As tens of thousands of students wait for their CAO offers after this year’s Leaving Cert results, one young Dubliner is reminding people that there are many ways to end up in the career you want.
Carl Millar, 21, from Blanchardstown had already decided that college “wasn’t for him” when he set his sights on a job in the horse industry.
Carl doesn’t come from a horseracing background, but he has worked his way up to become a national hunt jockey for Gordon Elliott, one of the sport’s leading trainers.
“There’s a lot of pressure to get a good Leaving Cert, get the right points, but it’s not all about that,” Carl said.
“It’s about being happy and doing what you want to do and finding your passion and going for it, giving it your all.
“You can always work up to do whatever you want to do in the future, anything is possible once you put your mind to it.”
Carl taught himself to ride ponies bareback when he was young.
A stint in a yard in Co Meath as part of his transition year work experience opened his eyes to the career possibilities in the horse industry, and he learned to ride a horse using a saddle and bridle for the first time.
“I always had a love of animals, if it wasn’t horses, it was something else,” Carl said.
“I didn’t mind school too much but if I had an option not to go, I’d have taken it. I stayed and did my Leaving Cert, but I didn’t want to at the start. I wanted to drop out and do the horses full-time but my mother and father said to get it done and now I’ll have it to fall back on for the rest of my life.”
When he finished school, Carl got a job working for Gordon Elliott as a work rider.
He completed a series of training courses with Equuip, the industry education, training and people welfare department of Horse Racing Ireland, to progress his career.
His hard work paid off when he got his first race win.
“It was amazing, I put a lot of work in to get that first winner, to even get a ride in the first place, so it was great,” he said.
“I enjoy every minute of it, it’s not a job for me, it feels like a hobby because I enjoy it so much.”