Tom O'Ryan rides again
Lee Topliss by Tom O'Ryan as featured in Racing Post
Robert "Monty" Hempton by Tom O'Ryan
Freddie Tylicki by Tom O'Ryan as featured in RUK magazine
A work morning at Malton Gallops by Jim McGrath as featured on Jim's website: www.jimmcgrathracing.com
TOM O'RYAN RIDES AGAIN!
Tom O'Ryan, who rides out here practically every morning, is riding in the LESTER LEGENDS charity race at Doncaster on September 7th, the first day of the St Leger meeting.
An invitational event, confined to former professional jockeys, the Lester Legends stands alone in charity races. All riders are re-licensed for the day, the race is run under Jockey Club rules and the £10,000 prize money is twice above the standard tariff.
Equally significantly, it is a serious fund-raiser for two chosen racing charities; the Injured Jockeys' Fund's 'House That Jack Built', which is a project, founded by Jack Berry to build a retirement home for ex-jockeys in the north, coupled with a rehabilitation centre for current riders, similar to Oaksey House in Lambourn, and the Northern Racing College at Bawtry, near Doncaster.
Tom has some serious competition. Among the fellow riders are Norman Williamson, Charlie Swan, Graham Bradley, Ray Cochrane, French ace Phillipe Pacquet and, from America, the legendary Julie Krone, a Hall of Fame jockey and the world's most successful female pilot.
All riders taking part are under an obligation to raise funds and anyone who would like to support Tom can do so on www.justgiving.com/Tom-O-Ryan.
All donations, however small, will be greatly appreciated and will go directly towards helping two very worthwhile causes within the racing industry.
LEE TOPLISS
by Tom O'Ryan: As featured in the Racing Post: 5th July 2011
He’s come a long way in a short time. It’s just over two years since he rode his first winner aboard Joe Jo Star at Ayr. The difference in Lee Topliss then to now is startling. A mere two successes shy of chalking-up his half-century and reducing his claim to 3lb, the 22-year-old has developed into an accomplished race-rider, strong and aggressive in the saddle and with a natural ‘feel’ for a race which lends itself to making the right decisions at the right time. It shows.
Topliss hails from the Richard Fahey stable, which opens doors to emerging talent, and which has produced three champion apprentices in Robert Winston, Paul Hanagan and Freddie Tylicki. Topliss has the ability to be another and indeed he finished on the heels of the principals in the junior title race last year with 31 winners.
His dozen successes this season have included the Musselburgh Gold Cup (High Office) and the Thirsk Hunt Cup (Justonefortheroad) for Fahey, for whom he’s also won useful handicaps at York (Common Touch) and Pontefract (Sioux Rising). Unsurprisingly, plenty other trainers – 31 of them to be precise – have put him up, including John Quinn, for whom Topliss rode a stylish double at Chester recently.
There are sacrifices to be made. He’s not the lightest apprentice in the weighing-room by any means and his weight needs careful management and no lack of self-discipline. The mere fact that he’s prepared to tackle that constant challenge underlines his commitment to the game. He’s hungry in more ways than one.
Lee Topliss has the talent to climb a good deal higher yet, to carve out a niche for himself in the longer term. He has come a long way. This is one young gun who, granted a bit of luck that every rising star requires, can go a lot further.
Robert “Monty” Hempton
by Tom O'Ryan: 27th June 2011
  
Graham Orange interviews Monty Monty receives his presentation Monty makes the presentation
from Kieren Fallon.. to Mark Brisbourne..
Acknowledgement of the backroom staff in racing, the lifeblood of the sport, is all too rare, which is why everyone at Musley Bank was delighted that one of their own was honoured at Pontefract on Monday, 27th June 2011.
Robert Hempton, known to all and sundry as “Monty”, had a race named after him in Racing Welfare’s admirable ‘Lifetime In Racing’ series, which, as the title explains, honours people behind the scenes who have spent a lifetime working in the sport.
‘Monty’, who hails from Downpatrick in Northern Ireland, started out in 1966 with Andy Barclay in Scotland for the first three years of his apprenticeship before moving to Newmarket, where he worked for Michael Jarvis and Bernard Van Cutsem. He was associated with a whole host of top-class horses at HQ, including Park Top, Karabas and High Top.
In 1972, ‘Monty’ spent a weekend with a friend in Malton and made a life-changing decision to stay – which he has to this present day.
He had a long and close association with the late, great Jimmy FitzGerald and also worked for Mark Dwyer, FitzGerald’s hugely successful stable jockey, when he went on to establish a thriving livery and pre-training yard on the outskirts of the town.
In 2006, ‘Monty’ moved to Richard Fahey and has since been a vital cog in the giant Musley Bank wheel. He is responsible for medications, for preparing special feeds, and he works closely with the yearlings in the very early stages of breaking.
Blessed with a beady eye for spotting potential in his pupils, ‘Monty’ has a reputation of being able to identify the best two-year-old for the following season within ten minutes in the lunge-ring!
He has been closely associated with two of our stable-stars in recent seasons; Wootton Bassett, unbeaten in five races in 2010, winner of more than £500,000 in prize money and a Group 1 hero, and Harrison George, who has proved a prolific winner in handicap and Listed company.
It was fitting that the presentation of a memento to mark his day at Pontefract was made by Kieren Fallon, the former champion jockey and Derby-winning rider, who launched his British career with FitzGerald.
"I have known Kieren since he first came over from Ireland to join 'Fitzy' as an apprentice, so it was great that he made the presentation," said Monty who also judged the best-turned-out horse in his race and presented the winning trophy to owner-trainer Mark Brisbourne. He was even interviewed on Racing UK. "The whole thing was great. I would like to thank Racing Welfare and Pontefract Racecourse for giving me such a lovely day," he added.
A popular member of the Musley Bank team, and a popular character among all those who know him, ‘Monty’ has forgotten more about racing than many people will ever know and his long-gained experience and continued enthusiasm are qualities not to be dismissed lightly.
The Lifetime In Racing series could not have had a more deserving recipient, a fact not lost on Richard Fahey. "It was great for 'Monty' to get some recognition," he said. "Nobody deserved it more."
Freddie Tylicki
By Tom O'Ryan as featured in RUK magazine (June 2011)
From celebrated title-holder one year to facing six months and more on the sidelines the next. Has any champion apprentice of recent years been dealt such a bitter blow? Hardly. Freddie Tylicki has come back from a long and painful journey. The fact that he’s riding so well again, booting home winners and relishing the challenge is testimony to a strong personality, an undiluted commitment and blinkered dedication to succeed at his chosen profession.
“Racing is my life. Riding racehorses is my life. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do,” says Tylicki, whose late father was a three-times champion in Germany, and who is a young man who accentuates the positive and eliminates the negative. Not for him dwelling on the past, wallowing in self-pity and wondering what might have been, had injury not set him back to square one at a period when he should have been soaring upwards. He is totally and utterly consumed by the future.
“My aim now is to get noticed again, to get back on good horses, to prove myself again,” he says, with unmistakable determination. “I’ve done it before and I can do it again. It’s the way I live my life. Once I put my mind to something, I’ll do everything in my power to achieve it, just as I did when I set myself a target of being champion apprentice.”
That he wrote his name into the annals of the turf by becoming Britain’s top junior rider of 2009 was a magnificent feat. Not only was he the first German-born rider to clinch the title, but he did so, with a high-reaching score of 71 winners, after a furious battle with David Probert, who, the previous year, had dead-heated for championship honours with William Buick.
Buick has since gone on to scale heady heights, after being snapped-up as number-one jockey to John Gosden. Probert has hardly stood still, either; he’s firmly established himself in the fully-fledged league. Trawl through previous champions and you’ll come across Greg Fairley (2007), who went on to Group 1 glory; Stevie Donohoe (2006), who has found a useful niche as 50-plus winner-a-year jockey; and Hayley Turner and Saleem Golam, who dead-heated in ’05. Their careers have separated since, Turner going on to even bigger and better things, but the equally accomplished Golam has struggled for opportunities and consequently for winners.
By contrast, the 2004 champion Tom Queally has hit the heights of classic and Group 1 glories in his cherished role as first jockey to Henry Cecil, while the previous two title-holders, Ryan Moore (2003) and Paul Hanagan (2002) have both gone on to be champion jockeys.
It is somewhat ironic that on the very same day last year - the first Saturday of June -that Moore won the Derby on Workforce, and in a season that Hanagan was eventually crowned champion, Freddie Tylicki suffered a high-speed fall in a five furlong race at Musselburgh that totally derailed his career. Not only did he dislocate his left shoulder, he fractured the top of it and, to make matters worse, much worse, he badly damaged the complex network of surrounding muscles, ligaments and nerves. What followed was an operation to insert three screws, constant pain and discomfort, an arm which was left limp and lifeless and the stark realisation that, instead of riding winners galore in his maiden season as a fully-fledged professional, he was facing time, time and even more time on the sidelines with the most untimely of injuries.
“Life is all about challenges,” says Tylicki, in reflective mood, as he remembers the painfully slow progress he made and how, given the delicate nature of his arm, he initially struggled to pick up a one-pound weight when he eventually started regular physiotherapy to regain the strength in his badly damaged limb.
“What happened left me with a lot to play with mentally, but you’ve got to cope with it; you can’t allow it to get you down. You’ve got to be mentally strong, and I am. In the wider world, a lot of people were far worse off than me. I knew it would take a long time. But I also knew what I had to do, so I got stuck in, gave myself a ‘kick in the belly’, anytime I felt down about it, and came through it.”
His early career had been spent in Ireland, with valuable three-year stints with Dermot Weld and Jim Bolger. It was not, though, until he ventured to England, to join North Yorkshire trainer Richard Fahey that his talents were rewarded, and his fortunes turned.
It was at Fahey’s Malton yard that he began riding out again at the beginning of this year. “It felt a bit strange. When you’ve been out of the saddle for that period of time – I didn’t sit on a horse for six months – it’s bound to feel different, bound to take a little while before you feel totally comfortable, with your balance and everything else, on a horse again,” he says, before once again providing an insight into what makes him tick and drives him on. “The incentive I had then, and also while the injury was healing, was that I never forgot the love I have for the game. It was flickering away the whole time.”
Although he resumed race-riding in February, it wasn’t until April that he got off the mark – and then proceeded to ride three winners inside of a week, all for Michael Dods. “It took me a few rides to get back into the swing of things, but it was good to get back riding winners. Michael has been a good association for me this season. He’s got a good set-up, some nice horses and I’m enjoying working with him. When you’ve been off, as long as I was, you lose some contacts and, when you come back, you gain others. It’s typical of racing.”
What was typical of Tylicki was in remembering the two teenage apprentices, Jan Wilson and Jamie Kyne, who so tragically died in a fire near his Malton base when, just a couple of months later, he was crowned apprentice champion. “It was good for the north when I won it, and I felt I won it, too, for Jan and for Jamie, who was a good friend of mine. I was proud of myself and I would hope that those closest to me were proud of me. It was a good year, but a tough year.”
An even tougher year, of course, followed last year. But Freddie Tylicki has come through it. He’s determined to climb again, to gain further career honours and put himself firmly back in the big-race picture.
“It comes down to whether you still want it or not,” he says, referring to the legacy of a serious injury and coming out the other side. “I still want it.” He’s well on his way to proving that very point…
"A Work Morning At Malton Gallops"
By Jim McGrath: 1st June 2011
June 1st dawns clearly and brightly; in short, it’s a pleasure to be up and about. I’ve arranged to see Sunny Side Up, one of three horses I have in training with Richard Fahey at Malton, have her first strong piece of work on the grass. As first lot is being boxed over to the gallops on the opposite side of the town to where he trains at 7 am sharp, I need to be at Richard’s Musley Bank Stables by no later than 6.45 am.
Fortunately for me, as its half term for most schools in this part of the world, the traffic on one of Britain’s busiest roads, the M 62, is less congested than would usually be the case on a weekday morn. Precisely 58 minutes and 62 miles later, I’m on parade with seven minutes to spare.
Over the last thirty years, I’ve been lucky enough to visit umpteen training establishments. They all differ, both in appearance and approach, each one generally reflecting its proprietor’s personality and work ethic.
Fahey is a workaholic, though a warm, engaging personality and a generally easy manner largely disguises the fact that he never stops and rarely seems flustered. A sincere handshake, a smile, then on with business, chatter interjecting whenever his mind isn’t focused on one of the dozens of details that every trainer has to attend to pretty much each day of his working life.
Robin O’Ryan, elder brother of the highly respected racing journalist Tom, is Tonto to Fahey’s Lone Ranger. Never mind his title “assistant”, to most observers Robin is as close to indispensible as you could think of. What’s more, that the two both gel and respect one another is blindingly obvious.
At this yard, it’s abundantly clear there’s a comradeship between most of the many staff responsible for grooming and exercising some 200 horses. The daily routine revolves around getting their fit and able four-legged friends up and back from the six-furlong all-weather gallop which forms a part of Fahey’s property.
But this is a work morning over on Malton’s grass gallops and, even though the whole shebang is well planned, it’s quite a nerve-wracking operation for those involved. Seventeen horses have to be boxed over for what Fahey regards as an important trialling session and, inevitably, some take a marked change in routine far better than others. Thankfully, bar one, who after being unloaded jibs and plays up, on this occasion the string behaves well.
Fahey and O’Ryan planned these gallops days ago. Bit by bit, nine unraced two-year-old colts are matched up with whom they consider to be the most suitable riders. For example, champion jockey Paul Hanagan is legged up onto a colt by Dubawi, whilst Freddie Tylicki partners one by Clodovil. Lee Topliss is on a flashy chestnut by Pivotal. The aforementioned Tom, who always leads Richard’s gallops, is on the pacemaker, a six-year-old called Haadeeth.
A warm-up canter, a walk back and then it’s “find out time”. The horses are pushed out firmly, as opposed to being driven flat out. Two finish well behind, though that doesn’t perturb Fahey or O’Ryan, as the two stragglers hadn’t promised much in their many spins on the all-weather at Musley Bank. On the whole though, the gallop, which the Clodovil colt wins, is a success.
O’Ryan, hugely experienced in playing the role of “hare”, reports that he felt he set a sensible and appropriate tempo, points backed up by the posse in pursuit, though Topliss remarks that his horse would have fared better had he not “hung like a gate”.
A gentle warm down, then a trek back to the starting point, where a third Fahey horsebox has arrived. It’s now time for six two-year-old fillies, together with another older galloping companion, to run through a similar routine.
Robin and Richard ring the riding changes. From a personal perspective, this gallop is the real reason I’m here. Hanagan swings onto a filly by Dutch Art, Tony Hamilton is legged up onto one by Dubai Destination and, eventually, Freddie Tylicki is partnered with Sunny Side Up, a filly by Refuse To Bend, owned in partnership by yours truly and business colleague/friend Roger Trevitt and his wife, Dianne.
Work passes without incident. Again, Tom O’Ryan, arguably the most important cog in the exercise, is happy with the way matters unfold. Sunny Side Up gallops pleasingly, one of two who catch the lead horse. Its smiles all round and I’m quickly in touch with Roger, who can’t be present due to his wife having a long-standing appointment. The good news is that, provided she shows no side effects from her first full gallop, Sunny Side Up will make her racecourse debut at Pontefract on June 6th.
In a nutshell, its mornings like this which fuel the will to continue. Freddie (Tylicki) is chuffed, Richard and Robin are chuffed, Tom’s chuffed and me, well I’m chuffed to meatballs! Anticipation is high. Will we all be brought crashing down to reality on Monday evening? Who knows, but until the witching hour at Ponte adrenalin can flow, as we carry on hoping and dreaming. Cross everything folks!
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