'I'm not going to be beaten for being too weak' - JJ Slevin and Patrick Mullins talk tactics, styles and Fastorslow
At 12.27pm, just as the satnav had predicted, JJ Slevin swings his Skoda Superb into the jockeys’ car park at Gowran Park dominated by Audis, Mercedes and BMWs. Our hero today is a cornflakes over caviar kind of guy.
The alarm, which “annoys the heart and soul” out of him, went off at 6.20am and he rode out four Flat horses at Joseph O’Brien’s before making his way to Gowran and beating the traffic by taking the back way in. He has only one ride, in the Thyestes, and while he isn’t able to ride in the ladies’ race, the Adare Manor hurdle or the bumper, he’s disappointed not to have one in the 18-runner 0-102 handicap hurdle.
He is sitting beside young Sam Ewing in the brand-new weigh-room and after walking the track in his wellies and doing the form with a pen on his Racing Post, he heads out to ride Longhouse Poet for his retaining owners, Bernardine and Sean Mulryan, the couple behind developers Ballymore. They aren’t here today, which is just as well as the horse is detached after one lap and is soon pulled up.
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