Adam Houghton profiles three conditional jockeys who have identified themselves as stars of the future with their exploits this season.
Danny Gilligan
- Attached stable: Gordon Elliott
- First jumps ride: 2023
- First jumps winner: Likable Chancer, Tramore (April 2023)
- Total jumps winners: 31
- Best horse ridden: Coko Beach
In just a matter of months, Danny Gilligan went from having his first ride over jumps in February to winning one of Ireland’s biggest handicap chases, the Galway Plate, in early-August. Despite his youth and inexperience, Gilligan kept a cool head in a race which only got under way after no fewer than three false starts and then proceeded to make all on the previous season’s fourth, Ash Tree Meadow, despite the distraction of a loose horse on a couple of occasions.
The Plate turned out to be one of three winners for Gilligan at the Galway Festival, his local track, after he’d only just returned from six weeks off with a collar bone injury. That enforced lay-off proved a blessing in disguise, as Ash Tree Meadow’s trainer Gordon Elliott explained, as it meant Gilligan could still use his 7lb claim in the Plate. It was a close-run thing, though, because his winner on the first day of the Festival reduced his claim, but he’d already been declared with the full allowance for the Plate earlier the same day.
The son of Cheltenham Festival-winning trainer Paul Gilligan and a younger brother to jockeys Liam and Jack, Danny started out on the Flat in 2022 with Fozzy Stack after graduating from pony racing and rode the first of his six winners on the level in an apprentice handicap at Leopardstown for Paul Flynn.
But things moved quickly once he was able to switch codes after turning 17 early in 2023. He had three rides at the Cheltenham Festival, two for his father and one for Elliott in the Martin Pipe, before he’d even ridden his first winner over jumps. That came at Tramore in April on the 33/1-shot Likable Chancer, who was a long-standing maiden beforehand, and was quickly followed by three winners in two days at Kilbeggan, including a double for Elliott who provided Gilligan with a number of rides at the Punchestown Festival, including when being beaten a nose in one of the handicap hurdles.
Gilligan racked up a total of 14 more winners, all for Elliott, through May and June before that injury briefly interrupted the flow. With Davy Russell retired, Jack Kennedy not returning to the saddle until July and injuries to Elliott’s other young guns Sam Ewing and Jordan Gainford, Gilligan certainly made the most of the opportunities available early in the season and was even leading the Irish jockeys’ championship at one stage.
Now ranked sixth with a total of 27 winners to his name in 2023/24, Gilligan enjoyed another day in the sun a couple of weeks ago when guiding Elliott’s Coko Beach to victory in the Troytown Handicap Chase at Navan, continuing a fine partnership have ridden the same horse to finish third in the Munster National at Limerick the time before.
Mark McDonagh
- Attached stable: Eoin Griffin
- First jumps ride: 2019
- First jumps winner: Blackjack Boy, Listowel (September 2020)
- Total jumps winners: 53
- Best horse ridden: Roi Mage
Riding a Cheltenham Festival winner must be the dream of every conditional jockey and for Mark McDonagh, who was still combining race riding with studying for a business degree at the time, that dream came true on what was not just his very first ride at the Festival, but also his first ride in Britain, when winning the 2022 Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle on the Joseph O’Brien-trained Banbridge.
The next day, McDonagh finished second on Young Dev in the Midlands Grand National at Uttoxeter but went one better in another ‘National’ just 24 hours later when Spades Are Trumps ran out an easy winner of the Ulster version at Downpatrick for Gavin Cromwell in the colours of J. P. McManus.
McDonagh, who says Paul Carberry was his favourite jockey growing up, started riding out for his grandfather Michael and also did a lot of showjumping (“until I was 16 and wanted to go a bit quicker”) before riding briefly as an amateur. But it was soon after turning conditional that he rode his first two winners, Blackjack Boy and Drumcoo, at the Listowel Festival in September 2020 for Eric McNamara and Michael Hourigan, respectively.
Another landmark in McDonagh’s early career was riding his first double, which came at Tramore the following autumn, and one of those Tramore winners, Nell’s Well, pulled off a 25/1 win when giving McDonagh a Grade 3 success in a novice hurdle at Cork in December 2021 when he was unable to claim his 7lb. Prior to his Cheltenham Festival win, McDonagh was also successful at the Dublin Racing Festival when winning the Leopardstown Handicap Chase on another McManus horse, Birchdale, for Enda Bolger.
McDonagh rode 15 winners in all in 2021/22 and looked well on his way to beating that total in 2022/23 when riding nine winners in the first few months of the campaign. In the event, however, McDonagh only just made it into double figures in what was a frustrating season plagued by injury, first breaking three ribs in a fall at Downpatrick in July 2022 and then breaking his leg in a freak gallops accident in November 2022 having returned to race-riding only a few weeks earlier.
Making up for lost time, McDonagh has slowly built up his number of rides since recovering from his latest injury setback and this season he’s already ridden 21 winners. The Edward O’Grady-trained Gwan Tadhg was a trusty ally during the summer when winning three times in the space of five weeks, while McDonagh has also been seen to good effect on the likes of Stealthy Tom, the winner of a Listed handicap chase at Killarney in August, and Jody Ted, successful in a Pertemps qualifier at Punchestown just last weekend.
Freddie Gingell
- Attached stable: Paul Nicholls
- First jumps ride: 2022
- First jumps winner: West Approach, Wincanton (February 2022)
- Total jumps winners: 22
- Best horse ridden: Eldorado Allen
Freddie Gingell is from a family steeped in National Hunt racing folklore as the grandson of Gold Cup-winning trainer Colin Tizzard and nephew of Joe Tizzard, a multiple Grade 1-winning jockey and the licence holder at Venn Farm since the start of last season.
It was Colin who provided Gingell with his first ride under Rules when he started out as an amateur in January 2022, partnering West Approach to finish fourth in a hunter chase at Warwick having celebrated his sixteenth birthday barely a few weeks earlier. Gingell then opened his account in a similar event at Wincanton the following month when guiding the same horse to an emphatic success.
Speaking to Racing TV afterwards, Gingell paid tribute to his mother, Kim, a big part of the team at Venn Farm before her death in 2020 having been diagnosed with cancer. “This win means so much,” he said. “I lost Mum two years ago and I’m sure she’s up there looking down on me and probably crying today.”
Gingell’s experience in the saddle before his association with West Approach was limited to the pony racing circuit, where he rode more than 50 winners, plus a couple of rides in points in the days before his Warwick spin, including a breakthrough success courtesy of Molineaux at Buckfastleigh. Gingell didn’t have to wait long to double his tally under Rules, guiding Lanspark to a comprehensive victory in an amateur jockeys’ handicap hurdle at Plumpton later in February 2022, but it was all change by the time he was back among the winners in October that year when Rose of Arcadia struck in a mares’ handicap hurdle at Chepstow.
Not only did that win come with Joe Tizzard at the helm at Venn Farm, but Gingell had also taken out his conditional jockeys’ licence by then and had based himself with champion trainer Paul Nicholls. Nicholls provided Gingell with seven winners in 2022/23 – including back-to-back wins on the useful novice hurdler Hugos New Horse – while another three for the Tizzard team and one for Robert Walford took his total to 11.
However, it’s this season when things have really gone to the next level for the young rider and Gingell already has nine winners to his name at this relatively early stage of the campaign, including two high-profile victories in as many days when landing the Haldon Gold Cup at Exeter on Tizzard’s Elixir du Nutz and a conditional jockeys’ handicap chase at Wincanton on the Nicholls-trained Huelgoat in front of the ITV cameras. He also passed his driving test at the start of the month and went on to finish third aboard Il Ridoto in the Paddy Power Gold Cup at Cheltenham, so Gingell surely won’t forget November 2023 in a hurry, whatever he goes on to achieve in what promises to be a successful career in the saddle.
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