Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk with Aviva Insurance. This week for What Made Me, I'm delighted to be joined by former champion jockey, grand national winner and retired national hunt jockey, Davie Russell. Hello, Davie. Great to have you with us. I'm going to go back, back, back now with you.
And I was looking at pictures in your book, which is out in paperback last night, when you were a tiny, tiny tot on the back of a horse. Were you a child who grew up with horses?
Yeah, yeah, I was pretty much. So we had a dairy farm to start with. Dad was a mechanic and we had a garage and motor factors and he bought a farm. When I was born, we lived in a housing estate just up the road from where we are now. And he bought a farm when I was about five or six.
But at the back of the garage, there was a field there at the time, and he always had kind of an interest in horses and the odd broodmare. And then he bought a farm and he ended up in the dairy farm and he always had a mare or two around. And for some reason, I just I don't know why, but I just was obsessed with horses. It was just dad said the first words that came out of my mouth were horsey.
So that's that's I would have thought that you sort of grew up in it, you know, that there were. But that's that's more of a learned thing then that you were figuring it out for yourself as you went along.
Oh, Clare, you learn so much every day as a school day, as they say. But for most people, you know, it was humble enough beginnings. It was just... trial and error and you just done something, you learn from your mistakes and you just got falls and back up again and keep going until you kind of just ended up, things would click. Any different day you'd be doing, trying different things.
And I was lucky I had an awful lot of freedom when I was small. So it was a very busy house. I had two brothers and three sisters, all older than me, bar one. I had one younger brother.
And... So they didn't notice when you were gone with the horses for the day?
No, they didn't. They didn't notice. No, I was... I had brilliant... And I had... There was a great man who used to work on the farm called Bill Dalton.
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Chapter 2: How did Davy Russell's childhood influence his love for horses?
We actually named a pony after him here. He's still going strong. But... Bill used to, my pony was quite bold or not even that, the pony was bold. It was just I was so small and I wasn't able to handle him. But Bill would go down and hunt in the cows on the pony. And when I come home from school, he'd be tacked up and maybe the fizz might be gone out of him a little bit.
And all them things all the way through my, you know, when you're young, all them things will help a child, you know. So they're all small little things, but this is...
I was reading back on an interview you did with The Guardian, I think it was, where you were saying or they were saying about you that you don't really talk to the horses. Certainly when you're racing, it's more of a sort of a feel for the engine. That's how you operate. Is that right?
Yeah, but when you're on the ground, your voice is an aid. So when you're on the ground, it is something we do. We communicate with them. I do feel that when you're around the same horses every day, your voice is... They know how to judge you from your voice and your tone. So when you're on the ground, yes...
Vocally you do speak to them, but it's more so for them to get accustomed to your voice or your soundings. But when you're on their back, it's more... what they're telling you through their, what would I say, with their movements and with their demeanour. And it's all body language, really. Like, obviously, there's no vocal communication from the horse to the jockey, but it's all done on feel.
But like if the ears are back, for example, or if there's a certain sort of a snort, you're learning from all of that, right?
Yeah, not so much their ears, like their facial... You know, that can change. Ears back is not... There's a specific type when they put their ears back, as in when they really put them flat on their pole, back on their head, then there's something going on. But a horse will always flicker his ears to what's going on in front of him.
Okay.
You know, it'll be more of an indication to what he's looking at and where he has his concentration, if you know what I mean. So, but it's more... It's hard to describe it. It's more a feel of their of their motion.
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Chapter 3: What lessons did Davy learn from his early experiences with horses?
It's a pressure that you don't miss, clearly, because you're enjoying the biscuits.
Yeah, I am. I love my biscuits. But it used to play in your mind. It used to play in my mind an awful lot, the weight thing. And to be fair to Michael O'Leary, he spotted that from an early stage and he wanted me to raise my minimum weight. And I think I felt when I did that, I was a much better person.
Really? Yeah.
Yeah, much better, yeah.
And your relationship with Michael O'Leary now...
Oh, it's good. I enjoy Michael. I don't know if he enjoys me or not. I don't know. But he... No, we get on really well. I see his brother, Eddie, who's his racing manager, you know, numerous times during the season. And he's good fun. Michael is good fun. He enjoys his racing. And I respect his love for our sport is huge. So I admire him for that. And...
I'm sure he admires me for what we've been through together.
And you're still very much involved in horses now, aren't you, Davey?
Oh, I am, yeah. It's regular and daily. I'll be honest with you, Clare. My life, there'd be an awful void in my life without them. So I know a lot about horses. Well, I've been around horses all my life. I will continue to be around them because I don't know anything about horses.
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