Paul Sweeney I'm from Letterkenny, Co Donegal and my first association with horses was through pony racing or flapping. That brings all the young jockeys together and you can see the future racecourse jockeys. Donegal is on top form at the minute with jockeys! The likes of Dylan Browne McMonagle, Patrick McGettigan, Oisin and Conor Orr, Luke McAteer and Martin Harley - they are all top-class jockeys, and they are all making a real name for themselves. I trained a few flappers myself and won plenty of races. We never had the facilities that we have now, we were dodging into other people's fields! We also went to the beach the odd day. I thought there was nothing like the flapping, I really enjoyed it. You were heading away to different towns and meeting different people. You made friends all over Ireland. I was probably involved in it for 30 years. I had a very good pony called Sing Sing. He was a 14.2hh and we went to Dingle with him and he won three years in a row there. I then bought a horse under rules, Happy Anniversary (five-time winner in Ireland), that I put with Dick Donohoe. From that, we struck up an association. Any money I got from winning races, I reinvested it back into the racing. Nearly every horse that I had with Dick won. I have my own farm with beef cattle and I decided, with having all that land here, that I would start and make use of it. I put a gallop in and took out my training licence. My first winner was Ransom on Guineas weekend at the Curragh in May last year. That was a fabulous day. It was the very last race, and it was some experience to win on Guineas weekend. I still have him and he will be running in Dundalk again soon. He's a nice horse, but hard enough to train. A month later we won the Apprentice Derby at the Curragh with Pillar Of Hope. We had nowhere to stay that night and after the race we got into Kilbeggan and had a few Guinness zeros that night! It was a fair achievement winning on Guineas weekend and Derby weekend. Those are definitely the biggest days in my career; they won't be matched. Luke McAteer was on Ransom and Patrick McGettigan was on Pillar Of Hope. I like to support those Donegal jockeys. I remember I gave Dylan Browne McMonagle his first racecourse ride in Gowran Park (September 2019) with a horse I owned called Harvey Specter who was trained by Dick Donohoe. It is amazing how far he has come from a young age to being nearly the main man in Europe. The horses are going well now; they have turned the corner. The summer was too hot for the horses, and they were losing their coats. It is only since the change in the weather and the work I've done on the gallop that everything started to fire. The new gallop is making the horses hardier. The field that I have is a flat field on top of a hill, it is 14/15 acres. We dug it out and put in 9-inch piping around it, 12 inches of stone, membrane top and bottom, and then there's 18 inches of Wexford Sand. It was a long haul getting the sand up. The circle gallop is two and a half furlongs and there is 400/500 metres of a nice walk up to it. We got it all completed in March/April time. The horse we saw a big improvement in was Autocrat. Even when he was out of the prize money, he was only being beaten by 5-6 lengths. You could see the improvement each time he was running, he was getting harder and tougher. The horses love the new gallop and once a week we go to the beach to work in the water with them. We either use Rathmullan or Downings which is nearly two miles long. I have my own ice bath/spa for the horses as well. Any money that I'm getting, I'm reinvesting back in again. We are situated half a mile away from the Donegal GAA Centre of Excellence on the Convoy/Drumkeen road. I have nine of my own horses at the minute just to show that I am capable of training horses. I'm open to new owners and horses as there's 30 boxes here. If I could get the boxes filled, I would love that. It would be lovely to see 30 horses walking up that hill to the gallop. We do have to travel to the races, and you do have to get up early in the morning to get the other horses done, but I'm making it work. I have a good team - Johnny Holian rides out for me, Tommy McGettigan is another Donegal trainer and he helps out, Amy Stirling rides out for us along with Brody Ferry, while Jim Black is my farm manager and does all the feeding. Without all of them, it wouldn't work. I also have a retail shop/forecourt business. It is all team-work, I'm only the head honcho! It is all about winners and the horses running well. If they are in the firing line, that's all I want. I want them running to their marks. As long as the horses run well, you get the feel-good factor. Pillar Of Hope goes in a premier handicap at Leopardstown on Sunday. It would be some achievement to win three on the bounce with him off his all-time-high mark (89). He came out of the race (in Roscommon) very well. I think he should be in the firing line because he is in the form of his life. He is in a very good place at the minute. Paul was in conversation with Michael Graham. If you would like to see your racing story covered in this blog, please email vfinegan@bettercollective.com About Michael Graham Michael has worked in horse racing journalism for more than 15 years, having also written a weekly betting column on Gaelic football and hurling for a newspaper. He is involved in writing the My Racing Story features on this website. He spent a year in South Africa completing a Diploma in Business Administration and also studied Newspaper Journalism in Belfast. He enjoys playing 5-a-side football on a regular basis. View Latest Articles by Michael Graham
