TLA Sport

with Roger Jackson Please email full details to sport@thelocalanswer.co.uk

Leading jockey Kielan Woods is in the form of his life.

The recently-turned 30-yearold has already left last season’s career best number of winners way behind and he’s looking for many more in the weeks and months ahead.

The big November Meeting at Cheltenham Racecourse –Friday 11th November to Sunday 13th November – is not too far away, of course, and it’s certainly full steam ahead for Woods.

Last season was a good one for Woods, his first as stable jockey for Cotswolds trainer Ben Pauling, as he clocked up 33 winners.

But this one has been much better, so much so that he is now up among the leading jockeys in the country.

“This season has been unbelievable so far, it’s been a fantastic start,” Woods told The Local Answer. “Ben’s horses have been absolutely flying, it’s been brilliant.”

He’s also ridden a fair number of winners for Fergal O’Brien, another in-form Cotswolds trainer who has been notching winners for fun, while DJ Jeffreys and Alex Hales have also been big supporters.

“I’ve been very lucky, I’ve been given some great horses to ride,” said Woods.

That is undoubtedly true, but it’s equally true to say that as a jockey you’ve got to make the most of those opportunities and Woods has certainly been doing just that.

But while the winners have been flowing over the past few months, the Kielan Woods story is not a tale of overnight success.

Quite the opposite, in fact. Hard work and dedication, allied to his obvious talent,

Kielan Woods has been clocking up the winners this season have got him to where he is today, but along the way he has had a lot of setbacks, most notably injuries, that have at times tested him to the limit.

Born in Athlone, a town in the centre of Ireland, he first jumped on a pony at the age of four or five.

And as with all good horsemen and women it was something he took to very naturally, which was a good job because school most certainly wasn’t for him.

“Horrendous,” he says with a laugh when you ask him about his time at school, adding, “I left when I’d just turned 16, I should have left six years earlier!”

But even at the age of 16 it was obvious that Woods had the ability to carve out a career in racing.

He rode more than 70 winners on the pony racing circuit in his native Ireland before launching his career under rules with a winner in November 2009.

“It was my first race,” he said with some pride. “It was Heroes Square at Thurles Racecourse, I hit the ground running.”

The trainer was Caroline Hutchinson and he went on to ride a couple of winners for Paul Flynn, also in Ireland, before he was presented with an opportunity that was to change his life. Woods takes up the story. “I was on the gallops one morning and Paul [Flynn] said, ‘Do you want to go to England?’. “It was something I’d never thought about but before I could say anything Paul added, ‘I’ve got you a job with Philip Hobbs, you start on Monday’.” As it happens Woods, who was in his late teens, went to Charlie Longsdon’s stable instead and, as he had done in Ireland, he hit the ground running because he won two of his first three races. “I was with Charlie for four years, I rode out my claim with him, he was brilliant,” recalled Woods. Longsdon is just one of a number of trainers with whom the articulate Woods has built up a good relationship over the years, something that was to stand him in good stead during his years as a freelance jockey before linking up with Pauling.