Swan, a nice guy in a tough game

HE pulls up his sleeves and shows you what being a champion jockey is like from end. Thin purple scar lines trace and criss cross around his forearms like an aerial view of the Nile Delta. A plate here, some screws there. His father's horse that fell in his first Cheltenham ride. The other three breaks he can't really recall. Another that trod on his stomach in Galway. They come back to him slowly.

A horse that went down on him somewhere else, maybe Tralee. No Tralee, that was his collar bone. His broken fingers and wrists and nose and ribs, they're ok. And the vertebrae he did in the Gold Cup, that's fine too.

They don't all come back that clearly. Wicked horses and steeple chasing. Charlie Swan, Ireland's seven times successive champion jockey, runs his left hand over the surgically shaped right arm and smiles.

"It's very good now," he says before breaking into a laugh. "But it doesn't look that great does it."

Such a contradiction. The public school boy eating up the locals in the bite and bollock arena of National Hunt. He says a lot of it is luck. He had luck last weekend in Navan. Toast The Spreece, Rosin The Bow and Blaze of Honour all came in first under Swan. A lucky jockey? Seven years of it so far. Seven lucky years of beating all comers.

It wasn't luck that had big English trainer Martin Pipe knocking on Swan's door a few years ago. The Irish jockey thought about it and then said no. He's happy with that decision. Aidan O'Brien's string have treated him well and Swan in return has been unsurpassed.

"You'd be racing six days a week over in England and the travelling would be desperate. Even now riding for Aidan I've a few offers to go over during the week. But is it worth it? If you take a spare ride over there and get broke up on a horse you don't know for bad prize money in a small race then you're letting your trainer down over here. And the hassle of the bloody travelling. There's more to life than travelling up and down the motorways of England in a car."

Swan sits comfortably in his new home on the side of a gentle slope looking out over the county. From his sitting room window he can lord over the gallops that adjoins his property to his fathers yard half a mile away. Deep in hurling country on the outskirts of Cloughjordan in Tipperary is Swan's patch. The two passions, racing and hurling, live side by side.

It was there that his father Donald, who was born in London, educated in Gordonstoun, the school of the Royals and served as a captain in the Queen's Dragoon Guards, declared at one of their famous parties that, "Myself and my wife, Theresa, came over to Ireland to breed horses. We never thought we'd breed a Champion jockey.

At IS Swan rode his first winner on Final Assault in a two year old race at Naas. He had broken the horse. His father had trained it and his granny owned it. At that stage in, 1983 he was still going to school in Wilsons, having come from Headfort in Kells where he had spent five years. He'd been with his father for the first year then had spent a summer with Dermot Weld. But school at that stage was becoming more of a hindrance than an education and at 16 he left.

"Luckily we were good friends with Squibs Curran's wife. Squibs was able to get me into Kevin Prendergast's. At that stage I suppose racing is all I wanted to do."

Prendergast ran a Flat stable and it was there that Swan quickly won recognition as an outstanding prospect. He was regularly sought out by outside stables. But to stay a flat jockey Swan would have to keep his weight down. He was growing and it was causing him immense problems.

In 1986 he fell and broke a leg while schooling for Prendergast and his weight ballooned. Starving himself, like travelling the motorways of Britain, never appealed to the young jockey, although before moving over to jumps trainer Dessie Hughes yard, Swan had accumulated an impressive 56 winners on the flat.

He swiftly emerged as an exceptional talent and when Peter Scudamore, the first jockey to Pipe retired, it was then that the English man came looking for Swan. It was then too that Swan decided that Ireland was where he belonged.

"When Aidan O'Brien asked me to tide for him I said yes. There's no official contract. We've a good relationship. We've never had words at all. I listen to what he has to say and he listens to me.

"If he had a horse in a race and he didn't think it was good enough to win and I had a good ride in the same race he'd let me off. Or he'd say if you think a horse is a very bad jumper and you don't want to ride him, then don't. There's a couple there I don't bother riding. He's very good that way, very fair."

Last week Swan was thinking of Leopardstown and in turn looking towards Cheltenham in March. With O'Brien he has been lining up the horses for the Christmas meeting and if they perform, the hope is that they will stay in shape until the festival arrives. His knowledge is encyclopaedic as he rattles through the cards. Highly Motivated in the Denny Juvenile Hurdle at 9 to 4 with Penndara in the Denny's Gold Medal 8 to 1. Then there's Finnegan's Hollow at 4 to 5. In the Paddy Power he rides Beat The Second at 12 to 1 and there is Istabraque, a heavy favourite at 4 to 9. Saturday it's Private Piece a 4 to 5 shot. Just a sprinkling. Over the four days Swan is likely to have around 20 rides.

"At big meetings like Leopardstown if you get one or two winners that's good. Then trying to get the horses to Cheltenham in one, piece and with a bit of form is the thing. My ambition there always is just to ride one winner. Any more is a bonus."

The Irishman has already won the hearts of Irish punters at Cheltenham 10 times. He will never forget 1993 when partnered Montelado, Fissure Seal, Shawiya and Shuil Ar Aghaidh to victory. He followed that up with three wins in 1994 on Danoli, Time For A Run and `Mucklemeg' and since then one winner each year.

"Montelado is the speediest horse I've ridden in a good race and Danoli is probably one of the best of all. He was probably the best over hurdles and he's so tough, a real genuine horse. He'll always give you his best, although I'll probably not ride him again.

"Istabraq is good enough to win Cheltenham this time. He'll be the one I'll really be looking forward to riding. He was a very good flat horse and for a flat horse he seems to be tough enough to enjoy it. He just needs to prove himself in a few more races before Cheltenham."

Swan will be 29 in January and still has his ambitions. The Gold Cup is one but The Aintree Grand National is on top of the list. But he knows the game too well to be blinded by his staggering successes of the moment. He was looking for insurance recently and was offered a policy for £12,000 a year. He's building an equestrian centre on part of the, land by his parents' house where they also rent out a restaurant. He's also thinking of training in his father's yard where they keep about 20 horses. There are many irons in the fire.

They also cut him five shots at the golf club in Nenagh after he won the captain's prize and got to the final of the club singles. With a handicap of 13, there is his golf to think about too. But the unassuming champion is also a pragmatist.

"There's few National Hunt jockeys get to 35. When you get to that age you're on your last legs. You just get broken up and I suppose your nerve goes too. You can notice if a guy loses his nerve. You'd see him go for a fence and he'd sit back a bit. If you're meeting a fence wrong, alright, you sit back, but not all through a race. People can see it. If I get another three or four years I'll be delighted. It's a tough profession. I don't think people realise that."

THE boyish looks can be deceptive but earlier in Swan's career his naiviety shone through. A few years ago a reporter from the Sun newspaper rang him up before Cheltenham and asked for a few tips. Swan said sure he would help him out, but explained that he was contracted to their competitor the Daily Mirror. Next day on the front page of The Sun ran the headline CHARLIE SWAN'S MUCKING GREAT TIPS FOR CHELTENHAM beside a picture of a muddy faced Swan.

Now he's wiser. He is still eyeing Frank Berry's record of 10 Irish jump jockey championships and he's looking to reach 1,000 winners, having gone past 900 several weeks ago.

Swan's unusual modesty and civility transcends his reluctance to talk about himself. "He's a little fella who knows how to treat people," said former amateur jockey Ted Walsh two years ago. But Swan is right. He is a lucky jockey. The way he can judge pace or galvanise his horse before a jump. Those stools he simply has had the luck to possess.