'The race has been great for us' - Intense Raffles could defend his title at Fairyhouse

By irishracing.com news

Trainer Thomas Gibney boasts an excellent record in the Irish Grand National, having landed the big prize in 2012 with Lion Na Bearnai and in 2024 with Intense Raffles.

Speaking ahead of the 2025 renewal of the €500,000 Fairyhouse showcase event, Gibney provides information about how Intense Raffles has come out of his Aintree Grand National run and the likelihood of him taking his chances on Easter Monday.

The County Meath-based trainer describes what it is like to train for Simon Munir & Isaac Souede, and why more big owners should send horses to smaller stables.

Get €60 to spend with BoyleSports at Fairyhouse and check out the current Irish Grand National betting odds.

Intense Raffles is okay after the Grand National, though his run at Aintree was a disaster from the beginning

He is okay. He was a bit stiff and sore on Sunday after the Grand National, but he's fine now. There's nothing bothering him.

It was a disaster from the off. When the flag went up, he shied away from the tape. His head went up and he stepped back. The other runners were gone. We were at the back of the field going to the first fence and from there it just all went wrong.

There was that feeling of despair. After about the third fence, I knew we had no chance.

The Irish Grand National is on his agenda if the horse is feeling well at home

I don't know, we'll just see how he is right up to the time and make our mind up there.

It is all about the recovery. It’s very difficult when you build up for one big day, then another, and another especially over such a long period of time.

It's not just us that gets deflated; the horses feel it as well. He was quite upset and wound up after the race. When they don't get to produce what they can or do well for whatever reason some horses anyway feel it. He does.

The travelling over and back there has also taken a little bit out of them. So, there's a lot of stuff involved.

It's just how quickly he bounces back and recovers physically and mentally himself. It could be a few days or could be a few weeks.

It's just to ride him back out, take him out for a few days, exercise him for a few days, and if he's really well in himself and bursting at the seams, you know, and that's him telling us, yeah, we'll run. If we don't see that, we just won't.

Simon [Munir, part-owner] said to me that there's no pressure. That's one of the reasons why they're great to deal with because there's no pressure from him to run. If the horse is up first, we will, and if he's not, we won't.

The Irish Grand National has been great to us, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world to miss the race with Intense Raffles

The race has been great for us, it's been fantastic.

But I wouldn't mind missing it with him; I wouldn't want to go there with him unless I thought he was absolutely firing on all cylinders. So, if we miss it with him, we miss it. I have another horse entered in it who I'd love to get into it as well. Kinturk Kalanisi, who might scrape in.

He has a good profile for the race, but he'd be at the bottom of the handicap so he's a bit out of it at the moment. It'd be touch and go whether he gets in or not.

From our own point of view in a small yard, you'd love to have horses good enough to compete in some of these races. To get into them and compete in them is great and if we collect or feature, all the better.

As far as more business or a financial change or anything, that didn't really happen.

Our two Irish Grand National wins were completely different, but it was great to reward Simon Munir and Isaac Souede for their faith in me

Honestly, I couldn't say for the simple reason that they were so different for such different reasons as well

The first one was like a fairytale really, because literally, I think I had six horses on the go at the time.

We'd have a couple of winners a year and a couple of horses that were good enough to win a race, any race! So, to go from there to winning the biggest handicap in the country was really one extreme to the other. So that was surreal.

Where the second time it wasn't really. Having Simon Munir and Isaac Soeude on board was a big deal in itself and it was great. The fact that it was a good horse in Intense Raffles, and it was working out really well, meant that it all just fell into place really nicely.

We went there expecting things; we'd have been really disappointed coming home if we weren't there or thereabouts last year. He had shown a level of ability, we knew he was well capable.

Intense Raffles did very well in France when he started out, but just lost his way a little bit when he went chasing over there.

It was a big call from Simon and it was great for us; it was great to be able to repay that faith and hopefully we can keep doing that, once we recover from the deflation of last Saturday.

It's fantastic to deal with. They're brilliant, I have to say. They're a real pleasure to train for.

We have a few others with them; I think we've four of them at the moment.

Our horses seem to like Fairyhouse, and we’re not the only yard that has lucky tracks

I don't know about the secret or doing well there itself, to be honest. It's been a lucky track for us actually. I have to say very lucky, not just the two Nationals.

With certain trainers, you see their horses always perform particularly well at certain tracks for some strange reason. That definitely is the thing for us and Fairyhouse. It would absolutely be at the top of our pile. Our horses just seem to run well there for whatever reason that is. I actually can't tell you why, but it just obviously suits the way we do things

Quietly, I suppose, would be the one word to describe how we kind of do things. Quietly sums it up.

No shouting or bawling or no sticks, just get out there and get into a nice rhythm.

The horses enjoy that, they enjoy that kind of peace and the softer approach. Maybe that's the way to describe it.

The no-sticks policy absolutely encourages trust between horse and rider.

Probably my father [is my mentor]. I grew up on a farm and we always had a couple of horses around the place. He taught me and my younger brother, Edmond, who competed for Ireland at the Olympics in 2004. The three-day event was the discipline he went for, and I went for the racing. So I'd say it's mostly down to my father. We’re both happy with the decisions we took.

Willie Mullins is on a completely different level, and the gap is only getting wider

We can believe it all right because we're living in it and have been looking at it for, I don't know how many years now. It is incredible. Sure, he's the one we've been aspiring to be for years over here.

The level he's at seems to be a completely different one to everybody else.

He has been all the time and it's even wider, the gap is getting wider by the looks of things.

You see what it meant to him with Patrick winning. That said it all.

Training horses is such a competitive, and expensive, game, but richer owners should give a chance to smaller yards

It's that overall trend of, you know, wealthy, powerful men who have got involved in jump racing over the last number of years.

Most of them seem to go to, you know, three or four big yards.

But there are many very, very talented trainers - smaller trainers - in this country. I know that first-hand from competing against them.

I suppose that goes back to why it was such a big call for Simon and Isaac to send me a horse and what it meant because they went against the trend of doing that, you know.

You absolutely take your hat off to Isaac and Simon.

In fairness to Willie and company, it cannot be easy trying to deal with and having all those big outfits in-house. That has to be difficult, I'm sure, and it brings its own problems.

But I'm sure lots of people would like to see it more spread out.

There are a lot of good trainers around the country who are very good at what they do.

But the marketplace is so competitive, and the horses have got so expensive. So, if you don't have somebody very wealthy to go and buy them, you're not going to be able to compete.

As Noel Meade said to me a long time ago when I worked for him, ‘If you can't compete in the sales ring, you can't compete on the racetrack.’

I don't know if the stats would tell that story or not. But if you equate the price of a horse with what somebody achieves with it, that might be a more genuine reflection of what they've done or achieved, rather than just opening the paper and seeing, ‘Oh, he had that many winners.’

Look and see who can get the best out of the horses they have; even if they're not winning, are they running well or what?

Like any industry, you would think, you know, monopolizing any industry, there's nothing good about that, is there?

Willie Mullins has an amazing team around him, and he’s got the ammunition to win another British trainers’ title

I think he's 1-4 to do it at the moment. I'd say it's far more likely that he'll do it than he won't do it.

He's got the ammunition. He’s not the only one training a massive number of horses, you know.

Those other guys we mentioned - Henry De Bromhead, Gordon Elliott and Gavin Cromwell - also have massive yards. When I started in racing, 60-70 horses was a huge stable. Now men are training over 200. I can scarcely believe it myself.

Apart from the fact that he's a genius himself, he has put together an unbelievable team, with David Casey, Ruby Walsh, all the Mullins’ and the other people involved. It’s an amazing team that he’s created.

As long as I can balance the books and make a living I'll keep doing it.

The price of everything has gone through the roof. It's very difficult. Very difficult.

Who knows what way it's going to go? I try not to think too far into the future because you just have to put your head down and plough on.

The prize money across the board is not good enough, and that is the thing that needs to change in horse racing

The prize money is, without a shadow of a doubt, not enough. That's an issue for sure that needs to be addressed. I don’t just mean big races, I mean across the board, the prize money should be doubled. That’s what I think. But it's not going to happen.

I don't know if they can conceive of a way to keep more money in racing, you know.

I'm not a politician or much of a businessman even at that, but the sums don't add up really.

I have three kids, and if my eldest, Katie, wants to join in with the training, I wouldn’t put her off

We're probably always more of a jumping stable really. But we’ve won a couple of decent handicaps on the Flat.

It's really what we have at the time. We kind of were busy enough with Flat horses the last couple of seasons. This season we’ll have very few.

I just like to think that we get the best out of whatever we have, be it a Flat horse or a jumps horse.

Over here, it would be far more the norm for most small trainers in Ireland to do both codes.

I know in England it's either you’re one or the other, but not over here; it's like most trainers in Ireland would do both.

I've three kids. My eldest Katie is the only one that was really into the horses like myself. She’s in college at UCD. So, I could see her drifting back to the horses at some point. Rosie has no interest, but James, our youngest fella, is only 11, so you never know.

Do you know what, if that's what Katie wants to do [help with the training], I wouldn't put her off.

Patrick is great and comes across very well. He’s a massive part of that. So, you often see that where kids come along and raise the game for a family.