Thousand not out for P.J. Mc
Taghmon man’s milestone
P.J. McDONALD, from Monastery Avenue, Taghmon, has been carving a big reputation as a flat jockey in Britain in recent years, making his presence felt in the top races at the leading tracks.
On day two of the July Meeting at Newmarket on Friday, he reached another notable career milestone when he rode his 1,000th winner.
He had hit a bit of a flat spot by his standards in recent weeks, with just one win in twelve days and over 40 rides since June 27, and he was stuck on the 999 mark. It looked like more of the same for a while on Friday after he dead-heated for third in a tight finish and then had a non-runner.
The third ride in the £60,000 bet365 Heritage Handicap was on Johnston’s Zabeel Champion (8/1 from 10s), and this time all went to plan.
McDonald cut out the running for the first half mile or so before being headed by Dettori on Johnston’s Overwrite (8/1).
The Taghmon man took over again with three furlongs to go and he was not going to be pegged back. He had a length and a half in hand at the post and the 1,000th career winner was in the bag.
The total is made up of 963 on the flat and 37 over jumps in his early years.
He had just one winner from 34 flat rides in 2005 and ’06 when jumping was still his aim, but has had 962 in the last 13 years.
His total prize money earnings on the flat have exceeded £10m, but his career really took off in the past five, including this incomplete and shortened season, during which he has ridden 499 winners and 480 seconds from 3,750 rides, for a total of over £6.5m sterling in prize money.
Being based with his wife and family in Leyburn in north Yorkshire since 2005 has meant an awful lot of travel to the bigger tracks and better races down south, but he is recognised as one of the hardest working people in the game.
His career took a step forward in 2015 with 69 winners; he had 80 in 2016 and in each of the three seasons before this he has exceeded the one hundred mark: 128 in 2017, 120 in 2018, and his annual record, 132 in 2019.
Not bad for a man from Taghmon who had no horses in his background at all. He once explained it in an interview: ‘ My family isn’t involved in racing and had no racing background but for reasons that nobody can explain at home, when I was a kid I’d sit in the middle of the floor and watch the racing on telly… I was just drawn to it for some reason and it just went from there.
‘I had about 70 or 80 rides in Ireland and rode about three winners and I could just never get going... Then you start thinking to yourself, “Am I good enough to be a jockey”, and I was going to pack the whole lot in until a friend of suggested I give it a go with Ferdy Murphy, and from the morning I landed in his yard my career took a massive turn.’
Ferdy gave him a career-changing bit of advice shortly after winning the Scottish Grand National for him on Hot Weld in 2007. He told him he was too small for the jumps and to try a switch to the flat.
Ferdy, who had given up training in England and moved to France, died last September. He came from Cloughbawn and would have been very familiar with McDonald’s home village, and he took him under his wing.
‘Ferdy was instrumental in my career,’ McDonald acknowledged. ‘He protected me in my early days in the jumping game and we were in regular contact until his death.’
The most influential horse in his career has surely been Laurens, trained by Karl Burke and owned by John and Jess Dance who had P.J. ride for them whenever he could.
He rode Laurens in 15 of her 17 races and won his first Classic, the French Oaks, and three other Group 1s and a Group 2 on her. He was also second on her in the English 1,000 Guineas, being collared by 66/1 shot Billesdon Brook.
The horse was campaigned almost exclusively at the highest level. Ironically, the two rides he missed on her were because of a bad injury in a freak parade ring accident.
Danny Tudhope subbed for him and won two Group 1s at Newmarket and Leopardstown, the latter in the Matron Stakes when P.J. was in his wheelchair in the parade ring to welcome home horse and rider.
P.J’s big day was caught on the ITV and Virgin Media cameras, and he was given the VIP treatment with substantial interviews before and after the landmark win.
He comes across as very knowledgeable and articulate about his sport and the industry of racing, and it is not surprising that he has been an officer with the Professional Jockeys’ Association in Britain for quite a few years.
He has come a long way since those childhood days in Taghmon watching horse racing on TV without really understanding it.
Life goes on, and it was back to bread and butter racing at Lingfield on Sunday. P.J. started off on his second thousand winners with a double on Heart of Soul (85/40) for Iain Williams and Flying Moon (7/2f) for R.M. Smith.