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Brook House Monasterevin Kildare
By Enda McElhinney
He is largely focused on the Flat, but Cotter has sent out winners over jumps too.
Aside from training horses for the racecourse, Cotter is a keen breeder and his highest-profile success to date in that sphere would be Nick Rockett, winner of the 2025 Aintree Grand National for Willie Mullins.
Cotter has been involved with horses virtually all his life but the fortunes of the yard have taken a notable upswing in recent years.
Cotter has been in the Irish ranks for a quarter of a century, but only in recent years has his team started to expand.
From averaging around 10 runners a year from 2000 to 2017, Cotter started to expand his operation thereafter, though the Pandemic put a short block on that expansion.
He added lifelong friend Danny Murphy to the ranks at his Portarlington base in September 2018 and that was viewed as a contributor to his growth before Murphy went solo.
Cotter's father had horses in training with Andy Geraghty on the Curragh and he cites his best childhood memories as the trips to see them working. From there, the seed of becoming involved in racing was sown.
His father also bred horses and trained the filly Shindella to finish third in the Windsor Castle Stakes at Royal Ascot.
He moved to England at 21 and pursued a career as a work rider for a spell, though he admits it was with limited success.
His father's facilities at home were a pull towards Ireland and so he moved home and had a small team of horses while working simultaneously in the booming construction industry in the early 2000s.
At that time he married and bought a farm at Clonanny, where he purpose-built his own stables and gallops.
When the 2008 financial crash hit, he decided the time was right to focus further on training, as his facilities were in place.
Cotter's wife, Deirdre, along with his sons Matthew and Nicholas and daughters Mary and Grainne, are all heavily involved in the family business.
The yard is at the back of their house and it is just a short distance from there to the purpose-built track that is located on land adjacent to Deirdre's parents' farm.
Strong Johnson was one of the standout performers for Cotter as his stock rose. The Navan maiden winner went on to land successive Curragh wins in the summer of 2020, including the Rockingham Handicap over 5f in the hands of top jockey Colin Keane.
He later moved on to a succession of trainers, picking up six more wins.
More recently, his 2025 victors include the likes of On A Session, Martinelli, Koniag and Gerrit's Gem as his pursuit of a stable star continues.
