DRUIDS CAN SAVE DENIS
O’Regan out to grab big chance
THE chance to win the most valuable prize in jump racing will fuel the dreams of the 40 jockeys preparing to line up in Saturday’s Crabbie’s Grand National.
But for Denis O’Regan, rider of 16-1 shot The Druids Nephew, the incentive to land the £1million race goes beyond ensuring his name will be written into Aintree history. The opportunities that used to knock for O’Regan with unerring regularity have dried up to barely a trickle.
The 34-year- old, who rode 89 winners from 534 rides in Britain in 2008-09 to finish sixth in the title race, is equal 37th in this season’s standings with 23 wins from only 219 mounts. It is a drop he finds hard to explain.
Amazingly, the silky- skilled jockey — whose Cheltenham Festival wins include the 2008 World Hurdle on Inglis Drever — had only one ride at last month’s meeting and that was pulled up.
O’Regan is not expecting many more chances over the three days at Aintree but in Neil Mulhollandtrained The Druids Nephew he has been handed the kind of spare ride he has been starved of.
Many Clouds won last year’s race Racing Correspondent but it might have been different had The Druids Nephew not stumbled and fallen under Aidan Coleman at the fifth-last fence when travelling powerfully in front.
From that devastating moment, Mulholland has plotted a retrieval mission back to Liverpool and O’Regan is the jockey chosen to complete the plan. He is determined to grab his chance.
O’Regan said: ‘It is frustrating having ridden so many good horses at the highest level like Sizing Europe, Inglis Drever, Tidal Bay. It can also be depressing.
‘I used to get upset about it. For some reason I am not getting the rides but now I don’t dwell on it. I just have to keep working hard.
‘I don’t know why it has happened. No- one seems to know. Maybe I’m not in the right circles or maybe it is people don’t think I’m that good. I’d love to know why but I am not bitter.’
O’Regan moved to Britain to ride for the Inglis Drever team of trainer Howard Johnson and owner Graham Wylie. But the tide started to turn when Johnson was banned for falling foul of BHA animal welfare rules and O’Regan looked south.
A stint riding for Newmarket trainer John Ferguson didn’t last and O’Regan, who got married to Louise last year, concedes he has pondered returning home across the Irish Sea.
He lives and works in the hope that one ride, the sort of opportunity offered by The Druids Nephew, can change things.
The gelding has run only three times this season and was beaten 10 lengths by The Last Samuri — one of the big fancies for Saturday’s race — when they met in the Grimthorpe Chase at Doncaster.
But O’Regan, who will be riding in his 10th National and was second on Black Apalachi behind AP McCoy-ridden Don’t Push It in 2010, saw plenty of positives.
O’Regan said: ‘When I sat on The Druids Nephew the other day, he was a totally different horse and I mean a totally different horse.
‘The ground will be important, he has a lot of speed. Last year he was motoring when he fell. Neil is confident he has him in great form.
‘I must have watched the replay of last year’s race 20 times. He was really operating. Finishing second on Black Apalachi was gut-wrenching. I’d love to make up for it.’