Dobbin adds to honours gained by the pony class

NEW FACES FOR '95: A stylish graduate of Ireland's riding academies has established himself at Greystoke. Greg Wood reports `Gordon Richards knows what he's talking about and for him to offer me a job is enough for me to feel good'

The search for the next British-born champion jumps jockey may soon seem as fruitless as the quest for the Ashes. This season's three leading riders, Richard Dunwoody, Adrian Maguire and Norman Williamson, are Irish, and potentially top-class joc keys are emerging from across the water so frequently that it no longer feels like mere co-incidence.

Tony Dobbin is the latest product of this stream of talent to make his mark in Britain, and he offers a possible clue to its source. Like Maguire and many others before him, he acquired a taste for competition in childhood, on Ireland's pony-racing circuit, an experience which he believes was invaluable.

"They've all done it, Mark Dwyer, Charlie Swan, Declan Murphy," Dobbin says, "and I've actually ridden in pony races against Adrian Maguire. It's a great beginning, it gives you a big head-start."

It is a mark of the pony-racing circuit's depth and competitiveness that it could bring together Dobbin, from Downpatrick in County Down, Ulster, and Maguire, who grew up in County Meath, in Ireland's eastern province, Leinster. Maguire was, and remains,a phenomenon - even as a child, Dobbin reports, no-one dared to take his ground - but Dobbin, a year younger at 22, has made significant progress this season on his own road to the top.

To clear the forbidding obstacle which separates the promising riders from the elite, a young jockey needs either a good job, a good horse or a big win. Dobbin has all three, having taken the Hennessy Gold Cup in November on One Man for the trainer who retains him, Gordon Richards.

The simple fact that one of jumping's finest trainers was prepared to offer Dobbin a job says much for the Irishman's potential, and the significance of the move is not lost on him. "That man knows what he's talking about," he says, "and for him to offerme that job is enough for me to feel good about. I don't feel under any pressure at all, I just take it all as it comes."

Dobbin's job satisfaction at Richards's Greystoke stable is far removed from his first experience of a British yard, at the painfully young age of 16. "I went to work at Neville Callaghan's yard, but I couldn't tell you much about Newmarket as I didn't see much of it and I only stayed about four or five days. "I was very homesick and I had no digs, so I was put in a hotel on my own. The last night I was sitting there and I decided I was going home the next day. The head lad came round that morning to say they'd found me some digs, but my mind was made up."

It was at Punchestown races some months later that Dobbin's career turned for the better. "I met Jonjo O'Neill and he invited me over for a month's trial, and I stayed with him for five years. A good friend of mine from Downpatrick called John Burke [nowSue Bramall's jockey] was working there and that was a big help."

Dobbin rode five winners on the Flat, but "I always knew that my weight would go up and that I'd be riding over jumps." It was more valuable experience, however, and despite his lack of years, Dobbin is now a stylish, clever and accomplished rider.

With Richards's support, meanwhile, further success is inevitable. Dobbin, like most jump jockeys, is careful not to tempt fate with any greater ambition than "to beat my previous season every season." But that target is all but achieved already this year - with 43 winners, he is two short of last season's total - and One Man's challenge for the Cheltenham Gold Cup will provide a new focus.

Maguire won the Gold Cup and the Hennessy before his 21st birthday. Of the current crop of young jockeys, only Dobbin, his old pony-racing adversary, can even go close to emulating him.