well.

There's probably 24 in at the minute. There's seven or eight in training with the view to being 12 to 15 in the new year, we have a good few yearlings that are going to stay to go into training as two-year-olds next year. It is building up to be more training than breaking. We are open to more horses and are always looking for the next one. We are in the process of building a new gallop, it will probably be finished this time next year. I love training both codes, but commercially the Flat is probably more viable. I'd love to train both codes and have a string of 25/30 horses within the next couple of years. We need a lot of luck and need to keep doing the job right.

My ride on Areana at Dundalk on Wednesday was my last ride on the track. I just wanted to go out quietly. I've been toying with the idea for a long time and I've been very busy at the yard. I had it in my head for a long time but it took me a while to come to terms with it. I have to thank Ciara Losty, the sports psychologist from the Jockey Pathway, who helped me a lot with really just coming to terms with it. I loved riding horses, but felt I had my time. I still found it hard to walk away. I found it very hard to walk away from the jumps weigh room because that was a bigger part of my life than the Flat weigh room. In fairness, Ciara helped me a lot through the year. I found her a great asset. I did it on my own terms, but it still took me a while to get my head around it. Everything I have, I got through horses.

It was brilliant to see James Ryan winning the apprentice jockeys' title. Karena's aunt would be James' mother. Kieran (James' dad) was a neighbour of mine growing up and I remember the two boys (James and Ivan) growing up and riding ponies. I had half the yard rented off Kieran while I was starting to build the yard here at home. I made the two boys a little simulator and they just lived on it. James has progressed to be top apprentice this year and I took a lot of pride in giving him a winner on his father's horse with Ivan leading him up (Kool One at Navan last month). Karena and the kids and myself were there on Sunday at the Curragh to see him being crowned. Ivan rode a point-to-point winner for me about a month ago. Then he rode his first track winner on Mabel In May at Fairyhouse last Tuesday and James led him up. Ivan would be with me five or six mornings a week, he is a key part of my yard. He got a lot of confidence from those two winners and I think he could be a very good amateur, if not a claiming professional, when he finishes college.

Conor was in conversation with Michael Graham.

If you would like to have your racing story covered in a future blog please email [email protected]

About Michael Graham

Michael has worked in horse racing journalism for more than 15 years, having also written a weekly betting column on Gaelic football and hurling for a newspaper. He is involved in writing the My Racing Story features on this website. He spent a year in South Africa completing a Diploma in Business Administration and also studied Newspaper Journalism in Belfast. He enjoys playing 5-a-side football on a regular basis.

View Latest Articles by Michael Graham