RENEWABLE ENERGY
Jim Bolger has sought perfection as a trainer and breeder for over 45 years and as he drives his latest stable stars Mac Swiney and Poetic Flame, he shows no sign of slowing down...
IN his 80th year, Jim Bolger remains a relentless hunter of big pots, of restless ambition and endless energy. He fully intends to puck about in the 10th annual charity hurling match in Newbridge in August, which he and Davy Russell started, and has so far raised over €1m for cancer research. Before dreaming of being Nicky Rackard again, he is targeting two unique racing feats.
Should Mac Swiney run to par in today’s Derrinstown Stud Derby Trial at Leopardstown, he will head for Epsom on June 5 where Bolger could become the first Irishman to breed, own and train the winner of the world’s most famous Flat race.
He is also aiming last Saturday’s English 2,000 Guineas hero, Poetic Flame, at the French 2,000 Guineas next Sunday with an eye on the Irish equivalent on Saturday week.
The treble has never been accomplished although Bolger came closest in 2007 when he won the first and last legs but missed out in Longchamp by a head with Finsceal Beo (Irish for living legend).
To have two arrows to aim at the bonanza bulls of Flat racing in the one summer is what Bolger strives for as he continues to seek success with his one-man racing band.
For over 45 years, he has done things his way, the racing outsider who has traded blows with all-comers, from Vincent O’Brien to Ballydoyle’s bluebloods and everyone in between – and he’s still going strong.
The former accountant has come many miles since he rented a handful of boxes in Lohunda Lodge in Clonsilla and galloped horses in the Phoenix Park, a practice which was barred shortly after the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1979.
His first winner was Peaceful Pleasure at Roscommon in 1976, ridden by the late Dessie Hughes.
‘HE IS VERY HUMAN, HE HELPED LADS WHEN TIMES WERE HARD’
Starting from scratch, Bolger now employs over 100 people across his modern stables at Glebe House, Coolcullen on the Kilkenny-Carlow border, Redmondstown Stud in his native Oylegate, and pre-training premises in Rathvilly.
He has more sliotars in the air than most, but he’s not for drawing breath. It has never been his way. There is always another new-born, another race, another challenge. And JS Bolger has never shirked a challenge.
Curragh trainer Brendan Duke was there in the early years, 20 of them as assistant through the 1980s and 1990s, and regards Bolger as his ‘best friend’ in racing.
‘Even in the early days, Jim had a great ability to get horses very fit,’ he recalled. ‘He was way before his time insofar as he was very big on having charts on each horse’s bloods, where their markers needed to be to win races.’
Duke is one of the many trainers and jockeys who list Bolger as a mentor.
The names of those schooled in Coolcullen read like a who’s who of the game – Willie Mullins, Aidan O’Brien, Paul Nolan, Colm Murphy, AP McCoy, Seamie Heffernan, Paul Carberry and Paddy Brennan among them.
All looked, listened and learned as Bolger pointed them on their way. He was a tough, but always fair, overseer, and Duke loved him. He still does.
‘People thought Jim was a hard man to work for, or work with, but that doesn’t really stand up because there are a number of people who began their lives in racing as teenagers and are still with him today,’ observed Duke.
‘He lives his life in that mode of being scrupulously fair. He was, and is, a great man.
‘If he was giving you a hard time, if you were wise enough to read it, it was because he felt you were worth the effort of him getting you to where he wanted you to be, and where he thought you should be.’
As for where he should be himself, Bolger continues to strike a blow for the self-made guys.
He does things his way, such as setting up his own breeding operation, a prop of which is his vast knowledge of equine dynasties, and the career of legendary Italian owner-trainer Federico Tesio – the breeder of Nearco, the bloodline king of stallions.
Bolger’s CV includes two Irish Derbys, an Epsom Derby, five ‘Dewhursts’ since 2006, the Irish champion Flat trainer’s title in 1991, and, if you dig deep enough, two Irish Champion Hurdles.
Along the way, he has not only filtered his likes – breeding and bloodlines – but also dislikes.
He’s never been a fan of synthetic surfaces, rarely runs horses outside these islands, and never on firm ground, and has also highlighted doping as the biggest problem in Irish racing.
‘Jim doesn’t say anything that he can’t back up. He doesn’t take any bites out of the wall. He passionately believes in the risk of firm ground, to the jockeys and to the horses,’ said Duke.
Along the way, Bolger would never ask anyone to do something he wouldn’t do himself, nor is he ever short on pointing out a better way to do things .
‘Jim has a few horses with me and we talk regularly. If he is ringing, sometimes I’d have the cotton wool and TCP at the ready, for my wounds!’ joked Duke.
‘He’d say: “Sometimes the right thing is the hard thing. Do the right thing and stick with it. If it’s right today, it’ll be right tomorrow, right in a week and right in a year.”
‘Jim is a very human person. He’s helped a lot of fellas, even when times weren’t great. He’s a genuine decent Christian person.’
Bolger is also a man of deep faith who doesn’t believe in Dame Fortune.
‘A few times I said, “We got lucky” after a win,’ said Duke. ‘And Jim would say, “No, that’s what happens when you pray.”
The Wexford wizard was, and is, driven by perfection. Nothing is left to chance, as Duke found out to his cost more than once when he was the assistant in Coolcullen.
Asked casually one day by Bolger did he intend to put rugs on the horses, Duke said he hadn’t made a decision and would do so later, depending on how the weather was.
‘At that, Jim looked me in the eye and said, “Are you purporting to be an assistant trainer? How could you possibly think you could train horses
‘HE’LL ALWAYS LOOK TO GET THE MAXIMUM OUT OF HIS HORSES’
if you didn’t know the weather?
“Go and ring Met Eireann and ring them every day to find out what the weather is going to do. Then you can make the right decision.”
‘When Jim is really serious, he has this way he stands foursquare in front of you, feet planted on the ground and he’d look straight at you.’
The message to Duke then was clear: knowledge is everything.
‘He’s always looking at ways of improving horses, of getting the maximum out of them. That’ll never change,’ said Duke.
Whether it’s checking bloods, the understanding of pedigree and bloodlines, of genomes, of form, of going, of a thousand and one other matters. The more you know, the better placed you are to make the right decision. Bolger has made more right ones than not.
Yet, putting his faith, fate and
hard-earned cash into his own breeding operation hasn’t always guaranteed success, even with his proven track record. The last few years have not been easy.
After Poetic Flare chinned his rivals in Newmarket last weekend, Bolger felt victory was a mix of satisfaction and economic relief.
‘The opposition are playing with their beer money and I’m playing with whatever I can get. If I can’t come up with a decent horse every four or five years, it’s difficult.’
He has two better than decent horses at Coolcullen so this year should be less difficult than others.
The most youthful of 79-year-olds, Bolger gallops on. A living legend.