Jack Kennedy
Exclusive interview with racing’s teen prodigy
‘I’d love to be champion but it won’t be easy with Davy Russell and Ruby Walsh around’ ‘I don’t really feel pressure – it’s just the way I am’
Ask Jack Kennedy whether success at Aintree today would trump the experience of riding four winners at the Cheltenham Festival – a feat the 18-year-old managed last month to tie Davy Russell as this year’s leading jockey – and you are unlikely to get much more out of him than a shrug and a mumbled, non-committal response.
“Ah sure, I suppose, growing up watching the Grand National … it’s a race I’d love to win,” he says in his thick Kerry accent. “But I’m not sure which would be better. I’d have to wait and see, like …”
Kennedy – who will be riding 13-year-old Bless The Wings for trainer Gordon Elliott today – has been variously described as Irish jump racing’s wunderkind, its teenage sensation, its next big superstar. But excitable he is not. The teenager is so laid-back he is practically horizontal. “Pressure?” he replies when asked about riding for Elliott and the powerful Gigginstown Stud. “Not really. I don’t really feel much pressure at all. It’s just the way I am, I guess.”
Do not be fooled by the blase exterior. There is clearly a core of steel lurking within. Kennedy has been winning races since he was in short trousers; indeed, he is almost still in short trousers. This is a young man in a serious hurry.
Born in Dingle, the youngest of four brothers, it was through them that Kennedy’s interest in horses developed. He pestered his parents Billy (a welder) and Liz (a child minder) for riding lessons from the age of five; they bought him his first pony (Pair of Jacks) at the age of nine; and, by 12, Kennedy was not only riding bigger ponies but helping his father – who by now had set up some stables in the field opposite their home – to train a few of them.
In 2012, aged 13, Kennedy became Ireland’s pony-racing champion jockey, a title he would go on to win twice more. He also won the coveted Dingle Derby in 2014 on Coola Boula, trained by his father. The rough, tough world of Irish pony racing was, Kennedy says, a “fantastic training ground”. The perfect place to cut his teeth.
By now completely hooked, Kennedy left school to focus on his racing and it was no surprise when he applied for his licence to ride thoroughbreds at the earliest
opportunity after turning 16. It took him less than a month to notch his first winner, in a seven-furlong handicap at Cork for Pat Flynn. A week after that he rode his first winner over hurdles at Down Royal on Eshtiaal for Elliott. Half an hour later, he rode his second on Mustadrik. Kennedy had clocked up well over 100 winners when he was still 17, at an age when 20-time champion jockey AP Mccoy was yet to ride his first. You cannot do that unless you are a bit special. “I am 67 and I have never seen a 17-year-old ride like him,” Ted Walsh, the former jockey-turned-trainer and TV pundit said of Kennedy last year.
The teenager is capable of the spectacular, too, making headlines beyond racing last December when he dramatically managed to stay on board Robin Des Mana at Clonmel, having been unseated by the six-year-old. Left hanging off the side of the horse, Kennedy kept his composure and his balance, and eventually managed to clamber back on. He won by half a length.
It was not even the first time he had performed that particular trick. Kennedy was unseated by another horse, Bilko, at Thurles last year and managed to get back in the saddle on that occasion as well, although this time he did not go on to win.
Naturally, Kennedy refuses to make a fuss. “Yeah, it was just a bit embarrassing, like,” he says. “The one in Thurles, when I didn’t win, the horse actually made a mistake. But the one in Clonmel, he jumped the fence fine, I just lost my balance … It would have been embarrassing if I had fallen. I was probably just lucky.”
Maybe. Maybe not. What is undoubtedly true is that Kennedy has something. And that beneath the laid-back exterior – the mumbled responses of an 18-year-old – he is far more driven and ambitious than he lets on.
Today’s National might come a bit too soon, even for Kennedy. Bless The Wings presents something of a conundrum, with Aintree’s official handicapper admitting he was unsure how to assess him, given the discrepancy between his rating in Ireland and his cross-country rating. But if Kennedy continues to ride for Elliott and Gigginstown, the wins will keep on flowing. He would need to churn out around 200 a season on average – and stay fit – to put AP Mccoy’s career record of 4,358 in jeopardy.
But when asked about that, and his chances of being Irish champion jockey, his reply takes me by surprise, betraying for the first time the burning ambition that clearly resides within him.
“I’d love to be champion jockey,” he says firmly. “I think it will be hard to do as long as Davy [Russell] and Ruby [Walsh] are still around. But hopefully one day. And sure, I don’t know if it will be possible to beat AP’S record. We’ll see how it goes...”
“It’s not something I practise – I’d say if you did, you’d end up getting badly hurt! I suppose it was just my instinct at the time not to hit the ground. You’re going to do everything you can to try to prevent that. In this instance, it was probably just lucky. It looks hard, but I don’t do special fitness work or anything. I play the odd bit of soccer and stuff with a few of the lads. But I wouldn’t be doing anything too serious. I’m pretty fit just from riding out.”