Curragh afternoon racing tips: Best bets for Saturday, July 20
A fantastic afternoon in store from the Curragh on Saturday as they stage the Irish Oaks card.
Ryan Moore was born in Brighton and despite his family being steeped in horse racing, as a youngster, he wanted to be a footballer. He even had trials with local club, Brighton and Hove Albion.
He took up racing at the age of 16, skipping his A-levels to concentrate on his new career.
Ryan Moore is the son of Gary L. Moore, a successful trainer and former National Hunt jockey with over 200 career race wins to his name.
Champion National Hunt jockey AP McCoy rode for Gary Moore when in his teens, with a 12-year-old Ryan being particularly impressed by his determination and dedication.
Ryan's two brothers, Jamie and Joshua, are both jump jockeys. He also has a sister, Hayley, who is a top amatuer jockey.
His grandfather is trainer Charlie Moore, who was well-known in the British horse racing scene and lived just down the road from Brighton Racecourse.
Moore started racing for his grandfather and won a number of races for him before he passed away in 2000. It was these wins which set his career path.
His father then sent him to be mentored by Richard Hannon, a trainer with over 4,000 career wins, including 32 Royal Ascot winners in his career. Moore would race for Hannon until his retirement in 2013.
Hannon gave him the training and experience he needed, and by the end of his first full season, he had won the Cesarewitch Handicap and had also picked up Group race experience. However, it's important to note that his Cesarewitch Handicap victory in 2002 was for a different trainer, Martin Pipe.
In 2003, despite having a poor strike rate and not picking up any major victories, he did enough to win the British Flat Racing Champion Apprentice title.
However, 2004 was his breakout year as he raced his 100th winner and topped £1million in prize money for the first time.
In August, he won his first Group race, the Group Three Prestige Stakes at Goodwood. A month later, he won the Mill Reef Stakes at Newbury, his first Group Two victory.
Moore started to race increasingly for Sir Michael Stoute and it was under Stoute that he claimed his first Group One victory, the Juddmonte International at York in August 2006 aboard Notnowcato.
He also won his first of three British Flat Racing Champion Jockey awards in 2006, a feat for which he was initially priced at 8/1, which Moore himself thought was too short.
In 2007, he started to pick up more winners with Stoute than Hannon including on Notnowcato, who he guided to victory in both the Tattersalls Gold Cup in Ireland and the Eclipse.
His efforts in 2007 earned him an offer as Stoute's stable jockey.
Due to a broken arm from a fall, Moore was unable to retain his Champion Jockey title, but he still finished third in the standings after a strong finish to the season. Had he not had three months out injured, he would likely have defended his crown successfully.
Moore was in the prime of his career and won the Champion Jockey title in both 2008 and 2009.
In the US, he won the Breeders' Cup Turf in both seasons, while his biggest British achievement was winning the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes in 2009 on Conduit for Stoute.
He followed that up with a win at the 2010 Epsom Derby in a course record time, then topped off the year with a victory at the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in France.
Both of these wins came on Workforce, while he also won the Epsom Oaks in the same season.
He started racing for a number of celebrity owners in 2011, including horses owned by members of the Manchester United team.
Moore also took the reins of the Queen's Carlton House, picking up victory in the Dante Stakes at York and coming third in the Derby.
From November 2011, there were rumours that Aidan O'Brien was looking to make Moore the stable jockey at his Ballydoyle stable in County Tipperary, but Moore didn't want to relocate his family from Newmarket.
The compromise was that Moore could remain living in England but ride for O'Brien in the major Irish races, with O'Brien giving the main rider role to his son Joseph.
At the time, O'Brien had multiple runners and this enabled Moore to pick up further big victories. These included the 2012 1000 Guineas on Homecoming Queen and the 2013 Derby on Ruler Of The World.
In 2015, as Joseph was struggling to meet the weight to ride in the major races due to his six-foot height, Moore and O'Brien came to an arrangement where Ryan would race Ballydoyle's runners in the Classics and other important races.
By the close of 2017, Ryan Moore had secured his place as one of Britain's top jockeys.
He had won over 2,000 races in his career, the third highest of all active jockeys after Frankie Dettori and Joe Fanning, who had both been racing for 10 years longer than he had.
He won the Oaks again in 2022 on Tuesday, and the duo went on to win the Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf later in the year.
Kyprios gave Moore his third Ascot Gold Cup, third Irish St Leger and his first Goodwood Cup in 2022.
In June 2024, Moore crowned another fine week at Royal Ascot by claiming the top jockey award for an 11th time, his third in a row.
Moore overtook Frankie Dettori as the most successful current rider at the showpiece meeting when Port Fairy took the Ribblesdale.
He also landed the Group 1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes on Auguste Rodin and steered the O’Brien-trained Kyprios to regain his Gold Cup crown.
Bedtime Story’s spectacular Chesham Stakes win on the final afternoon made it six wins in total at the meeting, taking his overall Royal Ascot tally to 85.
Despite all his success and being in the spotlight on the courses, Ryan has kept his personal life close to his chest.
What is known is that he is married to Michelle Saunders, with the couple having four children.
Moore has over 2,000 career wins, so his career earnings have stacked up over the years.
He holds the distinction of being the only rider in Britain to break the £8million barrier for domestic winnings in a single season, which he achieved in 2016.
Ryan Moore's net worth is believed to be £11million.
A fantastic afternoon in store from the Curragh on Saturday as they stage the Irish Oaks card.
Porta Fortuna stamped her authority in a dominant display in the Group 1 Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket under Ryan Moore.
Day 2 of Newmarket's July Festival and the Planet Sport tipsters have lined up a full set of red-hot selections that will help you boost your coffers on Friday, July 12.
As appears to be the growing horse racing trend, the bigger the prize the smaller the field, but the six contenders lining up for the Princess of Wales’ Stakes should still give us a race to savour.
The pinnacle of Sandown’s Flat racing calendar sees eight classy performers line up with an eye on landing the prestigious Coral-Eclipse trophy , not to mention the £425K prize that goes with it.
Coral-Eclipse day at Sandown on Saturday, July 6 and the Planet Sport tipsters have a fistful of red-hot selections for all seven races being shown on ITV.
It's day two of the Irish Derby Festival at the Curragh on Saturday afternoon with the Group 1 Pretty Polly Stakes taking top billing.