Page 20 - The Game November 2006

20 The Game, November 2006 Canada’s Thoroughbred Racing Newspaper
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David O'Connor's dream: Finding a 'Tiger Woods' jockey
By Harlan Abbey
If he had his "druthers," David O'Connor would prefer to be galloping and training Thoroughbreds and enjoying the thrill of leading them into the winner's circle.
"In Ireland, there were many training stables around the town of Bray, in County Wexford, where I was born," he began. "I started with Seamus McGrath's Glencairns Stable, and
our horses included Levmoss, who
won the Prix de la Arc de Triomphe,
and Weaver's Hall, who won the
Irish Derby. Then I moved to Mike
Doyle's stable and groomed and
galloped Patten's Slipper, a great
handicap horse. I also rode in two
hurdle races, although I weighed
only 125 pounds (very light for a
steeplechase rider). I came to
Canada in 1973 to take a chance."
sight, out of mind.' Since 20 percent of the trainers win most of the races, you actually pick trainers -- not horses. You go with the old saying 'Keep your- self in the best company you can and your horses in the worst company you can.'
"Being an agent doesn't require a big financial investment, just a lot of time."
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Working for Roger Attfield and
Ray Kennedy's Gateway Farm in
Florida, he galloped the great
Norcliffe "and some other nice
horses." About ten years later he
became the trainer for Crazy Horse Stables and Bruno Schickedanz, winning about 40 races for Schickedanz.
"I really liked training and being around the horses, but I broke my arm and hand and had to give it up for a year," he continued, "and I never returned to it." Instead, he became a jockey's agent, first working for his brother-in-law, Jocko Lauzon, then handling the books of Mike Quong (who won 77
races that year), Brian Bochinski, and -- for the last five years -- Francine Villeneuve, Canada's winningest woman jockey. Late this year he also became the agent for Melissa Polkey.
O'Connor had Bochinski's book in 2002 when he won the Prince of Wales Stakes, Fort Erie's season-long feature, on Le Cinquieme Essai. Three years later, Villeneuve had the mount on Autumn Snow, but lost the Prince of Wales by a head to Ablo. "It would have been nice to win the Prince of Wales twice," he agreed.
"As an agent, I modeled myself after John Bell, who's been Todd Kabel's agent for 15 or 17 years," O'Connor continued. John knows his stuff. But at Fort Erie, the jockey-agent partnerships don't seem to last that long.
"As an agent, the biggest asset you can have is a good memory. If you see a horse train a couple of weeks before a race, you want to remember how he looked. You look for a race where he fits in. You especially take note of a race that is carried over; some trainers might miss that.
"And you have to be seen around the backstretch every day. It's truly a case of 'out of
When it comes to honoring a "call" for your jockey to ride a specific horse for a specific train- er, O'Connor points out that "A 'call' is a verbal contract. If you get a better horse to ride most trainers are understanding and will let you make a change. But if the trainer insists that your jockey ride his horse -- and he or she doesn’t -- then the agent can get fined."
In England and Ireland the top jockeys have contracts to ride for certain stables but O'Connor stated that such a situation
wouldn't work in North America, explaining: "When I was starting out, if a stable held your contract it was very hard to get a ride from another stable. Nowadays contracts mean the stable has first call on a jockey. If he doesn't have to ride for the trainer in a certain race, he can shop around. I think it's a good system.
"But it wouldn't work in North America. There are too many stables with too few horses. Aidan O'Brian, for instance, has 100-150 horses at his training center and ships them all over England, Ireland and the Continent. But the big stables in North America, if they have that many horses they have them stabled at several different racetracks, not at one place. So a top Canadian or American contract rider wouldn't be familiar with all the stable's top horses. There would be no advantage to have a rider fly hundreds of miles to ride one specific horse that he'd never been on before."
When asked to talk about his two riders, O'Connor said that Villeneuve, closing in on riding 1,000 winning races, "is very easy to work for and very professional in the way she conducts herself. And she was well-established before I became her agent. I've been working with Melissa (Polkey) for about a month. She has a great work ethic and seems to be labeled as not being afraid to ride horses that other jockeys won't." After the Fort Erie season ended, Villeneuve left for her farm in Florida and O'Connor planned to go to Woodbine with jockey Abad Cabassa, a vetern rider in Florida and the eastern United States, but new to Canada this year.
But when asked how much a jockey contributes to a win, he admitted "If the jockey has the right horse, he'll win... and the leading riders get the favorites."
Although his love for racing is deep and long- standing, O'Connor said he did not bring his sons Vinne, now 28, and David Jr., now 21, to the back- stretch when they were young because he feared they would be drawn to the allure of racing and instead urged them to further their educations and follow a profession that had fewer ups and downs.
As for the future, David O'Connor declared "I'd like to find a 'Tiger Woods' of a jockey!"
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