Brian Mortell

I’m based in Ballyneety which is about six miles south of Limerick and I grew up in a housing estate in the city. There was a riding school behind the estate and when I was seven my mother paid for an hour-long lesson so that was how I got started with horses.

Myself and a few pals used to go to the race meetings at the old Limerick racecourse at Greenpark and we’d sit up on the wall beside the stable yard. In those days trainers were often short-staffed and if they were stuck they would ask us to lead up their runners. We were delighted to get the chance. Some lads would go over to the far side of the track and if there were fallers they’d try to catch them and, if they could, lead them or even hack them back to the enclosures. They were very different times compared to what the story is nowadays where you have to wear helmets and back protectors all the time when riding out at home.

I led up a horse one day at Greenpark and a trainer based in Kildare offered me a job at his yard. That didn’t work out but I soon got a job in Francis Flood’s yard and I spent a couple of years there as a teenager which I loved. This would have been around the mid-seventies and it was one of the top yards in the country at the time and so many successful jockeys started off there. Frank Berry and Gerry Newman were there at the time and Frank was a great help to me with my riding. I later worked for Mouse Morris and also for ‘Boots’ Madden’s brother Philip who was based closer to home.

I had a bit of success in point-to-points and also rode a winner in a bumper and over hurdles as well as in an amateur riders’ race at the Curragh. In all I probably had around 200 rides over five or six years. One day I was riding a mare down to the first in a hurdle race at Limerick and the red light started flickering as I approached the flight. I knew there and then that would be my last ride. I ended up getting a fall from her later in the race. A mate of mine in the weighroom had always been at me to give him my saddle when I packed up. I marched straight in and said “here you go”, handed him my saddle and that was the end of my race riding days.

My father was originally a fishmonger and then had opened a restaurant in the city. I had already been combining my riding with working in the restaurant so I then started to work full-time in catering. Eventually I took over the running of the restaurant which, between my father’s time and mine, traded successfully for 62 years in all before I made the decision to close it last year. I didn’t really want the task of building the business back up again after the pandemic and I’m still very much still involved in catering for weddings, parties and all sorts of events.

I don’t have any regrets about that decision and I absolutely love training my few horses. It’s like a new lease of life for me. I had trained a few winners in point-to-points and got my restricted licence last year. I have four in at the moment with orders to get a couple more. I like to buy a handy-sized horse, around 16 hands, the ones that nobody wants but something with a nice pedigree and a good step on him. The bigger types might catch the eye but they’re so hard to keep sound.

I ride them out myself although I don’t school them. Eugene O’Sullivan is a good friend and his son Michael sometimes schools one for me and Aengus King is another local trainer who helps me. Emma Fitzgerald comes into the yard a few days a week as well. She’s on a career break from her job in the city and loves working with the horses and is a great help to me.

It was some thrill to get my first winner under rules when Three Loud Knocks won at Clonmel earlier in the month. I had twenty quid each-way on him, I’m too mean to put any more than that on a horse, but my son was in a racing pub in Limerick the night before and I think the whole place backed him! Having bought him, broken him and ridden him out every day, it was just a very gratifying feeling to see him come home in front. His owner Bill Hanly and I go back a long way. He was a guest at my wedding and all the owners I have are friends.

Daicheadacuig is owned by a group of friends who I meet up with in ‘Souths Bar’ most weekends. We have a few drinks, a few bets on the racing and then we have a game of Fortyfive which always ends up in a row. Then we go back and do it all again a week later! He’s a horse that won a hurdle race at Kilbeggan last summer when trained by the late Andrew McNamara, who was a marvellous character and is gone too soon, and even though he didn’t fire at Thurles last week I’d be hopeful that he can win a race or two over fences in due course. If he manages to do so, it should keep the lads in 'Souths' happy for a while anyway!