They might be clannish in Kerry sometimes but Tralee's Bryan Cooper could be forgiven for starting to feel a little sore at how Dingle's star teenager Jack Kennedy is increasingly looking like the riding future.
On Sunday the 17-year-old jockey reached 51 winners for the season – and second place in the championship table – with a Fairyhouse double for Michael O'Leary's Gigginstown Stud that included Ball D'Arc's success in the €100,000 Bar One Dan Moore Handicap Chase.
Any pain felt by Cooper from the fractured pelvis he suffered on New Year’s Eve will be nothing compared to the torment of watching Kennedy continue to blaze a trail on horses he should be riding. Knowing it’s part of the job for a jump jockey will be cold comfort.
After Ball D'Arc's success on Sunday, Gordon Elliott, who also trained Kennedy's other winner, Barra, stressed that Cooper is Gigginstown's number one rider and that Kennedy is just making the most of opportunities thrown up by his colleague's injury misfortune.
That bad luck began last summer when Cooper had an operation to remove a pin from his leg before then lacerating his liver at Galway and then fracturing his arm in October – in a fall off Ball D’Arc.
That it was Kennedy who has mostly stepped in for a torrent of rides from Elliott meant the teenager was always going to cement the initial deep impression he’d made the previous winter.
Summer success
It started with a streak of summer success, but reaching a half-century of winners despite fracturing a leg in September, and then fracturing it again on his first ride back a month later, indicates just how rare and prodigious a young talent the former pony race champion is.
Kennedy’s first Grade One victory came when landing the Lexus on a Cooper discard, Outlander, and a second quickly followed with Death Duty at Naas last weekend. After landing the first six-figure pot of 2017, Kennedy will be at Ayr on Monday, riding two of Elliott’s lesser performers.
It confirms a young man on the crest of a wave and not bothered what the race is as long as he can win it. In a game as fickle as racing that’s a potent cocktail.
“For a lad of only 17 to be doing what he’s doing is great. Nothing fazes him,” said Elliott, who is maintaining a delicate balancing act in trying to keep his protege’s feet on the ground while also containing his enthusiasm for the youngster’s talent.
“He’ll be in Ayr tomorrow, but normally he still works full days in the yard, pushing a wheelbarrow,” added the season’s leading trainer. “We’ve told him if he wants to be a jockey he has to work hard; none of this playboy stuff!”
Those who know him insist Kennedy isn’t the type of bright young talent destined to burn out through having his head turned, and he dutifully handed all credit for his latest big win to Ball D’Arc.
“He gave me a serious spin. He did well to stand up at one of them but he was pricking his ears coming to the last. I don’t see why he won’t progress again,” he said.
Festival target
Elliott nominated Cheltenham’s Grand Annual as a festival target for Sunday’s 3-1 winner.
Cooper will be back in action long before then with the pick of Gigginstown’s massive team to look forward to, the sort of ammunition to remind everyone how at 24 he’s hardly at the grizzled veteran stage himself.
Ruby Walsh needs just a couple of winners to once again hit the century mark for the season in Ireland, but the champion jockey had to settle for two seconds on Sunday.
Walsh chased home Barra in the first on Kate Appleby Shoes and had to settle for the runner-up spot too in the Beginners Chase, as Townshend proved no match for the JP McManus-owned evens favourite Ballyoisin.
Kilkenny trainer Ellmarie Holden had Ex Patriot primed to make a winning debut over flights and the 10-1 shot was a length too good for the Kennedy-ridden favourite Mengli Khan.
“All going well he’ll go for the Grade One [Spring Juvenile Hurdle] at Leopardstown next month,” said Holden, who was saddling her eighth career winner.
