The former Irish jumps jockey taking on Australia’s biggest stables in the Derby

When former jumps jockey Shane Jackson stepped out on his own as a trainer two years ago, he had just four horses in his stable, and 40 boxes to fill.

“We had a big empty barn,” Jackson recalled this week. “It was a bit daunting early days.”

Passionate racing identity Tony Ottobre was one of the many owners the Irishman messaged to ask for a horse. Years ago, he had ridden a jumps winner for Ottobre – whose mare Pride Of Jenni is one of Australia’s most popular racehorses – and he was using that as an in.

It worked – sort of. Ottobre preferred to send his horses to trainers closer to his home on the peninsula, Jackson was told, and Warrnambool was too far away. Anyhow, he did not have a horse.

Out of the blue about a month later, Jackson said, he received another text from Ottobre, telling the fledgling trainer he had a young colt that was too small to take to the sales.

“He had mostly fillies and mares at home and didn’t have the room for him so he said, ‘would you take him and break him in, do what you need to do’,” Jackson said.

That colt was King Snitz, who on Saturday will be Jackson’s first runner in a group 1 race – in the $3 million Victoria Derby, no less, against the behemoth stables of Ciaron Maher, Chris Waller and Gai Waterhouse.

Jackson’s road to the top started in Baltinglass, an Irish town about 60 kilometres south-west of Dublin. A champion claiming jumps jockey in Ireland, their version of an apprentice, Jackson rode in the major festivals at Cheltenham and Aintree.

But the rides dried up during Europe’s economic crisis in the early 2010s, forcing him, his wife Lauren and their young son Joseph to move to Australia in 2012.

“The mortgage was getting higher to pay,” Jackson said. “It was either going off to find a different career path or go on an adventure.”

They chose the latter. Their initial plan was to stay for three or four years, then make a call. Two more kids later, with another on the way, Jackson and his wife are still here, and dreaming big.

Jackson was among the top hoops in his adopted home. His best seasons came in 2018-19 and 2019-20 when he won back-to-back Tommy Corrigan Medals for the state’s leading jumps jockey. He retired in 2021, aged just 34 and at the top of his game.

His decision was met with surprise, but Jackson wanted to bow out on a high, and free of any life-changing injuries. He was also eager to start the next stage of his racing career.

“A lot of sportspeople probably go on for too long, I went out with people wondering why I was giving it away, but I was thinking about training,” Jackson said.

Jackson is among the growing number of jumps jockeys aiming to make it as trainers. He’s following in the footsteps of champion trainer Ciaron Maher and rising star Gavin Bedggood, who won this year’s Caulfield Cup with Kingswood.

Maher, who started in Warrnambool and for whom he rode a winner, is an inspiration.

“There’s one place these guys want to get and that’s the top,” Jackson said. “If you don’t want to strive to be like that, and you’re happy to rest on your laurels and just be a mediocre trainer – that’s not my goal.

“I’d love to on some day be a Ciaron Maher or Chris Waller. We just want to get bigger and get better quality horses and more winners.”

The life of a jumps jockey lends itself to becoming a trainer. Often, they do not make enough in prizemoney so need to subsidise their income by working in a stable, giving them a broader understanding of what it takes behind the scenes to get a horse on the track.

“It’s not like being a flat jockey, that’s why they reckon jumps jockeys make good trainers in Australia,” Jackson said.

Jackson spent about five years with the former Warrnambool father-son training partnership of Bill and Symon Wilde, “breaking horses on the side” while riding full-time. He has also worked briefly for Darren Weir before his disqualification and in Lindsey Smith’s stables.

Though he has held a trainer’s licence since 2022, it was not until 2024 that Jackson went out on his own.

Though the challenging early days when he had more empty boxes than horses are gone, his is by no means a major stable. He has about 50 horses on the books, primarily based in Warrnambool with some at Flemington. His staff list has grown to 20. His wife, who works for Bendigo Bank by day, takes care of billing and accounts by night.

“We’ve built pretty quick, which is great,” Jackson said. “Just work hard, keep the winners coming so we can keep expanding.”

King Snitz is the stable star, and Jackson’s first winner at group level after victory in the Norman Robinson Stakes (2000m), a traditional Derby lead-up race.

Jackson loved the colt from the start. Even from the breaking in process, Jackson could tell King Snitz had a big tank.

“[He’s] not the simplest horse to deal with, but you’d never get to the bottom of him when he was at the breaker,” Jackson said. “He was light-framed, small, carrying me around at 70 kg, and you still wouldn’t get him tired.

“From day one we liked him. It was a waiting game then to get him to grow and develop and get him to the races.”

The plan this spring was to run King Snitz “two or three” times before tipping him out to the paddock but as his form lifted with the rise in distance, the goals became loftier.

“It’s everyone’s dream to win a group 1, no doubt we’ll get there,” Jackson said. “If we could do that in the Derby this Saturday, it’d be amazing. It’d be a wee bit surreal, I suppose, but I think we do have a great chance.

“If we can get a group 1 winner knocked off it will definitely help the business and attract better quality horses, and we can feature in these sort of races a bit more often.”

Follow our Derby Day live blog from 11am Saturday and stick around for the Melbourne Cup barrier draw on Saturday evening.

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