John Tapp Racing

Michael Cahill had his first race ride on Red Affro at an obscure race meeting at Gooloogong in 1979. The horse ran second but Michael says he was beaten by pilot error. Since then he’s ridden with great skill to land a stunning total of 2600 winners in 4 jurisdictions. He’s coming up 59, and would love to ride in races until age 60. In our recent interview he talks about the style his late father Ossie helped him to develop during his apprenticeship at Cowra. Michael explains his reason for wearing two sets of goggles when riding in races. He says rides are still plentiful but the good opportunities are not what they used to be. Michael looks back on a simple fall on the Sunny Coast in December 2021 which sidelined him for seven months. Remarkably he rode a winner at Doomben on his first day back. He says he had a good run for nine months before another race fall halted his progress. This time he was back in a month. Michael takes us back to early days at Cowra NSW when he and brother Matthew were apprentice