Sean has been our No.1 stable jockey since 2016 upon Paul Carberry’s retirement. He has since become a very important part of the Tu Va team and has had many big race day wins for us, and hopefully many more to come!
Other jockeys who ride for us:
Jonathon Moore
Denis O’Regan
Yard Claiming riders:
Eoin Walsh
Michael Stenson
Neil Ryan
Chris Mooney
Amateur Riders:
Pat Taaffe
Finny Maguire
Reece O’Connor
Joey Dunne
Conor Banahan
At the moment, we don’t have a yard flat jockey and we use the best available.
Over the last couple of years we’ve been very lucky that Colin Keane has ridden quite a bit for us.
Paul Cullen – Head Man
Paul has been at Tu Va since 1976, he started off as a stable lad having worked part time for the late Pat Taaffe. He has been head man at Tu Va since 1980. He is probably the least known of all the staff as Paul rarely leaves the yard and spends all of his time feeding and tending to all the horses (and yard cats) needs, Noel describes Paul “as his right hand man and could not envision training without him”.
Damien McGillick – Assistant Trainer
Damien or Les as he is known by everyone came to Tu Va 22 years ago when he left school. Les is the head of the engine room and gets everyone moving and organised, for who is riding what, taking horses to the paddock, the walker, the spa and he does all the clipping. Les knows exactly what everyone and every horse is doing and is never in bad form unless Liverpool gets beaten. He keeps everyone updated with the all the specific performances of human and horse alike!! He also keeps the Boss up to date with the GAA, happily like the Boss he is a bit of a Meath football fan!
Emma Connolly – Travelling Head Lass & Assistant Trainer
Emma has been at Tu Va since 2009 and is an integral part of the team. Emma is a perfectionist in her work, she travels the length and breadth of the country (and further) driving our horses to the races as well as being Noel’s assistant trainer overseeing a lot of the veterinary work, registrations and passports
James Halpin
James joined us in 2020 having spent some time in Australia pre-training horses. Before that, he trained himself in Ireland. James has a ‘roving brief’ and can turn his hand to anything around the yard.
Travelling Lad/Lass
Waqas Sheikh
James Wilkinson
Emma Murray
In the office
Katie Daly – Racing Secretary
Katie joined our office three years ago as racing secretary on the retirement of Mary Taaffe who’d been with us for almost forty years! Katie is head of the office and responsible for the day to day running of all office related matters. She is also our official ‘First Aider’ to the yard.