Rebel with no cause for regret

HOME AND AWAY JOCKEY DENIS O'REGAN: Brian O'Connortalks to Youghal native Denis O'Regan whose move to the north east of England couldn't be going better

THE NORTH east of England is down one rather prominent Corkman recently but while the area's charms might have paled for Roy Keane there is another Rebel who has settled in rather better.

Denis O'Regan doesn't ration his time there with flying visits by chopper either but rather he has happily added to the numbers of a rather unlikely jockey enclave.

Racing is hardly the first thing that comes to mind when the city of Middlesborough is mentioned but its environs are where O'Regan has decided to ply his trade from. He has hardly had reason to regret his decision either.

It's just over a year since the 25-year-old Youghal native made the move from Ireland to take up the job as retained jockey to the top National Hunt owner Graham Wylie.

The plusses of such a gig are obvious.

Wylie, a North East native himself, formed his own computer company Sage on leaving college in 1980 and 21 years later sold it on with a global valuation of almost £3 billion.

Wylie's personal wealth has been estimated at about £150 million. When he decided to fill his spare time in 2004 by investing in racehorses, the ching-ching signs in the eyes of an entire industry lit up.

Such expectations were proved to be correct as he has invested heavily in a string of almost a hundred horses and they are concentrated in the Durham stables of trainer Howard Johnson.

There is, however, a pressure that comes with riding for such a high-profile team and the evidence of it was clear when Wylie came to head-hunt O'Regan in the summer of 2007.

One Irish jockey, Paddy Brennan, had just quit the job after only a year and another, Graham Lee, had lasted only a little longer. Stories of Johnson being less than easy to work for were plentiful.

There was some surprise that O'Regan decided to quit Ireland: there was none that he was a target for one of racing's most powerful outfits.

The previous couple of years had proved O'Regan was one of the best young riders in the country. A victory on board the Ballybrit legend Ansar in the 2005 Galway Plate while he was still claiming highlighted a real big-race talent that could have started to become frustrated by a lack of opportunity.

With a limited number of chances for an ever-increasing pool of riding talent, the competition in Ireland is intense. O'Regan was more than holding his own but Wylie's offer represented a step up.

Little wonder then that an ambitious young Irish jockey followed a well-worn path across the Irish Sea. Ending up in Middlesborough, however, is a bit left-field.

"It's only 50 minutes from the yard and I'm only two minutes from two motorways if I need to go anywhere else," he explains.

"When I came over first I stayed with another jockey, Paddy Aspell, for a couple of months and I got to like the area.

"I've bought a place now just down the road from him and Graham Lee is living around here too. It's a very nice place to live. I love going into Newcastle. There is a big difference with Ireland where everything is still more relaxed.

"It's a bit more crazy over here but living in the north is a happy medium. It's a lot faster again down south," O'Regan adds.

Already it seems England's north-south divide has made itself apparent to the Irishman whose acclimatisation to life across the water was made easier by initially not having had time to ponder it too much.

Vital first impressions were almost universally positive despite a howling blunder at Fakenham's notoriously trappy track last January when he rode a finish at a circuit too early.

That resulted in a two-week ban and a barrage of criticism that could have unsettled someone without O'Regan's innate self-confidence.

Proof that that hadn't been dented came less than two months later when Inglis Drever won the World Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival for the third year in a row and O'Regan also carried Wylie's distinctive black and beige colours to an Arkle success on Tidal Bay. Not surprisingly, the job is looking good with the bulk of this winter's campaign still to come.

"I've loved it over here. There is plenty of racing and I'm lucky in that I have good horses to ride," he says before dismissing any concerns there might have been about getting on with Johnson, an archetypal gruff northerner who calls a spade a shovel.

"We get on very well. I think he's good craic, good fun to work with. There is obviously pressure but I just don't feel it too much," O'Regan reports.

Even the vastly increased travelling requirements for being a professional jockey in Britain don't bother him too much.

"It helps when things are going good, obviously. Going to Folkestone or Taunton can be tough, but the good thing is if I have to go there it's usually for horses that have a chance," he says.

Christmas is inevitably a busy time for any top jockey and O'Regan doesn't imagine he will be able to make a trip home to Cork on Christmas Day. But he is always keen to come back to Ireland if there is a good spare ride going.

"If something decent came up at Leopardstown, and I didn't have to ride here, I'd be over quick," he laughs.

And the good news is that with Irish support for Sunderland declining in the wake of Keane's departure, plane seats shouldn't be too dear!