Kirby swaps life on the farm for glamour of Royal Ascot
Hard-working jockey is looking forward to riding favourite Harry Angel, he tells Marcus Armytage
The grass may grow in Adam Kirby’s paddocks at Vicarage Farm Stud just outside Newmarket but it certainly does not grow under his feet. “Not a normal jockey,” is one of the ways he describes himself. Partly because grafting is in his genes and partly because being always on the go helps keep his weight down, he never sits down. “There’s always something to do here,” he explains. “Strimming, mowing, mending a fence, riding out a few.”
For many of his weighing-room colleagues at his level, the winter is when you improve your golf handicap in Dubai between rides at Meydan.
But, with his partner, Megan, the daughter of trainer David Evans, Kirby, 29, who initially made it on the British all-weather circuit before converting that success – and some
– to the turf, spent last November to March breaking in 56 horses for Newmarket trainers.
The last time I went to Vicarage Farm six years ago, he sold me a horse, so you will understand I was a bit wary about this latest trip. The deal turned out to be a huge success from the purchaser’s point of view and, while there is a playful bit of the wheelerdealer in Kirby, he promises he has nothing to sell this time.
Besides a hatful of good rides at Royal Ascot this week, including the favourite Harry Angel in the Diamond Jubilee, he will be running the 76-acre farm which his late father, Maurice, a Norwich-based electrician, bought from Frankie Durr when Kirby was four. To him, it has always been home. “Dad was a marvellous man,” says Kirby. “He trained greyhounds and bred a few horses, which he took more seriously when he moved here.
“When I was eight, we went to look at a farm in France and he took me racing. I’ve no idea where it was and I’m sure it wasn’t licensed because I clearly remember they were cutting the horses’ manes with scissors [normally a horse’s mane is ‘pulled’ with a comb] but it flicked a switch.
“After that trip to the races, I knew that’s what I wanted to do,” he explains. “I started riding properly. From 12, I stopped going to school and rode out every Saturday for James Fanshawe.”
At 16, he joined Michael Wigham and had his first ride for Gay Kelleway, which won at Lingfield in October 2004. A year later, he joined Clive Cox as his apprentice in Lambourn, they grew together and have now reached the point where one knows what the other is thinking.
It has become one of Flat racing’s most enduring partnerships.
They have won Group One races at Royal Ascot with Lethal Force, Profitable and My Dream Boat, while Reckless Abandon and, last year, Heartache have won two-year-old sprints there.
“When I went to Clive’s, he had 40 horses, now he’s got a big gig going on up there and a lot of class horses,” says Kirby. “If it looks like I do well on sprinters, it is because Clive trains good sprinters. It’s just how it happened. I don’t think I’m any better at riding a sprinter than any other type of horse. He gives me a rough idea of what he wants when I’m riding for him but he doesn’t bamboozle me with instructions. If I make a mistake – don’t we all – I’m big enough and ugly enough to put my hands up. So, we get on well he gives me the confidence to ride them like my own.”
Kirby met Megan, now the mother of their two children, Charlie, two, and Evie, 11 weeks, when she led him up at Wolverhampton on one of her father’s horses.
He will, he admits, be hard pushed to have a better day than the one at Ascot two years ago when Profitable won the King’s Stand on the day Charlie was born. “I had to leave
Marcus Armytage’s tips
Tuesday: The French colt RECOLETOS can win the Queen Anne. In the Coventry, I like SHINE SO BRIGHT. The Irish Guineas winner, ROMANISED, looks value in the St James’s Palace. BATTAASH can burn off Lady Aurelia in the King’s Stand.
Wednesday: CHELSEA CLOISTERS looks lightning quick in the Queen Mary but she will not be much of a price so QUEEN OF BERMUDA might be one to have each-way. It is unlike James Fanshawe to supplement one so take that as a tip for TRIBUTE ACT in the Duke of Cambridge. CRACKSMAN should be back to his best in the Prince of Wales.
Thursday: The Gold Cup will be all about Order of St George taking on Stradivarius, Vazirabad and Torcedor but at two and a half miles nothing will be going better at the finish than the Doncaster Cup winner DESERT SKYLINE. In the Ribblesdale, DANCING BRAVE BEAR is the decent each-way shot.
Friday: Equilateral is fancied to take a big step up in the Commonwealth but if you are looking for value the unbeaten MAIN DESIRE is highly regarded by Michael Bell. There might have been less fluke about BILLESDON BROOK’s 1,000 Guineas win than people thought and she will go close in the Coronation.
Saturday: You would kick yourself if SALOUEN won the Hardwicke at a good price and you weren’t on. HARRY ANGEL should blitz his rivals in the Diamond Jubilee, while ICE AGE can go close in the Wokingham. Megan and her mother,” he recalls with a twinkle. “It was a lovely day – I didn’t have to attend the birth, thank God, and I found out about an hour before racing that she’d had him!”
At the races, Kirby always has the flushed hue of someone who has just emerged from a long stint in the sauna. “So, you’d prefer to spend 40 minutes in a sauna than go for a run?” I ask, and he gives me a look suggesting he wished it were only 40 minutes. “I hate running,” he says.
But maintaining his weight to ride at 9st is something he regards as just part of the job and he does not get hung up on it. It is more America– North Korea post the Singapore summit rather than the open hostility of before it.
“I still eat what I want but just as not as much as I’d like. If you had a strict diet, it would drive you mad – it’s just the way I play it. I’ll make a Red Bull on ice last me the day at the races.”
But it is all worth it to ride horses such as Harry Angel. “You ride enough of them, you instantly know the difference between very good, good and indifferent. Some feel like Rolls-Royces, some feel like you’re trying to clout a Mini Metro along the motorway at 70mph.
“You get a proper feel off him. I wouldn’t like to compare him with the others but he has a certain spark about him. You’d give Lethal Force a click, about 100 yards’ notice, before you needed him, and you would feel him lower himself.
“Harry Angel is very fast and can quicken off it. He’s a bit difficult in the gates and the hardest part with him is pulling the blindfold off as they open. You need to be on the ball.”
And, so, I go to make my escape, a cheaper visit than my last.
“That grey horse in the stable,” he says, referring to his hunter which he maintains will jump a five-bar gate from two strides, by way of goodbye. “Why don’t you take him home and try ’im?”
‘From my first day at the races aged eight, I knew it was what I wanted. I stopped going to school at 12’