Brian O'Connortalks to a jockey at the top of his game after moving to France following some difficult years in England
WHEN DEAN Gallagher says that living in France has “changed my life around completely” he isn’t guilty of exaggeration.
Currently one of the top jump jockeys around the prestigious Paris tracks, he is enjoying an Indian summer to a career that has touched the peaks of National Hunt racing but also plummeted to unenviable personal depths.
It is 11 years since Gallagher, then a top-10 jockey in Britain, achieved headlines for all the wrong reasons. Along with two other riders, he was arrested in a dawn raid by police investigating race-fixing and doping claims. The case eventually collapsed but not before the 39-year-old Co Kildare native had been at the eye of a storm.
The controversy didn’t end there, however. The stresses of the case helped push an addictive personality to the edge. A positive test for cocaine resulted in a six-month ban from riding.
On his return Gallagher’s talent was enough to guarantee him another chance and it appeared like he had grabbed it with both hands when winning the 2002 Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham on Hors La Loi.
Ideally it should have been the climax of a redemptive tale. But life is rarely that pat. Gallagher’s demons returned to haunt him and he tested positive for cocaine again. This time he was suspended for 18 months and his career looked over.
The man whose list of big-race winners also included a Hennessy Gold Cup on Couldn’t Be Better ended up having to ride work for the trainer Richard Hannon and was grateful for the gig.
He was 35 when the ban ended and convinced his life in racing was over. It was then that a French connection came to the rescue in 2004.
Francois Doumen has been one of the top jumps trainers in France for decades and when his son Thierry retired he needed a new stable jockey.
Over those same decades any entente that existed about the merits of jockeys either side of the English Channel wasn’t particularly cordial. British and Irish jockeys tended to raid but not to settle in France. Doumen, though, took a chance on the controversial Irishman.
“I only wish I’d come here years before. It has changed my life around completely. No one judged me here. In England there was always that black mark and no matter what I achieved I couldn’t get rid of it,” Gallagher remembers. “I was 35, in limbo-land, and I thought my career was at an end. I’d given up any chance of a comeback. All of a sudden I was given this opportunity.”
Gallagher moved to Paris and made an immediate impression, his quiet style blending seamlessly into the jockeys’ room. An acrimonious split with Doumen in order to team up with the emerging Francois Cottin didn’t halt his progress.
Back-to-back wins (2005-’06) in the French version of the Grand National only copper-fastened his position in the top five among jump jockeys in France. Grateful for the chance, Gallagher was determined to make the most of it.
“I took to it like a duck to water. My life in England had gone stagnant and I fell straight into it here. I love the culture in France, the whole way of life,” he says.
“After a couple of months the language became more of a problem as I slowly realised I’m going to have to communicate with these people. At school I had tunnel vision since the age of 12 about becoming a jockey so I’d never studied French and had none of the basics. It’s a difficult language to learn and after four and a half years I’m still not fluent.
“But I can communicate, get from A to B. It’s much easier one to one rather than in company. The French are like the Irish – at a party it can be very hard to understand what’s going on after a while!”
Perseverance, though, has paid off. Now living in Chantilly, just outside Paris, Gallagher has a lifestyle that his colleagues back in Britain or Ireland can only envy. He races just twice a week, at either of the Paris tracks, Auteuil and Enghein, both of which are only 40 minutes away.
The Paris circuit is the pinnacle of French racing, one that provincial jockeys aspire to. The Irishman is at the peak and enjoying the benefits. Last year he finished fifth in the jockeys’ table but with a prize-money total of €1.8 million. There are other benefits.
“In England I’d started to struggle with my weight, having to get into a sauna to do 10st. Over here I’m nine and a half stone eating and drinking what I like. They eat very healthily in France, small portions but lots of salads, oils and sauces,” he says, before dismissing many people’s misconceptions about French arrogance. “You have to respect them, their culture and their language. And you have to make an effort. You can’t just go into a shop and ask in English for a sliced pan and a copy of Paris Turf.
“If you do stuff like that they will ignore you and they can be arrogant. But if you say ‘bonjour,’ and are polite, and make an effort, they are great. They know when you speak you’re not French and they automatically think you’re English. I’ve noticed a sort of barrier goes up straight away when that happens. But when I explain I’m Irish that barrier opens up. It’s weird – but that goes back hundreds of years!”
Gallagher describes himself as “spoilt” in his new life and can see himself continuing to ride for a few more years to come: hardly surprising since the cream of French-bred horses, such as Kauto Star, are regularly beating the best of Ireland and Britain.
“I ride a horse here called Oculi who is our champion four-year-old. He’s the new Kauto Star of French racing,” he says.
Definitely a horse to make one feel at home.
