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Carriagh Rathowen Co Westmeath
Adrian Murray is based at Carriagh in Rathowen, Co Westmeath, and has grown his operation from being a hobby-trainer taking on the biggest and best in the business as one of the flagship handlers for the Amo Racing team in Ireland.
Murray was always interested and involved with horses. He traded some show jumpers as a hobby and was involved in the running of his local point-to-point meeting but it was in 2007 that a friend asked him to train a point-to-pointer and, the following year, the horse bagged a race at Kilbeggan.
Over the following decade, Murray kept up his interest and sent out a few winners, all over jumps.
Then in 2016 he came into contact with the ambitious Robson Aguiar, a Brazilian jockey who had arrived in Ireland hoping to make his name.
Aguiar would branch into the bloodstock world and he came to the attention of Kia Joorabchian, the Amo Racing powerbroker, for whom he soon started to buy horses.
Lots of those acquisitions were sent to Murray, who soon installed Aguiar as his assistant trainer.
The cattle farmer with an interest in horses was now training Group-class runners on the Flat and would soon be mixing it with the likes of Aidan O'Brien and Ger Lyons, while finding himself at Royal Ascot.
Bucanero Fuerte was perhaps the horse that really sent Murray's name around the racing world. The Wootton Basset colt won a maiden at the Curragh in March 2023 and ran third in the Coventry Stakes at Royal Ascot on only his second start.
He won the Group 2 Railway Stakes back at the Curragh a couple of weeks later and then gave his trainer a first Group 1 success in the Phoenix Stakes with an impressive four-length victory in the 6f contest in August 2023.
Before Bucanero Fuerte there was Valiant Force. He ran in a couple of decent 2YO races at the Curragh in May 2023 and showed some ability, but he remained a maiden and was a 150/1 shot lining up in the Norfolk Stakes at Royal Ascot that June.
Rossa Ryan's partner was handy throughout and picked up well to score from 66/1 chance Malc with favourite Elite Status only third. Valiant Force's only wins since have come at Dundalk over a variety of trips and the most recent of those came in February 2026, now running under the training banner of Robson Aguiar.
Before emerging as Amo Racing's number one trainer in Ireland in 2022, Murray dealt primarily with jumps horses at his Westmeath stable, averaging just three to four winners a season.
Joorabchian ? a very wealthy football agent who wanted success on the racecourse ? enlisted his help alongside Aguiar's growing knowledge of the bloodstock world and Amo Racing was soon thriving.
Valiant Force gave the combination a remarkable success in the Norfolk Stakes at Royal Ascot in 2023 when he defied odds of 150/1 to win.
The big moments have been plentiful and while Aguiar gained his own training licence in late 2025, Joorabchian was keen to stress that Murray would remain a 'big part' of Amo Racing's Irish team going forward.
In early 2022, Murray was ready to give up on training horses, tired of the headaches and seemingly never-ending obstacles to success. Aguiar talked him out of it, suggesting big things were coming.
That year Murray saddled more winners than ever before and, in 2023, Valiant Force provided that first-ever group triumph in the Norfolk Stakes at Royal Ascot and Bucanero Fuerte shattered the Group 1 ceiling.
