Nicola Burns
It’s a dank day at The Curragh in October, tail end of the flat season, Genuine Jim breaks smartly and quickly settles into his racing rhythm, just better than mid-division. The field splits as they near the five-furlong marker, and Genuine Jim is part of the split, on the cusp, edges over towards the near side as Purring Along goes clear on the far side.
You can easily follow Genuine Jim’s progress on the near side though. The light isn’t great, but his big white blaze is a dead giveaway, white socks on his forelegs and, if you look closely enough, on his near hind. His rider motionless on his back. The far side have it as they leave the three-furlong pole behind them, but Genuine Jim’s rider doesn't panic. They have gone fast, she thinks. They’ll come back. She starts to squeeze as they close in on the two-furlong marker and, once they hit that marker she gets lower in the saddle and starts to drive her horse forward. She has a quick look to her right, Purring Along covered, then a glance to her left as she hits the front, nothing closing. Stays in rhythm with her horse, helping him through the final 150 yards, driving him to a one-and-a-half-length victory, the first one of her career.
***
You’re used to seeing Nicola Burns in her silks, helmet on her head, sitting on a horse or saddle in her arms. She looks different in her civvies, jeans and a jumper. Even so, given where she has got to in her career in such a short space of time, it’s difficult to believe that she’s still only 17.
Passing her driving test is her latest milestone.
Her handshake is soft but strong, gentle but firm. Her tone is easy, rhythmic, quieting, but the theme that runs through all her words is constant: this steely determination that she has always had to make it as a jockey.
“There were always horses around at home,” she says. “We’d always have ponies, and Dad always had a few racehorses on the go. They were always there. I was always up looking at them in the mornings before school, and I was up on a pony before I could walk. And watching racing on the television. It was just always a thing that I wanted to do. I never really thought of doing anything else.”
When she was old enough, she’d ride out before school. First the ponies when she was (even) younger, then the racehorses. If she was ever asked in school what she wanted to do in life, what she wanted to be, it was always, ride horses. Be a jockey. She didn’t broadcast it though. She kept it to herself.
“I didn’t really say much about it,” she says. “I kept it quiet. Only if I was asked. And if anybody ever asked me what I wanted to be if I wasn’t going to be a jockey, I just said that I didn’t know. I just never really thought about doing anything else.”
She played sports in school, St Finian’s in Mullingar. Football, rugby, basketball. Anything that was going. Camogie.
“Camogie was the main one,” she says. “I played camogie until I really started riding. I just didn’t have the time to go to training or to go to matches. I had to pick one, camogie or horses, but it wasn’t really a choice. I really enjoyed playing camogie, but there was never really a choice to be made in my mind. My coaches were always very good, they always knew where my priorities lay.”
It wasn't only about racing either. She rode cross-country, she did some showjumping, she hunted. She started riding in pony races when she was 15, for the end of the season, and she had a whole season on the pony racing circuit when she was 16.
“I loved pony racing,” she says. “I rode everywhere. Mum and Dad drove me all over the country. To every county. It didn’t matter where it was. They loved going, and it was great to have them there. I started off riding just our own pony, Ally, who wasn’t much good really, but then I started riding for other people. Shane Krabbe was very good to me, and the Finnertys, Mary Brady, so many people.”
Her talent quickly became recognised on the pony racing circuit, and she was in demand. During the summer of 2024, she rode a treble at Oldcastle in County Meath and she rode a four-timer at Drumconrath in Ardee in County Louth, Little Chief and Who Told You for the Brady family, Maverick for the Finnerty family and Chloe’s Sam for Shane Krabbe. She rode 50 winners on the pony racing circuit.
“I finished fourth on Chloe’s Sam in the Dingle Derby,” she says. “That was the closest I got, but it was nice to ride in the Derby.”
***
It’s a Thursday evening in June 2025, smack bang in the middle of the Leaving Cert, but it was Business in the morning and Art in the afternoon, no exams on the day for Nicola Burns. Even if she had had an exam though, she probably would have been at Leopardstown in the evening anyway to ride Deuteronomy.
There’s an issue with headgear beforehand, but Deuteronomy seems to be as happy in the visor that they have borrowed from Ado McGuinness as he had been in Robbie Burns’ blinkers. He’s happy in himself, relaxed for his young rider and settled towards the inside, one off the rail.
Still She Blooms has gone clear, but still, no need yet for dramatic action. Three furlongs to run and Nicola moves her horse off the inside rail. Only fifth as they round the home turn, and the leader is still travelling well, so she asks Deuteronomy to pick up. Fourth as they race inside the two-furlong marker, but still a gap between her and the front three.
She moves her horse towards the outside and asks him for his effort. Fourth as they leave the furlong marker behind them, but closing on the front three. She joins the second and third at the white disc that says 100 yards. Still two lengths to find on the leader, but she stays balanced, keeps her horse in his racing rhythm, keeps him going forward. Gradually and inexorably, she closes the gap, joins Still She Blooms with three strides to go, and forges on to win by a half a length.
***
She doesn't just get it from her dad Robbie either. She has it from both sides. Bred for it.
“My mother (Diane)’s father rode and she has three uncles in America, and two of them train there, Patrick Cooney and Michael Cooney, in West Virginia. They were both jockeys, Michael was champion apprentice here in the late 1970s before he went to America. They’re always asking me to go out there, and it’s on my bucket list, to try to get out to them. For the experience, I’m sure it would be a great experience. They’re into their times, pace, I’m sure I’d learn lots from them.”
She talks about the jockeys she admires, Ruby Walsh, AP McCoy, Davy Russell. Rachael Blackmore of course. All National Hunt. And yet, it was always as an apprentice that she wanted to make her way, always on the flat. And she doesn't model herself on any other rider. She just wants to be the best version of herself that she can be.
“I learned so much from pony racing,” she says. “And from eventing and showjumping. I rode in Dundalk all during the winter last year, and that was great, but then riding on turf this season was different again. The tracks are obviously different to Dundalk, and they are different to each other. Right-handed, left-handed, tight or galloping.”
She does her homework. You can tell. Figures out how a race is likely to be run, from where the pace is likely to come, who the main dangers are.
“You work out where you want to be in a race. There are so many variables though. There are tracks at which you generally don’t want to be too far behind, but then, if the pace is strong, you don’t want to be going too fast too early. I try to do what the trainer tells me to do of course, but then something changes in a race, and you have to change plans. A race doesn't always go exactly to plan.”
The plan was to ride at Dundalk last winter, and that plan worked out fairly well. She got her licence in October and Genuine Jim at The Curragh was later that month, before the turf season ended, owned by Tony McLoughlin, trained by her dad, a first winner for the 10lb-claimer.
From October last year to October this year, she has ridden at least one winner in every month except one, and that is remarkable. Ask her if there is one that stands out, and she thinks for a moment. If there is one winner that means more than the others, one win that was more special than the others, one ride after which she went, you know, I didn’t do too badly there.
She shakes her head slowly and smiles.
“No, not really,” she says almost apologetically. “Every winner is special.”
She clocked up six of them before the calendar turned last year, and, when she drove Darkdeserthighway to victory at Dundalk last Friday evening, that was her 24th winner of 2025. That’s 30, 7lb claim reduced to 5lb. Another milestone winner.
***
A summer’s evening at Ballinrobe, Nicola Burns goes forward early on Heather in the fillies’ handicap, then settles her in third place, at the head of the main body of the field. She travels well up in front of the stands first time, and down the back straight.
She gets lower in the saddle as they leave the back straight and start to wheel around the home turn. Limpet like about the inside rail, then slingshots off it towards the outside into clear sailing. The favourite Elana Osario challenges on her outside just as she hits the front, but Nicola is strong, keeps her filly going forward and gets her to the winning line with a head to spare, her first winner for Ger Lyons.
“She’s value for 7lb,” trainer Ger Lyons told RTE last week. “She’ll be value for 5lb, and she’ll be value for her 3lb claim. And she’ll make it as a pro.”
The proof is in the pudding. Nicola Burns has ridden for 64 different trainers this year so far. Ger Lyons is one of those trainers. She is in Ger Lyons’ pretty much every morning these days.
“It’s brilliant in Ger’s,” she says. “You learn so much, from Ger, and Colin (Keane), and Gary (Carroll) and everybody in there.”
Ambitions?
“Just to do as well as I can,” she says. “To ride as many winners as I can. I’d love to be champion apprentice. I suppose that’s every apprentice’s ambition.”
© The Irish Field, 1st November 2025
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