Martin Hassett Yesterday’s double at Clonmel was some thrill. We had one before, with The Conditional and Mary Frances at Thurles in March 2018 but for small operators like us, any time you have a winner is a big deal. Mary Frances brought up the double again this time, after No Grey Area’s got us off the mark a half-hour earlier. We roared the two of them home, I can tell you. I say ‘we’ because my name is on the licence but this is a family-run operation in Killenaule and it’s all down to everyone. We have two Michaels — my brother and my nephew — my son Jack, my daughter Megan and my wife Deirdre. My brother rides out Mary Frances. He was 63 on Wednesday but he is a great horseman who worked for 15 years for Vincent O’Brien and rode El Gran Senor, Golden Fleece and Royal Academy. He’d nearly marry Mary Frances now at this stage! The younger Michael is in Ballydoyle now with Aidan O’Brien and is great to have as well. We have about 12 horses in at the moment. A couple of the flat horses are just finishing up for the year, we have a couple of point-to-pointers and one or two younger horses. We’re a small operation and I can tell you we get very excited when we’re in with a chance. But it means that much to us, and you have a lot of days when you’re not involved, so I don’t know why you wouldn’t enjoy it when it’s going well. You would love to keep the good horses but at the scale we are, we have to sell one horse every year so that we can keep doing them, keep it afloat. The Conditional is paying for our operation right now. We always liked him and David Bridgwater spotted the potential even though I think we were a bit unlucky with him. He finished fourth in the Leinster National two years ago and if the ground had been softer, I think he would have won. It was very dry that year and I was tearing my hair out. We got a good price though and we got a great kick out of seeing him go on and win twice at Cheltenham, including in the festival, and finish placed in the Ladbrokes Chase two years in a row as well. David is a lovely man. He sends WhatsApp photos and things like that, as if we were still part-owners. You’d love to sell him another one as good as the last one. We were talking about No Grey Area’s last year but I genuinely think he’s a serious horse and I felt we could do more with him to get a better price. He was just very free in his races. Then the last day, we got him beaten as I told Pa King to drop him on the line. He came in after and was kicking himself, saying he left it too late, but he was only doing what he had been told. It was great that he switched off in front this time but when anything came to him he switched on again and went away from them. I think he could be very good. Hopefully he’ll come out again in two or three weeks’ time. Everyone loves Mary Frances. She’s an exceptional animal because she’s tiny. When you’d be walking her around the ring you’d be half embarrassed! After she was born her owner-breeder John O’Mahony used to have her in a field off the road so no-one would see her, she was that small. Maybe I’m a bit too sentimental, but when you go out in the morning, you know she is going to give 110 per cent. Rachael Blackmore will never get ride of the month because she won by 45 lengths but I thought it was a very intelligent ride. She had a good chat with Sean Flanagan, who usually rides Mary, and that helped but she used her brain when Burrows Saint when ahead and didn’t go chasing. The key was not to put Mary out of her comfort zone. She’s a great rider. We’re near neighbours. It’s funny, I get my feed from Rachael’s father Charles and I remember him telling me, ‘Rachael is thinking of going professional.’ And I said, ‘Is she crazy?’ Shows what I know! We will have to see what the handicapper does now. You can’t take too literal a view on it because obviously Burrows Saint fell in a hole. I’d love to get a bit of black type into her. She’s already valuable for John (O'Mahony owner/breeder) but I’m going to get a foal so that black type would be great for us all! I’d say this could be her last year and she’ll go to the breeding shed next year. She has been great for everyone involved. She just loves Clonmel because the finish is like our gallop at home. It’s rising all the time and she just keeps going. And she loves that deep ground. Hopefully she gets it if we go for the Galmoy but you’re taking on a different class of horse there. It would be great if she gets bottomless ground though because she just keeps going on it. I work with the mares at Coolmore before they go to the foaling units. We’re do the weanlings then for the sales in the off-season. I have been there 30 years and my brother Michael is there now too. They are very good to me when it comes to taking a day to go racing or anything like that. That is my full-time job so we do all our work with the horses at home very early, at 5.30am. We have everything we need at home including the gallop and schooling arena that we can do everything there and we don’t have to take them away. That’s a great help. We put in lights and the horses don’t flinch, not even the younger ones. We used to have to go by if we could see the top of the gallop with the full moon, and that gave us the idea. It didn’t cost an arm and a leg. We just have the lights on the trees and it has made a huge difference. We have done well with inexpensive horses over the years that we have sold on and won races. The Conditional only cost €9,000. Ms Parfois cost €4,200. No Grey Area’s was bought for €10,000. That’s the way we operate and that’s the way we’ll keep doing it. And when you have days like yesterday, you just can’t beat it.
