THE nut brown, furrowed face is probably the most distinctive in Irish racing. Some might be better known, others might be classified as the "right faces" but nobody ever mistakes Christy Roche for anyone else.
When that face is held at its almost perpetual 45 degree upward angle, as the diminutive owner examines yet another interrogator with that clear eyed, unflinching, jaw jutting gaze, it's not difficult to see why. If racing ever feels the urge to chisel its own Mount Rushmore, Roche would make an appropriate focal point.
It's that kind of racing visage. Shrewd but enthusiastic, knowing yet pleasant, immensely dignified despite its comparatively low altitude. Racing's inherent duality of hard edge and sentiment set in stone.
It would also be appropriate because no one has ever doubted Roche's durability. Quite simply the man seems to have been around for ever. For those of this scribbler's generation, Irish racing without Christy would be like dinner without salt: After all this time, the flavour just wouldn't be the same.
Typically the man himself greets such descriptions about his place in racing's psyche with a mischievous grin. Frills have never been Roche's style.
What he has been doing is getting the job done. He describes that job simply as "trying to get from point A to point B in the quickest time" and he has never really cared how. The Frankie Dettori's of this world may try to stylishly blend with their horses but Roche's gungho, all action, all movement style has left the impression he would consider getting off and pushing the horse if it made it go faster. In short, the kind of stubborn, determined jockey that punters have warmed to for the last 30 years. A hard man in silks. This weekend it will be the same as it ever was.
Like a doughty but apparently outgunned pilot taking on a massive bandit attack, Roche will yet again be the one trying to save Irish classic honour on the balding Curragh plain. It's a role he is well used to and as such Desert King (2,000 Guineas) and Strawberry Roan (1,000) will have monumental experience to guide them against their opposition. However, it will also be a role that race fans should take particular note of. Roche may not be playing it for much longer.
So much was obvious during the week as Roche looked at the bustling intensity of his stables at the edge of the Curragh. Sixty boxes, 12 staff and a yard full of dreams. Three Derby winners have been trained in the past from the historic "Curragh View" premises and while Roche is much too experienced to lose himself in talk of more, he admits that big decisions will soon have to be made.
"This thing is actually bigger than I wanted," Roche says quietly. "Sometimes I look out and I wonder what I'm doing. In the next year or two I've got a big decision to make. Do I want to train on this scale or not, or am I sure that training is what I want to do at all."
After years of buying and selling store horses as a sideline to his riding, Roche finds himself in the unusual position, since being granted a licence last November, of being a fully licenced trainer and a top jockey. The two have mixed successfully so far but for how much longer.
With practically every honour in the book as a jockey, an outsider's assumption might be that this intensely competitive man might jump at concentrating on the fresh challenge but Roche admits that even at 47 he is enjoying race riding now more than ever. Typically though he chooses to present a more rooted picture of the future.
"Retirement from the saddle has been on the cards for the last couple of years and I'll decide at the end of this season if I'll carry on. I'm lucky to have a team around me like Aidan (O'Brien) and JP (McManus) who will tell me if I should go. I would hate, like some sportsmen I've seen, to stay on too long. That would be terrible but if I don't recognise when the time is right, these people will come straight out and tell me, to may face, no embarrassment and I will appreciate that," he says.
The hard, no frills image again, but it is, too, one dimensional; a picture of a man who has dedicated a life to getting "the job" done. This weekend possibly more than any other provides the loud est echo of that dedication.
It was the 1,000 Guineas won on Ballymore 25 years ago that cemented Roche's bond with racing. It hadn't always been so. As an at first reluctant 15 year old apprentice at Paddy Prendergast's Curragh academy, horses had been a vehicle to getting ahead.
"I'd no particular love of horses at the time. I just decided to knuckle down. I wanted to get on, be a success, get security. Although racing is a tough life I felt it was at least better than earning £1 a week for some farmer in Tipperary which is what I would have been doing without racing," he says.
Roche prospered with the often abrasive Prendergast, becoming champion apprentice four times but it was Ballymore, who won the Guineas on his debut, who changed the hungry young jockey's view of his profession.
"He was brilliant but his knees were very bad. He really was a 24 hour casualty job but we got him there. From then on I think that's when I realised that this is what I wanted to do. I think I've become closer to horses than most jockeys since then. Particularly as a stable jockey. Riding an outside winner doesn't mean as much to me at, all.
For me, the thrill is in a trainer and a jockey working closely together. Every horse is so different, mentally. All horses can be so much better than they are. They have more problems than we can imagine and it's sorting out those problems that's the thin line between winning and losing. Getting that right gives me the kick" Roche considers.
Since Prendergast, Roche has allied himself to some of the outstanding trainers of the modern era and ridden some of their best horses. A roll call that includes dual Derby winner Assert, Epsom Derby winner Secreto and a European champion in St Jovite is enough to make any man as comfort able in his talents as Roche undoubtedly is. "Vincent and David O'Brien, Jim Bolger and now Aidan. I've been fortunate in that I've never really had a bad year but I like to think that all of them took my experience on board," he says.
AIDAN O'Brien wasted no time in snapping up that experience and the veteran jockey and emerging training genius have formed racing's most potent current partnership. A classic success this weekend would put an adorning ribbon on the link and Roche for one doesn't believe he is going into battle hopelessly outgunned. Far from it. His confidence in both horses is infectious.
"If I had to give one of them up I'd be happy to toss a coin but I'd love Strawberry Roan to win. We'd always thought of her as an Oaks filly but after she got beat at Leopardstown it came into my head that she has too much speed, to stay. I remember Aidan telling me to give it more thought but in the Guineas Trial we held her up to see if she had the speed and I hit the front too soon. She was pulling herself up in front.
"The English fillies must he doubtful stayers. I'm more than happy with mine after she worked on Tuesday and when I'm more than happy it means they're still improving. My experience is that as soon as you say they're as good as they were, then they're not good enough. All good horses keep improving," he says.
That has certainly been the case with Desert King, affectionately referred to by his rider as "one tough nut." After being beaten on his debut, Desert King, like many of the O'Brien three year olds, improved dramatically in his second start when cruising up in the Tetrarch Stakes. However, Roche admits he has probably an even more difficult task than Strawberry Roan. "With Revoque there we have to be concerned. He, after all, was second to probably the best horse we've seen for a while at Newmarket (Entrepreneur) but even so our preparation for this has been perfect, no hiccups," he says.
The acid test of the Curragh mile will provide no excuses today and tomorrow but then Roche, the realist, has little time for them anyway. That inimitable style - "a cripple has his way of walking, I've mine of riding" - will bustle and, if need be, bully both Desert King and Strawberry Roan up that mile win, lose or draw. It's the Roche way and it's unmistakable.
