Dundalk, Friday evening, in the fading sun and the lengthening half-shadows, Mehman and Paddy Harnett slot into stall nine, one of the last to go in.  

“I have three good rides at Dundalk on Friday,” the young rider had said a couple of days earlier.  “So hopefully one or two of them will go well.”

Mehman jumps smartly from stalls and slots into his racing rhythm quickly, forward but settled, in the slipstream of the leader and swinging.  They wheel around the turn and straighten up for home and still Paddy Harnett sits.  He waits until they have left the two-furlong marker behind before he gets lower in the saddle and asks his horse for his effort.  It only takes him a stride or two to master the leader but, once he does, it’s just a case of keeping him going.

The rider has a little look to his left, he’s clear but he keeps on pushing to the line, nothing left to chance.  His horse’s nose hits the line almost three lengths clear of his closest pursuer’s.  Another win on the board for the rider, that’s 23 for the season.  Just three behind now in the apprentices’ championship.

The battle for the apprentices’ title is a thread that has run through the entire of the 2026 flat season.  And still it runs.  It looked like Paddy Harnett and Sam Coen were going to have it between them when Reese Holohan got injured in a fall in June.  Six weeks on the sidelines would de-rail many a title challenge, but eight winners in September got the 17-year-old back on track, and four more this month so far has left him right in the thick of it.  Sam Coen on 26 wins for the season, Reese Holohan on 24, Paddy Harnett on 23. The season ends at The Curragh next Sunday.  Four more flat racing days to go and all to play for.

“I thought that I had a chance in the championship all right before I had my injury,” says Holohan now.  “But then I had that fall, I had a lacerated kidney, and I missed a lot of time.  Things have been going well since I have come back though, people have been very good to me, and it’s great to be in the mix.”

He isn’t from a racing background.  He just had a pony at home in Laois when he was (even) younger. That’s where it began.  Then he saw the short documentary that Jonny Madderson made on a young lad from Donegal, Dylan Browne McMonagle, then 12 years old and riding in pony races, now champion jockey.  That was the catalyst.

Apprenticed to Mark Fahey, Reese Holohan only had his first ride on a racecourse last September.  His services have been in demand this season, he has ridden winners for 21 different trainers this calendar year.  One of those trainers is Ger Lyons, who entrusted him with the ride on Krasimir in the big Sovereign Path Handicap at Leopardstown on Irish Champions’ Weekend.

“I had had just one ride for Ger before that,” he says.  “It was brilliant to get to ride Krasimir for him at Leopardstown.  The race went perfectly for me too, I tried to do what Ger had asked me to do, and we got up and won by a head.  That was some feeling, to win a big race like that on such a big weekend.”

Irish Cesarewitch weekend was a big weekend too, and Sam Coen was back on Chally Chute again in the feature race.  Second in the race last year when he didn’t have a whole lot of luck in-running, the young rider hadn’t ridden Ross O’Sullivan’s horse in a race in 12 months, but he knew that he was going there with a big chance again.  His claim had been reduced from 7lb to 5lb, but you could easily argue that his ability as a rider had improved by more than 2lb with the experience that he had gained in the previous 12 months.

You could see it too in the ride that he gave Chally Chute in that race.  Big day, hugely valuable race, and just after they straightened up for home, he had the option to go outside and into clear sailing, but he didn’t.  He went inside, bided his time, trusted his instinct, trusted that the gaps would come.

He didn’t really ask his horse for maximum effort until they were on the run to the furlong marker and, when he did, Chally Chute picked up.  He went to the line strongly and got up to win by a half a length.

“That was class!” says Sam Coen now.  “Everything went to plan.  I didn’t want to get there too soon.  It was a massive win for me, obviously.  I was delighted to be able to repay Ross and the owners for having the faith in me to give me the ride again.”

From Fethard in County Tipperary, Sam played football and hurling growing up, he played for Tipperary Under-15s, but it was always about horses, and horses leave little room for much else.  He started going pony racing with his cousins Ben and Jake Coen.  He rode 50 winners on the pony racing circuit, and he gained huge experience with John Nallen before taking out his apprenticeship with Andy Slattery. 

He hoped that he would ride 10 winners last season, and he rode 18, just six fewer than last year’s champion apprentice Wayne Hassett.  This year, he aimed for 20.  He is now on 26.  Suspensions have played a role, he has had to sit out the last five racing days, but he returns at Galway on Tuesday, still two ahead.

“I rode a double at Navan at the end of August,” he says, “and after that, I thought that I had a chance in the championship.  It’ll be great to get back now this week.”

Paddy Harnett has momentum up.  That victory on Mehman at Dundalk on Friday, on the back of his win on Venetian Star at Gowran Park on Monday, has taken him to within three of the leader.

“It would be massive for me to win it,” he says.  “Huge.  I’ve been an apprentice now for a little while, and that experience has stood to me all season.”

When he rode on the pony racing circuit, he rode with Dylan Browne McMonagle and Ben Coen and Danny Sheehy and Mikey Sheehy and Shane Crosse and Andy Slattery.  He rode his first winner on the track in 2019, and he kicked on.  Apprenticed to Donnacha O’Brien, in 2025 he rode Happy Pharoah for his boss to win the big Petingo Handicap at Leopardstown on Irish Champions’ Weekend.  In May this year, he rode the same horse to get to within a half a length of Scandinavia in the Group 3 Saval Beg Stakes back at Leopardstown.

“Everything clicked this year.  The horses have been running well, my weight is good.  People have been very good to me.  Trainers, owners.  My agent Kevin O’Ryan.”

Kevin O’Ryan is agent to all three apprentices who are in contention for the championship this year.  He has been here before too, he has looked after 10 individual champion apprentices, as well as seven senior champions.

“Any one of them would be a worthy champion,” he says.  “They’ve all done really well, they’ve worked hard all year, and they have got their rewards.  It’s unlikely I know, but it would be great if it could be a three-way tie.”

Still all to play for.  Competition resumes on Tuesday.

© The Sunday Times, 25th October 2026