Matthew Smith

We have always thought a lot of Warnaq and her win at Navan on Sunday was her fourth in 12 months. She won her three year old maiden at the end of the Flat season last year. She won twice on the Flat this season and then over hurdles on Sunday so she’s been a good servant.

She is as hardy a filly as I’ve ever come across. She has had 15 runs now since making her debut in September 2017 and as well as those four wins, she has been in the first four eight more times. She’s a tough little filly and consistent.

And she does it the hard way too. We tried riding her differently in Fairyhouse when she finished fourth so we just decided that as she likes to get on with it, why complicate it with her? And that worked in Navan.

My father, Kevin, bought her as a yearling at the sales. We took our time with her, maybe a bit too much to hold her until September of her three-year-old career. She was showing plenty but we just wanted to wait and it’s so far, so good.

We were very lucky to have a horse like Rawnaq when I started out training. He brought us to Cheltenham twice, when he was third in the Greatwood Hurdle and third again at the Festival itself, and won the Grade 2 Flyingbolt Chase. That’s why when my father was naming Warnaq, he just took the first three letters of Rawnaq and turned them around. She’s a good replacement but she’s a lot to do to match him.

Rawnaq did great when we sold him to America. He won the American Grand National when Ruby Walsh rode him and won the Iroquois Hurdle as well but he got injured then and is retired now. As a trainer, you’d love to keep them but the realities are if you’ve a good one and you get the right money offered, you have to let them go — unless of course the new owner wants to leave them with you.

It was great to have a horse like Rawnaq starting off as there was a lot of publicity around him and we got a few horses as a result of that. We have about 14 or 15 in at the minute. We’re trying to expand and are open to taking more horses in. It’s not easy in the current environment but I’ve a few more this year than I had last year and the fact we keep going on the Flat too is a help.

The introduction of the auction series for hurdlers has been very welcome. I won one of them at Fairyhouse last January with a horse called Maeve’s Choice, who was bought for three and a half thousand in Tattersalls’ August Sale. I think they could do with bringing them in for the bumpers too.

The family is very much involved in the operation. My father was always involved in owning racehorses so we went racing a lot. I would have done a bit of hunting growing up as well but we weren’t a part of racing really.

I actually worked in construction for a good few years after I finished school. When that went belly up I started going down the road of doing horses. I had done a little with Robbie Hennessy, John Carr and Michael Mulvany for a while and learned a bit there but the steepest learning curve was when I went on my own in 2012.

My father seems to be lucky enough buying horses, he has a good eye. He bought Jackmel the same time as Warnaq and he won in Dundalk recently. He bought Gretzky and Rawnaq at the same sale and Gretzky won five for us at Dundalk. And they were all bought for small money.

My brother, Kevin Jnr is an important part of the team. He was a conditional jockey for a while but is riding as an amateur now. It’s so important to have a good rider in the yard. My son James is 12, going on 13, and he is a great help in the yard as well and with riding out.

As for Warnaq, she came out of the race very well. The handicapper put her up nine pounds to 112, but going on her Flat mark and the ability, you’d be hoping there’s a few more wins in her. She has improved, she keeps improving and it was great to get off the mark over hurdles.

She’s the type you can give 10 days off to and she retains her fitness, so that’s probably why she has been able to run so many races. And we did give her a bit of a break during the summer as well.

As I said earlier, we’ve always thought a lot of her. We contemplated going to France for a listed mile race at Saint-Cloud last Friday. We were going to go but just in the last piece of work, she didn’t work a 100 per cent like she usually can. So we said we’d give it a miss and it was nice to win in Navan instead.

She’s very good on heavy ground, especially on the Flat. I don’t know about really winter heavy ground — she’s no problem going through it but I don’t know if she was staying two miles on it last winter but at the same time, she was only learning about jumps at that stage.

I’ll be very surprised if she doesn’t get black type somewhere along the line and she’ll jump fences as well. She has schooled well over them and looks like being a real all-rounder who will have plenty of options as a result.

She’s versatile trip-wise as well. On the Flat she won her maiden over a mile and a half, dropped back to a mile and won in Navan and then won over a mile two in Naas. She’s versatile enough ground-wise too, as long it’s not too quick.

We might run her over hurdles at Christmas but the big target would be something early in the Flat season when they start back and the ground isn’t too quick. It’s great to be able to dream.