Making an impression over fences in the US

HOME AND AWAY PADDY YOUNG:Paddy Young became the first jockey from this country to be crowned champion across the Atlantic since Michael O'Brien claimed the title in1972. He talks to MARGIE MCLOONE.

JUMP RACING in the United States is very much the poor relation of its flat counterpart but it’s competitive, with an intensely loyal following, and for 2009 has Irishman Paddy Young as champion jockey.

This has been a bittersweet year for the 33-year-old who returned to Banbridge last month for a final visit to his father, Leo, a former National Hunt jockey, trainer and show jumper, who died three days later.

“I was five wins up in the championship at that stage with 10 races to go and Dad knew that I should stay in front until the season ended,” said Paddy. “He would have been very proud as he started me off riding.”

Standing six foot, Young is tall for a professional jockey, but he’s as thin as a lath, tucks up neatly and is very good over obstacles. While Leo taught him the basics of race-riding and how to present a horse at a fence, he had his skills further honed by Yogi Breisner, chef d’equipe to the British eventing team and a highly respected trainer of horses and riders.

“I first left home when I was 19 and spent a season working as a stable lad for leading English trainer Nicky Henderson,” said Young. “Mick Fitzgerald then got me a job as an amateur with Henrietta Knight and, while I didn’t get to ride in many races, I learned a lot while I was there – it was the start of the Best Mate era.

“I stayed for five years and ended up running Hen’s ‘second’ yard where all the young horses were stabled. Yogi used to come down once a week for schooling sessions and we’d spend all day jumping – show jumps, hurdles and fences. He’s an amazing trainer and always had something positive to say even if things had gone wrong.”

After a couple of years back home, when he rode a few point-to-point winners, Young went to the States for a two-week working holiday in the summer of 2003. Impressed, he travelled to Maryland that September to join trainer Jack Fisher as an amateur and rode his first American winner, Indispensable, at Shawan Downs that month. "That got my name in the papers and I made the front page of the Steeplechase Times. I rode a winner every weekend for the next four weeks and recorded seven wins from 29 rides."

For amateur jump jockeys in the United States, a ride in the Maryland Hunt Cup is the highlight of their career and Young finished third in the 2004 renewal of the four-mile timber race on the Irish-bred Young Dubliner. He then turned professional and, having met his now wife Leslie, decided to settle in the States.

The couple moved to Pennsylvania in 2005 and, two years later with 16 wins to his credit, Paddy ended up second in the jockeys’ table having ridden in more races than any of his rivals. “Last year things didn’t go so well as I was contracted to Brigadoon Stable and couldn’t ride for the small trainers with whom I had built up good relationships. However, I did get to ride in the Nakayama Grand Jump in Japan.

“This year I again rode in more races than anyone else and picked up 19 wins, 13 seconds and 12 thirds from my 99 rides. I won the big American hurdle, the Temple Gwathmey, on Itsi Bee and was on board Erin Go Bragh, the only finisher in the Pennsylvania Hunt Cup.”

That four-mile timber race is held in Unionville where the Youngs now live with children Thomas, Rory and Saoirse. Leslie trains eight jumpers at their farm and supplied her husband with three of his 2009 victories.

“I ride out each day for local trainer Sanna Hendriks,” said Paddy explaining his week, “help Leslie with the horses (we’re hoping to have more next year) and school for anyone who asks me.

“Jockeys probably don’t make as much as a difference here as at home there are less tactics. The horses usually come off the flat and are very keen but once they come off the bridle that’s it and, with the ground so hard, they don’t last that long. The prize-money is good and jockeys can make a decent living.”