Finian’s Rainbow in Kentucky reunion
Trainer Murphy moves 2012 Champion Chase hero, who helped make him a millionaire, to US
It is all right for some. After two years hunting with the Heythrop and recovering from a recurring foot problem, the 2012 Champion Chaser Finian’s Rainbow is to be reunited with his former “lad” and the man whom he helped make a millionaire, Conor Murphy.
You will remember the story of the 2012 Festival was Nicky Henderson’s “magnificent seven” winners and the £50 accumulator bet on five horses which, in a bored moment at Christmas, Murphy had struck three months earlier.
When all five came in, including his beloved Finian’s Rainbow and completed by Riverside Theatre under ride of the century from Barry Geraghty in the Ryanair Chase, Murphy relieved the bookmakers of their maximum, £1 million.
Second head lad to Henderson at the time, Murphy was then able to follow his dream and start up as a trainer in Kentucky not long after. The biggest wrench, however, was not so much leaving the job or the people but Finian’s Rainbow.
“I was standing in his box one day,” recalled owner Michael Buckley, “saying to Finian’s, ‘How could he possibly leave us?’ knowing Conor was standing behind me. I repeated it and then heard this Cork accent pleading, ‘Please don’t keep saying that or I’ll start crying’.”
During last summer while the horse was recovering, first back at seven Barrows and then with Charlie Vigors at Hillwood Stud, everyone was a bit gloomy about his exact future and Buckley was speaking to Murphy about what they should do with the old horse.
“If only you were still here or had a place in Ireland?” said Buckley. “Well,” replied Murphy, “what’s wrong with having him here in Kentucky?”
Yesterday the horse flew out and, though I thought I would be likening it to British OAPS retiring to the Costa del Sol, it is not because he will have arrived to what has been dubbed the “bomb cyclone” and, far from needing shades and shorts, he will initially need half a dozen New Zealand (outdoor, waterproof) rugs and snow boots.
“After quarantine he’ll be here with me by Saturday,” said Murphy, explaining that it is no longer -25C [-13F] but rather “the sort of wet and miserable weather which he’ll be well used to.” He added: “I’m very happy he’s coming. There was no better ride in the yard.”
Afew jockeys have hung up their boots lately and though Steve Drowne, who finished on a winner, did not take long to go over to the dark side – he is now being trained to become a stipendiary steward – jump jockey Maurice Linehan is about to dip his toe in the point-to-point world as a trainer.
Linehan, 28, a fixture at Jackdaws Castle for five seasons when he was a familiar face in the JP Mcmanus green and gold, retired in October after struggling for rides and has taken on a livery yard at Great Tew in Oxfordshire, where he is breaking, pre-training, buying and selling hunters and training the odd pointer. “A bit like Del Boy,” he said, “I’m doing a bit of everything.”
For some reason most of the best trainers, his old boss excluded, rode fewer than 100 winners. He rode 69 so it would be no surprise in a few seasons to see him heading in that direction.
His biggest winner was Carlton Jack, a horse he was unbeaten on in three starts, in the Jockey Club Grassroots Final at Haydock but it was not the big payday he hoped it would be. There was a crash on the M6 as he was making his way to the races and, knowing the horse had a good chance, he was keen to make it on time so had to take to the back roads.
He eventually made it to the weighing room with five minutes to spare. A couple of weeks later, however, two separate speeding tickets arrived in the same post.