“How Do You Say It?” – A Name To Remember: Dylan Browne McMonagle Is Hong Kong Ready
From pony racing and boxing rings to Ireland’s champion jockey, Dylan Browne McMonagle steps onto Hong Kong soil for a three-month stint that could shape the next chapter of an already extraordinary young career.
“How Do You Say It?” – A Name To Remember: Dylan Browne McMonagle Is Hong Kong Ready
From pony racing and boxing rings to Ireland’s champion jockey, Dylan Browne McMonagle steps onto Hong Kong soil for a three-month stint that could shape the next chapter of an already extraordinary young career.
19 December, 2025IT STARTED with a long look at the young jockey walking alongside Joseph O’Brien on a busy trackwork morning at Sha Tin. A pause followed, a glance at the race card, then the question: “How do you say it, Brownie Dongle?”
The pronunciation was askew from the local Chinese racing reporter, but the attempt was honest and it signalled that Dylan Browne McMonagle’s arrival in Hong Kong had been noted. Here was someone unfamiliar, someone new to this part of the world, but someone people sensed they would hear a lot more about.
From January 1 to March 29, Sha Tin and Happy Valley will be Browne McMonagle’s base, and he had arrived before the Hong Kong International Races to take it all in. First, to witness Happy Valley in all its glory for the International Jockeys’ Championship, and then to watch trackwork at Sha Tin in preparation for his rides aboard Al Riffa and Galen at the Hong Kong International Races.
“I’m definitely looking forward to it,” Browne McMonagle told Idol Horse. “It’s going to be a tough task – there are a lot of good riders here and it’s a small circle and very competitive. It’s definitely going to be a learning curve.”
After watching his Hong Kong Vase mount Al Riffa’s piece of work, Browne McMonagle, wearing navy chinos and a blue shirt, made his way through the assembled international and local media, offering similarly measured and assured responses to each interview.
His passport may confirm he was born in 2003, but his calm, assured presence displayed a maturity that belied those 22 years.
Growing up in County Donegal, Ireland, horses were always going to be part of his life, and from as far back as he can remember, he was in the saddle.
“From the get-go I always wanted to ride,” Browne McMonagle said. “I grew up around them and it’s all I ever knew really. Once you get bitten by the bug at a young age it’s hard to come out of it and I never have wanted to come out of it.”
Pony racing became his foundation and he rode 218 winners on the circuit. At just 12 years old in 2015, he won his first Dingle Derby – one of the most prestigious races in Irish pony racing – and subsequently received an invitation from legendary jump racing jockey Sir Anthony ‘Tony’ McCoy to fly over to the British Racing School.
McCoy, a 20-time champion in Britain, had seen a short documentary, Five Stone of Lead, about Browne McMonagle’s remarkable Dingle Derby win.
“It was a few months after the Dingle Derby and I got the invitation as a letter at Christmas, so it’s fair to say that was a great present,” Browne McMonagle said with a chuckle.
“I went over and met (McCoy) and it was nice to have some time and guidance from someone who has been there and done it all. He’s a great idol for me to look up to, so I was very lucky to have been able to do that.”
While Browne McMonagle’s youthful focus was solely on ponies in the summer, his other love was never far away. During the racing off-season in winter, he was honing his skills in the boxing ring.
“From when I was eight or nine I was boxing in the winter and pony racing in the summer so it worked out perfectly,” he said.
But Browne McMonagle wasn’t just boxing at a low level. With multiple regional titles under his belt by the age of 16, he then won a national All-Ireland boys’ boxing championship. Instead of tempting him along a different route, that was the final itch he needed to scratch before committing solely to riding.
“When I got to 16 and I won my title it was time to pack the boxing in and go all in on racing,” he added. “I box a little bit now but it’s very hard to mix the two. Whenever I get a chance to, I really enjoy it, though.”
At the same age, Browne McMonagle became apprenticed to trainer Joseph O’Brien at Owning Hill.
O’Brien, himself a former champion jockey, said he was aware of Browne McMonagle’s potential even before he stepped through the door.
“It was pretty obvious from a young age that he was a natural rider and we’re just lucky he came to join our stable,” O’Brien said. “He’s confident, he’s strong, and simply, he rides to win. That’s what it’s all about.
“He’s very ambitious and he has an extraordinary work ethic. It’s the stuff that goes in behind the scenes and in the mornings that gives him the opportunity to reap the rewards on the track, and he makes the most of every opportunity he gets.”
The opportunities with O’Brien yielded a champion apprentice title in 2021 and 2022 and his first Group 1 win aboard Al Riffa in the National Stakes at the Curragh in September 2022.
Since gaining his full professional licence in 2023, Browne McMonagle has celebrated a further five top-level wins and fulfilled a lifelong dream when he became champion jockey in Ireland at the end of 2025 with 95 wins.
“It’s what dreams are made of,” he said. “It was a fantastic year and there were a few Group 1 winners along the way, which is important, and it was topped off with a Breeders’ Cup win with Ethical Diamond.”
But, despite his monumental year in the saddle, there is no sense of having ‘arrived’ in Browne McMonagle’s words or tone.
“Looking ahead, you just have to work hard, keep your head down and ride as many winners as possible,” he said. “If you can keep getting a little bit better every day then that’s all you can do. We’ll just take it one step at a time.”
Some of those steps have already taken him to Ballydoyle, where he rides out for Joseph’s father, Aidan, every other Sunday, alongside experience riding in Australia and a glowing review from master-trainer Ciaron Maher, who labelled him a “class act”.
It’s a description that fits neatly. Browne McMonagle is physically strong, mentally resilient and seemingly unflustered by new environments. But now comes Hong Kong, one of the most demanding jurisdictions in world racing.
Browne McMonagle already has a sense of how competitive the place is, given that his application to ride in the city was rejected once before.
“Last year I applied to ride here, but it’s a tough place to get into and I was lucky to get the invitation to come for three months this time around,” he said.
He’s under no illusion of how tough it might be. His minimum weight of around 122 pounds means he will be competing directly with champion jockey Zac Purton and another long-established star Australian jockey Hugh Bowman for those higher-weighted rides, while he is acutely aware that plenty of high class riders have tried and failed to fire on their first time in the city.
“It’s going to be a tough task, but when you’re young starting off that’s the kind of environment where you want to be,” Browne McMonagle said. “You want to be riding against the best. You’ve got to be as competitive with them as you can and need to be as good as those guys as you can.”
During his dress rehearsal at Sha Tin on Sunday, he finished fourth aboard both Al Riffa in the Hong Kong Vase and Galen in the Hong Kong Cup.
That was the first time the Sha Tin crowd had heard the name McMonagle, or 麥文堅 – pronounced Mak-mun-kin – in Cantonese. But soon enough, the pronunciation will settle and the name will sound familiar over the loudspeakers at both tracks in Hong Kong.
Yes, it may take a moment to say correctly, but it won’t take long to remember. ∎
