Allen A Name To Remember In Australia

'Johnny, Johnny, Johnny' rang out the chant from a throng of joyful owners as the G1 Victoria Derby winner Extra Brut (Aus) (Domesday {Aus}) was led back in to the Flemington mounting yard. It was the kind of reception the Irish jockey John Allen could only have dreamt about when he left Cork seven years ago after answering an advertisement for jump jockeys in Australia.

There has been a number of jockey crossovers from the jumps to the Flat in recent years, including Graham Lee, Timmy Murphy, PJ McDonald and Jim Crowley. Even taking into account the fact that Crowley became champion jockey on the Flat after turning his back on the National Hunt sector in 2006, his transformation is still perhaps not as dramatic as that of Allen.

From pony racing to a job with local trainer Sean O'Brien and then a stint as a conditional with Joe Crowley, the father-in-law of Aidan O'Brien, Allen's race rides became fewer and farther between in his home country. The situation prompted a dramatic rethink which led him to the door of Victoria's champion trainer, Darren Weir.

“I'd quieted down a bit at home and wasn't really riding much and then I saw an advertisement in the Racing Post. Two or three of us came out at the same time and I thought I'd give it a go for six months and see what happened,” recalls the 34-year-old at Flemington on Melbourne Cup day, 72 hours after his Derby victory. As we chat in the hallway by the weighing-room, Allen is still receiving congratulations, with David Hayes and Chris Waller just two of the well-wishers to slap him on the back as they pass by.

“I was supposed to go to work for Ciaron Maher and he rang a few days before I arrived to say he didn't need anyone so I ended up with Darren and I don't know if he was that keen on it at first but it's worked out good.”

That it has. From initially continuing to specialise over jumps, Allen rode his first Australian winner over hurdles at the Warrnambool Carnival. Despite the relative prestige of this occasion, the Australian jumping programme is tiny in comparison to Britain and Ireland.

“I came out in 2011 for the jumps season from March until October and I had a good year riding for Darren, but there are only around 70 jumps races in the season,” says Allen, who is now an Australian citizen. “I then rode a bit back home during that winter but came back to Australia full time in 2012. Again that was riding over jumps but then I started picking up a few rides on the Flat. I was never a heavy jockey as a jumps jockey, I was always in between, but I just worked a bit harder to get my weight down and at first I was riding at the non-TAB and country meetings, but as time went on I started to get a few more opportunities.”

Those opportunities have led to him this year being one of the leading lights during Australian racing's biggest week of the year. A first Classic victory in the state he now calls home merely gilded an extraordinary Spring Carnival for the Irishman. Within the space of a week he had doubled his tally of Group 1 wins to four, following up his Victoria Derby success by winning the G1 McKinnon S. aboard Trap For Fools (Aus) (Poet's Voice {GB}). Half a length back in third was his Derby partner Extra Brut whom he could not have ridden that day as the 3-year-old was carrying too light a weight.

The McKinnon win for trainer Jarrold McLean, who doubles as a stable foreman for Weir, was the highlight of a stakes-race treble on the day for Allen, the other two coming for his boss on Kenedna (Aus) (Not A Single Doubt {Aus}) in the G2 Matriarch S. and Ringerdingding (Aus) (Sebring {Aus}) in the listed Springtime S. Just for good measure, Allen also knocked off a couple of country cups for Weir during that same week, winning the Kyneton Cup on Another Coldie (Aus) (Snitzel {Aus}) and the Ararat Cup aboard American import Andrea Mantegna (Giant's Causeway).

“I've had a winner on Caulfield Cup day, Cox Plate day and Derby day so it's been great,” he says. “I never really had a proper go riding on the Flat at home because I never worked for a Flat trainer. When I took out my licence at 18, I was probably just a bit too heavy to be an apprentice so I went down the conditional route. I was conditional to Joe Crowley for three or four years but once my claim went and his numbers dwindled I never really kicked on from there. I was just going through the motions at home. But now I'm riding at 55kg [approximately 8st 10lbs] all this week. It takes a bit of work but I'm on top of it now.”

A strong work ethic doubtless helps in that regard. In return for the chances he has been given by Weir, he is expected to be in Ballarat or Warrnambool to ride work every morning bar Sunday. The champion trainer has phenomenal firepower at his disposal with a stable running into the hundreds. Despite Weir's apparently laidback demeanour and reputation for enjoying fairly liquid celebrations, Allen can see how he has progressed from being a bush trainer to one of the most dominant forces in the country.

“He's a man who is always thinking,” says the jockey. “He's got an unbelievable memory and not many people could cope with the numbers that he has but he has the brain to do it.”

In returning the compliment, Weir is on record as describing Allen as “the greatest horseman I've ever had anything to do with.”

That quote was given to the Herald-Sun newspaper back in 2015 and the trainer is unlikely to have changed his view in the intervening years, particularly after the recent Melbourne Cup Carnival. Allen continues to ride successfully over jumps and thus finds himself among an elite band of jockeys to have mixed codes at the highest level simultaneously.

He adds, “I've had a few rides here [at Flemington] over the last couple of years and Darren always has plenty of runners but I was always more on the outside looking in. So to be a major part of it this year is really something special.”

Currently in second position in the Victorian jockeys' championship, both for city winners and state-wide, John Allen is now very much on the inside.