Irish apprentices’ championship goes down to the wire
Early in October, the 2025 Irish apprentices’ championship was neatly poised. Robert Whearty on 22 winners, Wayne Hassett and Wesley Joyce both one behind on 21, in a three-way go that looked like it could take us all the way to the final day of the Flat season.
Then Jack Cleary cut loose. A double at Naas on 11th October, another winner at The Curragh five days later, on a day on which Robert Whearty also had a winner, and then there was that remarkable day at Leopardstown two days later. Four winners, all for his boss Aidan O’Brien, rat-tat-tat-tat, including the Group 3 Killavullan Stakes on Dorset, the horse on whom he had won the Goffs Million three weeks earlier, and the Group 3 Eyrefield Stakes on Christmas Day, by a short head from A Boy Named Susie, the first Group race wins of his life. He couldn’t claim his 5lb in the Group races of course but, even so, the perennial champion trainer had no problem putting him up.
Jack Cleary missed two days last week through suspension, Galway last Monday and Dundalk last Wednesday and, as well as Whearty riding a winner, Wayne Hassett was busy. The young Tipperary man rode a winner at Naas on 12th October, and another at Dundalk on 17th October, and another at The Curragh on 21st October. So, going to Dundalk on Friday, they were stacked like steps, Hassett on 24, Whearty on 23, Cleary on 22, Joyce on 21.
There was lots of activity in the apprentices’ championship at Dundalk on Friday, the penultimate day’s racing of the 2025 Flat season, and yet, at the same time, not much happened at all. Jack Cleary led early on the Aidan O’Brien-trained filly Institute in the opening juveniles’ maiden, but he was caught and passed by the favourite Aegina on the run to the furlong marker, and he had to settle for second.
Then in the third race, the six-furlong handicap, Robert Whearty hit the front on Little Queenie at the top of the home straight and set sail for home. It looked like Paul Flynn’s mare was holding the renewed effort of Barbapapa and, even when they flashed past the line, it looked like she had held on. She traded at 1.2 in-running but, in the end, she had to settle for second place, a nose behind Barbapapa.
So with one day’s racing left in the 2025 Flat racing season, it’s as you were: Wayne Hassett is one ahead of Robert Whearty, who is one ahead of Jack Cleary, who is one ahead of Wesley Joyce.
Any of the four of them would be a worthy winner of the apprentices’ championship. Wayne Hassett had a monstrous season last year, he rode 31 winners and tied for second place in the 2024 apprentices’ championship, just two behind the winner James Ryan. He won the big Colm Quinn BMW Mile at Galway on Mexicali Rose for Joseph O’Brien and he won the Petingo Handicap at the Irish Champions’ Festival on Fighter for Aidan O’Brien. He has obviously had another superb season in 2025, and the apprentices’ title would be a fitting addition to his burgeoning CV.
Fourth in last season’s championship with 22 winners, Robert Whearty has bettered that total this season. Not only that, but he has ridden out his claim, he achieved the objective that just about every young rider sets out to achieve when he drove the Gavin Cromwell-trained Flying Fortress to victory in a one-mile handicap at the Listowel Festival in September. And 35 minutes after that, he made it a double on the day when he won an 11-furlong handicap on Secret Force, also for Cromwell.
Jack Cleary has had a remarkable season in 2025. After riding a total of 16 winners in his first four seasons, he rode 15 winners in 2024, and he has gone way beyond that total this season. A measure of the regard in which he is held at Ballydoyle lies in the fact that Aidan O’Brien was happy to put him up in the Goffs Million and in Group races even when he couldn’t utilise his claim, and the young Kildare man has delivered.
Wesley Joyce’s story is a remarkable story, a story of triumph over adversity. He recovered from life-threatening injuries incurred in a fall at Galway in July 2022. He returned to race riding just over a year later, and he has established himself as one of the top young riders in the Irish weigh room.
All four are going to be busy on the final day of the season at The Curragh on Sunday. They will be taking each other on too, from early. Three of them have rides in the opening contest, all four have rides in the second. Hassett has rides in seven of the eight races on the day, Cleary and Joyce both have rides in five of the races, and Whearty has rides in four.
Taking the forecast odds of each of their respective rides at the time of writing as a guide, Wayne Hassett’s expected number of winners on the day is 1.108, Robert Whearty’s is 0.421, Jack Cleary’s is 0.633 and Wesley Joyce’s is 0.183. But we know that football matches are won or lost on goals, not on xG, and this one could go all the way into the dusk at The Curragh on Sunday.
© Sporting Life, 2nd November 2025
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