It's been a memorable few months for trainer-turned-jockey-agent Kiaran McLaughlin. He's been nominated to the Hall of Fame for the first time and, as the agent for Luis Saez, has his client lined up with many of the top horses in the sport, including top candidates for the GI Kentucky Derby in Tapit Trice (Tapit) and Instant Coffee (Bolt d'Oro). With plenty to talk about, McLaughlin joined this week's TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland. McLaughlin was this week's Green Group Guest of the Week.
McLaughlin was asked his opinion of Tapit Trice's win in the GII Tampa Bay Derby, which has not necessarily drawn rave reviews.
“I want to hope that he gets out of the gate a little better next time,” he said. “He was slow to break and was last, but he stayed out of trouble. I never thought he was going to win until the sixteenth pole. But he's got a beautiful stride and a great mind for a Tapit. Luis likes him a lot.”
A Derby win would be Saez's first. He crossed the finish line in front in 2019 aboard Maximum Security (New Year's Day), but was disqualified for interference. Has that experience made Saez even hungrier to win a Derby?
“That was a tough one,” said McLaughlin, who was not Saez's agent at the time. “He handled it great. He doesn't bring it up. He does not want to look back on it. He's always looking to the next Saturday and the Saturday after that. But everybody in the industry wants to win the Kentucky Derby. And for him, I'm sure that he wants to win it even more since he lost it in a disqualification.”
In order to ride Tapit Trice, McLaughlin had to take off the Wayne Lukas-trained GI Kentucky Oaks winner Secret Oath (Arrogate), who won the GII Azeri S. at Oaklawn in her 4-year-old debut. McLaughlin said the decision was all about sticking with a top horse for the Kentucky Derby. Tyler Gaffalione rode Secret Oath.
“We also had to take off Frank's Rockette (Into Mischief), who won the (GIII) Hurricane Bertie at Gulfstream,” McLaughlin said. “So we lost two very nice fillies. But at Derby time, you're always trying to get to the Kentucky Derby. Wayne was hard on me when I first called him and told him that we were not going to be out there on her. He said, 'You're riding the second best one for Todd (Pletcher). What are you thinking?' I said, 'You're probably right.' He got after me a little bit thinking I was making the wrong decision. I was happy that he won and we won.”
Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by Coolmore, the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, Woodford Thoroughbreds, The Kentucky Thoroughbred Association, XBTV, 1/st Racing, WinStar Farm, Lane's End and West Point Thoroughbreds, Randy Moss, Zoe Cadman and Bill Finley took a look back at the win in the Tampa Bay Derby by Tapit Trice and the victory by Secret Oath in the Azeri, which the group deemed the most impressive performance of the week. The ever versatile Moss and Cadman also covered what has been a memorable Cheltenham Festival in the U.K. and raved about the wins by Honeysuckle (GB) (Sulamani {Ire}) and Constitution Hill (GB) (Blue Bresil {Fr}). In other news, the group covered the story of the alarming dip in handle that has been on-going since October and tried to figure out what is going on. A possible answer may be the level of play from the Computer Robotic Wagering players, who, by some estimates, now account for 33% of the total handle in the U.S. The trials and tribulations of former owner Ron Paolucci also made the podcast. Paolucci faces up to eight years in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of tax fraud and tax evasion.
Click for the Writers' Room Podcast's Audio or Video.
CHELTENHAM, UK–One champion crowned as another exits. But there was no quiet shuffling off, stage left, for Honeysuckle (GB) (Sulamani {Ire}), who was roared home, roared in, and roared out of the Cheltenham winner's circle that provides no better setting for equine coronations.
Just forty minutes earlier the new king of the hurdling division, Constitution Hill (GB), had delivered exactly the performance expected of him but one which can never be guaranteed in the hurly-burly of championship races at the Festival. Plenty of commentators are already suggesting that the son of Blue Bresil (Fr) is the greatest hurdler of all time after he has made just six spotless starts under Rules. Whether he is or isn't is almost irrelevant. The horse who gave Nicky Henderson his record ninth win in the Unibet Champion Hurdle is the best there is right now by a long way: nine lengths, in fact, if we take his winning margin as a measure. And on any other day, in any other week, his superb round under Nico de Boinville would have been the stand-alone performance that gave all comers at Prestbury Park that special I-was-there moment.
Who, after all, will forget that flamboyant, spring-heeled leap at the last, not because he needed to but just because he could? The image of that split second alone will linger on, serving as it did to underline the untapped reserves of Constitution Hill at the end of a race that had his rivals hard to the pump in fruitless pursuit. Then along came Honeysuckle.
“This is just a horse race and a bit of fun, it's not real life,” said the great mare's owner Kenny Alexander in the aftermath of the Close Brother Mares' Hurdle, and his may have been the coolest head there, for all around him others were losing theirs. “We knew it would be Honeysuckle's final race, and those who have adored her and Rachael Blackmore–because, let's face it, this is a dream double act–will have shared the pain of her two defeats this season, even though her mighty record now stands at 19 for 17. Honeysuckle owed us nothing, but there was a score to be settled nonetheless.
When the headstrong Love Envoi (Ire) (Westerner {GB}) looked as though she would have her freewheeling way all the way to the line, there was for a moment a feeling of resignation, that this would be okay, to see Honeysuckle finish second for the second time; an honourable swansong. But Honeysuckle herself, driven by Blackmore and responding all the way from the back of the last, had other ideas.
“She's tried to kill me for five years now,” said her trainer Henry de Bromhead, and you could see that feisty mare dig deep to give everything she had left to power up the hill for one glorious last hurrah. Four runs at the Cheltenham Festival: two Champion Hurdles, two Mares' Hurdles. What a girl.
With Blackmore still breathless after her own heroic effort, she immediately understood that this was about more than just winning a horse race.
“We all wish a very special kid could be here today, but he's watching down on us,” she said, with thoughts of Jack de Bromhead, the 13-year-old son of Honeysuckle's trainer and his wife Heather, who lost his life last September in a pony racing accident. He is officially commemorated at Cheltenham on Thursday with the running of the Jack de Bromhead Mares' Novices' Hurdle in which his father will field five of the 21 runners.
For the de Bromhead stable, Honeysuckle's work is done, but she will remain very much within the Alexander fold. The owner-breeder, who some years ago bought New Hall Stud in Ayrshire from the Thom family, has, with the help of Peter Molony, set about establishing an elite band of National Hunt broodmares. Now that colony has its queen, who will head to Scotland eventually once she is safely in foal. Molony confirmed in the winner's enclosure, lump in throat as he spoke, that Honeysuckle would return to Ireland to his Rathmore Stud initially, and that she is already booked for a first tryst with Coolmore's Walk In The Park (Ire).
Alexander added, “She's retired now and I've had an absolute blast owning her. I'm lost for words to be honest, the celebration was out of control. If you can't lose it a bit after winning a race like that though, you probably shouldn't own racehorses.
“It just shows you how great the sport is when she's getting a cheer like that. They don't love me, that's for sure. They may love Rachael, and even Henry a bit, but they really love that horse.”
As one industry stalwart put it as Honeysuckle took a final lap of honour of the Cheltenham parade ring: “What an hour of magic.”
At times, it is easy to get ground down by some of racing's woes, from major issues to petty bureaucracies. But on days like Tuesday, when the winter sun finally showed its face after weeks of brutal weather, as if to say, “Go on then, have your fun”, the fun never felt so good. From Marine Nationale (Fr) (French Navy {Ire}) in the opening Supreme Novices' Hurdle and two victories on the day for his engaging young jockey Michael O'Sullivan, to a dust-up in the last between another three of the best amateurs in the game, it was a day to remember exactly why we love this great sport. A day that belonged, equally, to Constitution Hill and Honeysuckle.
Venturing fearlessly into jumps territory this week, this correspondent would never be so bold as to offer tips or predictions for the Cheltenham Festival. There is only one safe bet to be had, and that is that Keeneland's indefatigable European representative Ed Prosser will be up with the larks to cook the finest Full English for his housemates, and at some stage over the next four days will serenade us with his inimitable version of Rhinestone Cowboy.
The Prosser baritone is certainly much easier on the ears than the newly released 'Roar-Remix'. In a rather unlikely development, the Jockey Club has gone clubbing in collaboration with someone known as DJ Cuddles. A less cool name for a DJ it is hard to imagine, but this pairing of the tweed brigade with the TikTok generation has, we are told, led to “a dance anthem like no other”.
The actual roar, which will be let out around at around 1.30pm on Tuesday as the tape pings back for the Sky Bet Supreme Novices' Hurdle, will be followed, in all probability, by victory for the first favourite of the week, who has a stronger claim to the Cheltenham winner's enclosure than most other horses. In fact, Facile Vega (Ire) (Walk In The Park {Ire}) already has one Cheltenham crown to his name thanks to his victory in last year's Weatherbys Champion Bumper. But he still has a long way to go if he is to emulate his celebrated mother, Quevega (Fr), Queen of the Mares' Hurdle.
The tiny daughter of Robin Des Champs (Fr) scampered up that hill to glory six years in a row. Yes, she was sparsely campaigned in between, but boy did she come alive at Prestbury Park. It is hard to believe that Quevega is already 19, but in Facile Vega, her second foal, she has written yet another chapter to her captivating story.
There are still a lot of boring old Doubting Thomases out there when it comes to the Mares' Hurdle but one really couldn't ask for more than what is on offer in this year's race. Honeysuckle (GB) vs. Epatante (Fr). There's a corker of a prize fight if ever there was one. The two mares have won the last three Champion Hurdles and, both now nine, are appearing at what may well be their final Festival before perusing the stallion books in a kind of equine Tinder-fest. Swipe right for Blue Bresil (Fr) or Getaway (Ger).
Before that they will of course have to do battle with last year's Close Brothers Mares' Hurdle winner Marie's Rock (Ire) (Milan {GB}). The eight-year-old is another wonder for the successful cross-code Middleham Park Racing syndicate. She went on to score at the Punchestown Festival and her only outing so far this season ended in triumph at Cheltenham on New Year's Day.
Those cribbing the expansion of the mares' National Hunt programme in Britain and Ireland have clearly never stood outside a box on a sales ground on a cold winter's day and tried to sell a filly foal. It matters that jumping fillies and mares have just as much of a clear pathway to the top as their Flat counterparts, and great work has been done on both sides of the Irish Sea in improving this situation. Yes, once they get near the top we want to see the mares mix it in open company, and the best of them have done so. Witness the fact that four of the last seven Champion Hurdles have been won by a mare, a run started by Annie Power (Ire) in 2015. But you have to scroll back to Flakey Dove (GB) in 1994 to find the last female winner before this mighty trio. Alas, we have no mare in the seven-strong Champion Hurdle this year, which surely is a coronation for the mighty Constitution Hill (GB) (Blue Bresil {Fr}).
It is an increasingly rare thing these days to see homebred runners in the major National Hunt races, which is what makes Edwardstone (GB) (Kayf Tara {GB}) a little extra special, aside from his extraordinary talent. In last year's Arkle Trophy, he provided one of the feel-good stories of the week, and was a much needed early home winner in the auld battle of England vs. Ireland, which has been so lopsided in the favour of the raiders of late. Edwardstone is currently favourite to add Wednesday's Queen Mother Champion Chase to his record and to give his small breeders, the Abrey and Thurtle families, another big day in the spotlight.
Similarly, there would be much joy attached to a win for Queens Gamble (Ire) (Getaway {Ger}) in the Weatherbys Champion Bumper, which rounds off Wednesday's card. The part the five-year-old mare has played in helping her trainer Oliver Sherwood through his tortuous battle with cancer has been well documented and she represents the brothers-in-law Alex Frost and Ed Galvin, who bred her at Galvin's Ardmulchan Stud in Ireland. Frost has of course been busying himself in recent years with rebooting and revitalising the Tote. He deserves a day off from those endeavours, and hopefully it will be one spent celebrating a special homebred winner at the track not far from his Wiltshire-based Ladyswood Stud.
It now appears to be the law of the bloodstock sales calendar that no week can pass without an auction taking place, whether online or IRL (I'm told that's what the kids say).
Those still standing by the end of Thursday's action who have no wish to spend an hour trying to exit the car park may as well stick around for what has now become a regular fixture on the boutique jumps sales calendar.
There can be no more aspirational venue for those in love with jump racing than to stage a sale in the winner's enclosure at Cheltenham. Brian Sheerin spoke to Jamie Codd last week about his twin role during the Festival as both crack amateur rider and a driving force behind the Tattersalls Ireland Cheltenham Festival Sale.
If you missed that interview, you can read it here, and in the meantime, please forgive us while our attention is temporarily diverted from all things Flat to quite a few things National Hunt over the next four days.
Five years ago this week, Katie Walsh took Relegate (Ire) from going nowhere to the Cheltenham Festival winner's enclosure when galvanising the mare to come from last to first to take the Champion Bumper in pulsating fashion.
Little did we know at the time, but that Cheltenham success was to be Walsh's last, as she bowed out on a winner at her beloved Punchestown Festival the following month.
A lot has changed in those five years since. Along with her husband Ross O'Sullivan, a prominent trainer in his own right and just about the friendliest person you could meet in any walk of life, Walsh welcomed daughter Stevie [three] and son Ted [one] into the world.
Like her own father Ted and more recently her brother Ruby, Katie has proved to be a dab hand as a broadcaster and is now a regular contributor–along with her 2010 County Hurdle hero Thousand Stars (Fr)–on RTE's television coverage of all the major festivals.
And then there are the breeze-ups. That same competitive spirit that saw Walsh win the Irish Grand National and three Cheltenham Festival races in total has been channeled into producing belters of breezers.
There was a time where Walsh hummed to a very different tune. A helter-skelter soundtrack that came to a crescendo in the second week of March for over a decade. The buzz that comes with riding a Cheltenham winner will never be replaced but new dreams abound for the 39-year-old who will swap the Cotswolds for preparing her horses for the Dubai Breeze Up Sale this week.
“It was crazy at one time,” says Walsh on a morning borrowed from the depths of winter at the family yard in Kill, County Kildare.
“When I was riding and doing the breezers, I would be riding at Cheltenham this week for example and then try and manage everything that was going on at home with the breezers.
“Or, if I was riding at Aintree, you'd be straight into the car and driving down to Newmarket to the Craven afterwards. I'm still working at the big festivals but it's different to what it was.”
She added, “Back five or six years ago, the breeze-up business at home was getting going and the whole thing was getting bigger. I came to a stage where it made sense to retire.
“Part of me wasn't ready to stop but it made sense. I wanted to have a family and it came to a choice between this or keeping on riding. And for what? Another two or three years at best? Driving all over the country to ride was great craic when you were younger. But that went.”
Katie Walsh with Relegate after winning the Champion Bumper in 2018 | Racingfotos.com
One chapter closes and another begins. Stevie, who was named after Nicks, not Wonder, and inspired Jamie Osborne to name a horse he bought off Walsh precisely that, arrived just in time for the yearling sale season in 2019. Not ideal timing you could say. But typical of Walsh, she made it all work regardless.
“I had Stevie in September and obviously missed a lot of sales that year. I went to Doncaster and then Arqana in October that year and even that was hard. Stevie is used to it now but, at the start, I did find it quite difficult to leave her. But that's the way this industry is and that's the business I am in.”
She added, “The great thing about this job is that it's seasonal. I am gone from a lot of September through to October but then I'm at home for the rest of the year. Okay, Dubai is next week, but that's only a couple of days.
“It's definitely more challenging with two small kids around. At night you find that your work is never done but I'm not the only mother in the country who is trying to organise kids and work. It can be difficult at times but I have great help and support. Mam, Dad and my sister Jennifer are brilliant.”
Concentrating fully on the breezers must be made easier when you have a track record like Walsh does. From these famous gallops, where Ted's war horses Commanche Court (Ire), Papillon (Ire), Rince Ri (Ire) and this year's Grand National contender Any Second Now (Ire) have all been trained off, Walsh has blooded her own big names.
Casper Netscher (GB) was the first to put Greenhills Farm in lights and, according to Ted, it was his sale that underpinned the success that followed.
“I'll tell ya how things turn around,” he started. “A good few years ago, we had what I thought was a nice horse and he worked well. We weren't getting enough for him at the sales so we brought him home. He ended up being a grand horse but he didn't go on and be a good horse. We'd have been as well off to have sold him.
“The following year, we had a nice horse and I said to Katie, 'unless you get a good price for him, don't sell him because he's a good horse.' She says, 'we're selling him no matter what because I'm in the business of buying and selling. I'm not keeping any of them.'
“We arrived at the sales anyway with this little bay horse that I thought was too small but who Katie liked. By God he could fly. She got 65,000gns for him. Who did he turn out to be? Casper Netscher. He won the Gimcrack, the Mill Reef and the German Guineas. He was a great little horse and while she only got 65,000gns for him, she did the right thing in selling him, as it got the word out that she was a seller.”
After Casper Netscher there was Breeders' Cup runner-up East (GB) (Frankel {GB}), G2 Richmond S. winner Asymmetric (Ire) (Showcasing {GB}) and last year Walsh broke the record for the highest price ever achieved at the Tattersalls Ireland Goresbridge Breeze-up Sale when her Saxon Warrior (Jpn) filly sold on behalf of James Hanly to Stephen Hillen for €520,000.
But for all the smiles this game generates, Walsh knows that the scowls can be just as plentiful, given the unpredictable nature of working with horses.
Walsh with her record-breaker at Tattersalls Ireland | Racingfotos.com
“I'm realistic,” she says. “I have been in this game for so long and I know the disappointments. Between horses getting injured, breezers going wrong and different things, that's just the way it is and I'm okay with that. I don't lose sleep at night over it. I understand the game and know the way things go. I've seen it my whole life with racehorses not going the right way or not working out as you hoped they would. Breezing horses is very easy compared to training them.”
She added, “I always had an interest in the breeze-ups. I just got the bug for this from the start and loved it. Okay, the next few weeks will be crazy again, but then I am at home with the kids for the summer. Ross won't be. He'll be heading off to Kilbeggan and Ballinrobe. That's why I said, training horses is much harder than doing the breeze-ups.
“There's absolutely no let up as a trainer. You need to be a certain type of person to make a trainer. Ross is a very likeable fella and has a good bunch of owners there. I'm not saying I wouldn't handle it, but I do know that I wouldn't have the same patience as other trainers. I have built up a reputation with the breeze-up horses and have a good bunch of people here and some great staff as well. I have no problem calling a spade a spade and owners either like that or they don't. If a horse isn't good enough I'll tell the owners and I wouldn't be putting cherries on top of it either.”
“I'll never come out and say that I think I've an aeroplane. That sort of talk rubs me totally up the wrong way,” – Katie Walsh
What you see is what you get with the Walshes. They don't suffer fools nor do they care too much about what other people think. It might not be everyone's cup of tea but they've gotten this far just fine and Katie is a chip off the block.
“I'll never come out and say that I think I've an aeroplane. That sort of talk rubs me totally up the wrong way. I'll never really believe it until they go and do it on the track. When you think a horse is going to breeze well and it doesn't, nine times out of 10, that horse will always let you down. But when a horse breezes better than you expected, that's the one who will always deliver for you.
“I think it's so much easier to keep expectations lower than start calling horses good before they have done anything. At the back of my mind, I might be thinking, 'this can bloody rubber,' but I'll never say it. You are on a hiding to nothing if you go telling people a horse is good until it goes and breezes well. If it clocks, well then you can say, he's after breezing like I thought he would, he's a good horse. It's only then that you can stand behind them because you know they are a good horse.”
With that in mind, it might be best to concentrate on what Walsh doesn't say about her Dubai Breeze Up Sale horses, colts by Into Mischief and Tonalist. She got well-paid for an Exceed And Excel (Aus) colt at the inaugural running of this sale 12 months ago and this year's representatives were bought specifically to go back to Dubai.
“They are very big horses so you are just giving them every chance you can. But you are not under as much pressure in Dubai because there are no clocks. The season finishes out there the following week at the Dubai World Cup meeting so that makes it easier. You want them to look the part and go up there in a nice style and, off the back of John Cullinane's Tapiture colt [Go Soldier Go] winning a Listed race at Meydan last week, he only cantered up the straight at the breeze-up. He is a fine big colt and clearly needed all that time. They are the types of horses that they seem to want over there. Obviously, you can bring a bigger, scopier horse to Arqana but you wouldn't be bringing a Craven or a Donny type of horse out to Dubai. I don't think anyone goes to the Craven with a horse for next year. The Craven is where you try to sell the Royal Ascot dream and Doncaster is the same.”
Regardless of how well this year's batch of breezers sell, nothing will come close to the days of Poker De Sivola (Fr), Thousand Stars, Relegate and Thunder And Roses (Ire), horses Walsh will forever be associated with.
“It's very hard to replace the kick you get riding winners. If you have never experienced it, you don't know what you are missing. To ride a winner, wherever that may be, that buzz is unbelievable. When that stops, you look for something to replace it. I'm not saying it's the same buzz but I do get a great kick out of the breezers. I love finding out which ones are good and bringing him to the sales and for them to behave and breeze the way they should. Regardless of their ability, I take pride in the fact that it's professional. That means a lot to me. Listen, I'd love one of those horses of my own to go and make €500,000. That's the dream and who knows? Maybe some day it will happen.
She added, “I always hoped and envisioned that it would grow to be as big as it is. I hope it gets bigger. I'd like more horses of my own. This week revolved around Cheltenham for a long time. I was lucky enough to be riding as an amateur for Willie [Mullins] and the whole thing snowballed from there really.
“Every year, it was all about Cheltenham and trying to get a ride in the bumper and the amateur races over there. I was lucky enough to ride a few winners there, I'd great luck, but now it's different and things change. It's the same for Ruby, who's flat to the boards now with ITV and Racing TV, so it's been a big change for us all over the past few years.”
For all of the change the Walshes have seen in recent times, the results Katie has achieved through her Greenhills Farm operation remains a constant.
