Philip Rothwell We have been on a nice little run in recent weeks, through the end of November and the start of December, and it is very welcome indeed to be on seven winners already for the season, having only managed two last term. It is six years since we recorded more than that, registering 17 in 2013-2014, so it is great. Fiveaftermidnight has scored twice and had his efforts supplemented by Enduring Love, Wolfofallstreets, Costalita, Shanklys Dawn and Our Brian. Given that we are only half-way through the season, you would have to be hopeful of improving on that tally before the campaign is concluded. The big difference between this year and last year is we got rain. Last winter was very hard to run horses. This summer the ground was very hard. I really think that jumps racing suffered badly in the previous 18 months. It has been nice to see the good horses out again, and the National Hunt racing is really enjoyable again. We were in Navan last Sunday. I had a runner in a handicap chase. But just to be there to see the Grade 1 horses running, I really enjoyed it. I think the quality of racing in this country at the moment is second to none. At least we have a surface to run them on this year that is not going to damage them. There should have been more watering last year. I also think that the tracks down the west of Ireland should have been used. I cannot understand how Galway and Ballinrobe could not have had a winter race meeting last year. HRI told me that they couldn’t be used because the fences had been put away but for €60,000 (media rights moneys) they could nearly take the fences back out again. They were able to take the fences out in Galway for Pat Kelly to school Presenting Percy around before the Gold Cup but HRI told me they couldn’t put on a two-day race meeting when they had soft ground and the rest of the country was hard, because the fences had been put away and it was a summer track, not to be used at winter. You could have had five Grade 1s, sponsorship would have been easy and the whole of Ireland would have been there to watch the good horses. Instead, you a lot of good horses didn’t run at Leopardstown for the Dublin Racing Festival and those that did, didn’t do anything for the rest of the season. It must be said that racecourse management has improved the facilities at tracks significantly, especially for owners. National Hunt racing in general in the country has got a huge facelift and it is really, really positive. But I think it needs some drive to push it on a bit more. We have 40 in training and we keep a few breakers as well, so that’s the guts of 50 in the stables. I am very lucky that I built up a core bunch of owners from day one. And I would like to think that they are not just owners, they are very good friends now. They are very much part of our lives now and our family’s lives. That core bunch of people kept us going. But it is very hard to compete because we are competing at the bargain basement level. There is still a lot of opportunity in Ireland in handicaps. The only thing I would say is that I was a little bit aggrieved by what happened when Wolfofallstreets won for very good supporters of mine, the Hogans, in Thurles. He went up 12 pounds for winning a 0-95 handicap hurdle to get a mark of 96 which ruled him out of another run at that bracket. For an owner who has put in two seasons with that horse, who was well exposed, it was tough. I might be proven wrong and I would love to be but he will find it hard now and it always takes longer to come back down. You never see one dropped 12 pounds. It doesn’t do a lot to keep owners in the game that don’t have millions to invest and for who winning a 0-95 handicap is brilliant. This is not a dig at the handicappers. They are not treating me any different to anyone else and I think they are very fair people. I get on well with them and like them. It is just how it is done but when you’re coming down slower than you went up, and for a lot more races, the economics of it takes a lot of the fun out of it for owners and it’s hard on the horses too. People probably think I am older than I am but I was very young starting off. I am 41 now and have had a licence 20 years. My dad is a dairy farmer but I grew up on ponies and from day one I loved racing. I got off to an extremely good start and had 29 winners in my third season. Experimental, Black Apalachi and Amorini were good horses for me early on. Native Jack provided us with a Cheltenham winner in the Cross-Country Chase in 2006, when Davy Russell was on board. I bought Native Jack for €20,000 and we backed him from 33-1 to 6-4 in Cheltenham so it was a great win. I never thought it would take me as long to get back to have a Cheltenham Festival winner again. I had five or six runners around that time and every one of them was in the shake-up. Things were going really, really well. But everything turned around. Every year we are still training a few winners and keeping the thing going. But what it boils down to is quality and quality generally comes with budget. That isn’t a complaint. It’s just the way it is. I am not afraid of working hard. When I started training horses I had to get down and dirty and fight to get everything I had because I had no background in racing. Things have never changed. I appear at every race meeting myself. I drive the box everywhere myself and I always have done. I do my office myself. And I am in the yard seven days a week. Other than that, I wouldn’t still be able to have a trainers’ licence. For the amount of work you put in it is definitely not hugely financially rewarding. But I really, really love it. I love the people involved in jumps racing. I love the horses more than anything. I have looked at diversifying over the years. But will I ever not have a horse in training? I love it too much not to. Everybody wants runners at Christmas so sometimes you can have a look at the week or two after Christmas. There are certain races we target every year, if we have horses for them. I will have maybe 12 to 15 runners between St Stephen’s Day and New Year’s Day and five or six horses I am really looking forward to running. I flu vaccinated my horses two weeks ago and I thought Enduring Love ran a little bit flat in Navan last week. I think freshened up he can definitely run a better race early in the New Year, wherever he goes, he will be a very good each-way price. And Mc Alpine, ran a very good race in his first handicap in Cheltenham last month. He came back to Limerick two weeks later and it just came that little bit too soon for him. If we can have him freshened well for Leopardstown over Christmas he will put up a bold show. But the best is to come really for us, in the sense that I have two very good three-year-olds to run as four-year-olds later in the year. For a small yard, it’s great to be able to keep turning up a few winners and it would be brilliant to turn up a good horse again. That’s the dream and though it isn’t easy, I love it.
