Nicola Currie Puts Hot Run Of Form Down To Winter Sabbatical

03/09/2025 01:20 PM

Nicola Currie has put her encouraging run of form down to a three-month winter sabbatical but admitted to having almost called it a day after managing a meagre six winners from 126 rides last year. 

Since returning to the saddle in February, Currie has already partnered five winners from 26 rides and is operating at an impressive 19 per cent strike rate. It's a long way from the massive 81 winners the Scottish-born rider achieved in 2018 but the 31-year-old explained how the combination of stepping away from the sport she loves for three months during the winter and enlisting the help of a sports psychologist has provided her with a new lease of life. 

Speaking about how she went from 81 winners to just six in the space of six seasons, Currie said, “I rode out my claim pretty quickly and it was all going very well for me but then I got the Jamie Osborne job, which was brilliant at the time, but obviously Saffie [Osborne] started to get going and the job was no longer there for me as blood is thicker than water.

“So I was back freelance again and I just couldn't get the ball rolling. I became really sour, wasn't riding out as much as I should have been, got quite heavy and I just needed to change something. This is not the kind of job where you get into the car to drive three hours for one ride if your heart isn't in it. Because already before you've even left, you don't want to go, and that's no frame of mind to be in. Every week that went by, I was hoping for a winner that might get me going but it just didn't happen. The reality was that I just wasn't putting in the work and I wasn't in the right frame of mind. I needed to step back from it all, which is what I did.”

It can be hard to see the wood from the trees at times. Stepping off that hamster wheel and seeing things for what they are takes strength. For Currie, she was willing to give up what small contacts she had been left with in an effort to step away and look at things objectively.

Her own family implored her to call it a day. For a long time, it seemed to be the most likely option but, on the advice of retired jockey Colm O'Donoghue, she spent some time riding out in Ireland for Donnacha O'Brien, where she is said to have reignited her spark to continue. 

“I needed to do something,” she recalls. “Taking the time out was the best thing I could have done and, actually, I probably should have done it a year sooner. I had to ask myself, 'did I really want to do this anymore?' I thought that I didn't and, for the first month off, I went back home to the Isle Of Arran and I didn't even watch a race. Within two months, I was watching racing every day. I got the bug back when I went riding out for Donnacha O'Brien for a month. It was good to have a change of scenery and I had a lot of fun whilst getting my fitness levels back up. I came back to England in February and I have had my head down ever since.”

Followers of the all-weather will have noticed Currie to be plying her trade as well if not better than ever over the past few weeks. She has ridden winners for her old boss Osborne as well as Ollie Sangster and Andrew Balding, for whom she rides out regularly. Attaching herself to some of the bigger yards is the very opposite approach to what Currie took last year. And that, the jockey believes, was one of the rocks that she perished on. 

“It's funny, I spoke at length with my agent around this time last year and we both decided that the best thing to do for me was to ride out for as many smaller trainers as I could. But that didn't work. I just couldn't get any momentum going because I had no backing from anybody. I was just clutching at straws every day for spares.”

She added, “Honestly, [a tally of six winners in the season] it was really disheartening. You can't make a living unless you're getting at least 10 rides a week and are riding winners. My family were actually pushing me to call it a day and, to be honest, that actually spurred me on further to say, 'no, no, I will get this ball rolling again.' 

“But I won't lie, I did come close to calling it a day. Ollie Sangster was very good to me last year so I do a couple of days with him now and I also ride out for Andrew Balding. I absolutely love this job. It's the greatest thing in the world when you are busy and I feel I am in a completely different place since I've come back.”

That mindset was already tested last Wednesday when the debutant John T (GB) (Mastercraftsman {Ire}), the only horse that Currie had been declared to ride at Kempton, refused to enter the stalls. Such a wasted effort would have been a lot harder to brush off a year ago. But Curries says she is finding it a whole pile easier to take the rough with the smooth since her return.

“When you have a few winners, you ride with confidence and your riding becomes so much better. What happened at Kempton the other night, that was quite a light weight for me to do and, when he wouldn't go into the stalls, it was a bummer. Had that been last year, it would have fried me for a few days. You deal with the bad days like that an awful lot better when you are riding winners and in a good frame of mind.”

She added, “It's one thing I have been very conscious of, my mindset, and it's something I got some counselling on last year through the PJA. There are more bad days than good days in racing, we all know that, but I suppose I felt I was only having bad days and I wasn't coping with them well enough. Speaking with someone taught me the importance of keeping the right mentality as a sportsperson and it has really helped me a lot. 

“Not many people want to admit that they see a sports psychologist. Maybe they feel you've just got to be mentally tough enough and that's it. But the reality is that not everyone is and, if it helps me deal with the bad days and to further my career, I am happy to utilise it and I would encourage anybody else out there to do the same.”

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