IRISH TRAINERS IN A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN
Dominant at Cheltenham and the first four at Aintree, Irish trainers are now...
SURPRISE, surprise. Saturday’s Randox Health Grand National at Aintree was a case of total domination by Irish runners.
Sure, there was some luck involved and some of the top British hopes hit the deck.
But for the fundamental reasons behind the success of Gordon Elliott-trained, Davy Russell-ridden 10-1 shot Tiger Roll and a first four all trained across the Irish Sea, you only had to look at sale of future racing stock in the Aintree paddock 48 hours before the £1million race.
British-based owners David and Patricia Thomson, who run the hugely successful Cheveley Park Flat racing stud in Newmarket and occasionally dabble in the jump racing including buying 11th placed Grand National finisher See you at midnight on the eve of this year’s race, paid £325,000 for an attractive gelding sired by Kalanisi.
He will be sent to be trained at the stables of Grand National winning trainer Gordon Elliott, who also won the race in 2007 with Silver Birch.
There he’ll join Envoir Allen, who cost the Thomsons £400,000 at a similar auction at the Cheltenham Festival, at Elliott’s base in Meath.
It seems a case of if you can’t beat them, join them and there seems an increasing number of British owners keen to saddle up with the likes of Elliott and his great Irish training rival Willie Mullins, trainer of the Grand National runner-up Pleasant Company.
Paul and Clare Rooney, Simon Munir and Isaac Souede, Diana Whateley, Graham Wylie, Jared Sullivan, previously a big supporter of 10-time British champion jumps trainer Paul Nicholls, and even Qatar Racing head a list of owners whose colours are hanging in the tack rooms of Ireland’s big two trainers.
When added to the huge financial clout provided by owners JP McManus and Michael O’Leary, plus Kent-based Rich Ricci, and you have the foundations to the Saturday’s success and the reasons Ireland has also dominated the last two Cheltenham Festivals.
Money talks and it is shouting very loud for Irish racing, currently the powerhouse of European racing, both over jumps and on the Flat. Rather like the Qatari investment which has helped Manchester City buy some of the world’s best players on their stroll to the Premier League, Irish trainers have the money to buy the best bloodstock around.
Outside the likes of Nicky Henderson, who is on the verge of winning his fifth British championship, Nicholls and Colin Tizzard few British trainer can live with them.
Ireland’s leading players have also used their financial clout to install a buying infrastructure that spots talent before others often get a sniff. Mullins has two lieutenants, one based in France, as his talent spotters working solely for him. McManus’s team included his racing manager Frank Berry and former Irish Champion jockey Charlie Swan.
O’Leary’s brains trust is led by his brother Eddie and includes Mags O’Toole, daughter of legendary Irish trainer Mick O’Toole and a woman with a fierce reputation for being able to sport a future champion racehorse.
One leading bloodstock figure told Sportsmail that O’Leary probably had over 70 four-yearold point-to-pointers alone, a nursery from which a few gems are certain to emerge. Eight-time champion jockey and
Sportsmail columnist Peter Scudamore said: ‘Undoubtedly the biggest owners in jump racing in the last five years have been the Irish owners and now others are joining them.
‘They have taken things to another level. I don’t care what anyone says, purchasing horses is 90 per cent of the racehorse business. Just because you pay more money for a horse, does not necessarily mean you will get a good one but it helps.
‘If you go to a sale at Cheltenham these days with £50,000 in your pocket, you are probably limited to bidding for four or five horses. If you’ve another nought to play with, you can buy any horse you want.
‘Irish racing is also more successful because their point-to-point system is more professional. It is a nursery for young horses. British point-to-pointing is changing but it is 20 years behind Ireland.’
Like his airline business, O’Leary has a ruthlessness to go with his buying power. If trainers don’t deliver, they stop getting sent horses.
He famously fell out with Mullins at the start of last season in a dispute over training fees and removed 70 horses, many of them ending up with Elliott.
This season Elliott has run almost 300 horses in Ireland alone and over 100 of them have been O’Leary’s. He owned four of Elliott’s eight Cheltenham Festival winners last month, including potential superstar Samcro, and 12 days before the Grand National, the pair combined to win Elliott’s first Irish National with General Principle.
It will be a surprise if by the end of next week, O’Leary has not helped Elliott to his first championship. The pair have clicked and O’Leary has latched onto Elliott’s work ethic and drive.
The owner said: ‘When Gordon first won the National I thought “Who the hell is he?”, and it was only when he started racking up lots of winners at places like Ayr and Perth that I thought, “This is something different”.
‘We send horses to lots of trainers, and those that train winners get more horses, those that don’t get less. Gordon is setting different standards.
‘There are now a number of seriously stupid people in Ireland like myself, JP McManus and Rich Ricci who are spending lots of money to keep the better horses at home, and that helps the trainers, too.’
Not all think the domination of the big owners is healthy. If they are not on your list of patrons in
It seems a case of if you can’t beat them, join them Money talks and it is shouting very loud for Irish racing
Ireland, it is hard to compete.
Ironicallly, Tiger Roll is not a typical O’Leary horse. He cost £80,000 after winning a juvenile hurdle at Market Rasen when trained in Devon by Nigel Hawke.
O’Leary described him as a ‘little rat of a horse’ but he has now one which has won three races at the Cheltenham Festival and the biggest, and most famous, jumps race of them all.
He’s also underlined just how dominant Irish jump racing currently is.