Nolan taking the hurdles in his stride
WEXFORD trainer Paul Nolan is a disarmingly honest character, one for whom the truth is the truth and there’s no two ways about it. He’s the first to concede that when he got into the game he knew little or nothing about horses, but it is left unsaid that he is obviously a very fast learner and, with two Galway Hurdles under his belt and a second favourite for the Champion Hurdle in his yard, the evidence could not be more concrete.
“I have my licence for nine years now,” he says, “but the reason I got into the business in the first place was because I was a failed farmer. We’d been doing dry stock, cattle and sheep and tillage with a bit of barley and wheat and stuff, but there was just no outlook in that business.
“My income has been solely from horses for the last seven or eight years. I knew I wasn’t going to farm because it was a waste of time.
“Whatever hope you had if you were a dairy farmer’s son, there was no way a dry stock and tillage farmer could pay his son a decent wage, because he was barely making a living out of it himself.”
He says the choice he faced was simple: either try something else or bugger off to Australia or America. But at that time he was on the verge of a place on the Wexford hurling team and didn’t want to go abroad.
He’d always had an interest in horses, but no practical experience of working with them, so getting into the business was as much an act of faith as it was of determination.
“I had to feel my way into it really,” he admits.
His feel wasn’t bad. His first purchase at the Land Rover sale was the last lot into the ring and with “everyone else gone home” Paul paid 2,200 guineas for his first horse. “I could afford nothing, but nobody else wanted the horse, so I bought him anyway.” Known as ‘crooked’ in the trade, the beast in question was a grey by Camballa, he won five races for the nascent concern.
“I’d never had anything to do with horses whatsoever. I never sat on a horse until I was 25 years of age. I’d always loved them when I was younger and loved watching racing on television and looking up the form, but I never, ever dreamt I’d end up training. I had two horses for two farmers down the road here and they were not sold at the sales, so they brought them home and I broke them and ran both of them in point-to-points. Both of them won, but the owners still couldn’t sell them, so they said they might as well go to the track and I took out a licence then to get them racing.
“I’d no experience other than having worked for Jim Bolger for six months, although before that I’d worked with a vet for nearly a year. There was no future at home for me in farming, as we had the land set and the father was living off that.
“The thing was that I’d nothing to lose because the farming was so bad. I hadn’t a savage investment in it or anything. My father built the boxes and we did everything else ourselves; we had the land here, we didn’t have to pay to go schooling or anything, so there was no huge money involved. It was only later when we needed to build an all-weather gallop and put in the horsewalkers and the equine spa and all that equipment that we started putting serious money into it.” He won his first Galway Hurdle with Say Again, which kick-started a whole new life for Paul Nolan. “After that I started getting a better quality of horse. The exposure of a big winner brought me from 25 horses to 50, so you cannot underestimate the significance of a big winner. I mean every little race is important and particularly for the owners, especially when you look at the ratio of the number of horses sold at the sales to the ones that win.
“I’d never set any goals starting off. That’s not to say I didn’t have ambition, but when I had two winners the first year in operation, my aim was to do at least the same again the following year, if I did that I’d be happy and if I’d more it would be great. Last year I’d 28 winners and I thought that if I could have 28 winners this year that would be good because last year was a good year. At this stage of the year we have 26 winners already and there’s six months of the season left. Of course I have ambition, but I’m still in it to make a living, to make sure its paying.”
With a second Galway Hurdle under his belt thanks to Cloone River’s victory this summer, things could not be more rosy.
“At this stage I would be hopeful that people coming to me would know now that they are not just chancing their arm with a young fella,” he says. “Thankfully we’ve shown over the last couple of years that we can look after and mind a good horse and get them to train on every year and win their few races every year. It is important that you don’t turn an exceptionally promising four-year-old into an animal which does not want to run when he’s five, six or seven and is never heard tell of again.
For people to be able to see that you’re able to keep an animal consistent every season and does not lose his love for the game, is good. There are times that horses will lose their enthusiasm but that’s because of the individual himself, but it is nice to be able to keep horses consistent through their racing years.
“The thing that is really lovely is to have the sort of animal that can compete for big prizes and can compete at level weights in conditions races. Aside from anything else it gives you an idea of what is required from the real deal. Thankfully we have a few animals who have what is required and who can be consistent and, even if the yard is not sparking, their class is still able to shine. It is a big difference having a yard full of 60-80 rated handicappers and having them balloted out of five of every six races you enter them in, to having horses who are only taking on ten or fourteen class horses in a race. With too many horses there’s no plan because you simply run when you get in - irrespective of whether they have a snotty nose or won’t handle the track; with good horses, you can plan.”
Cloone River is undoubtedly a good horse and although “no spring chicken at eight years old,” he doesn’t have “savage mileage up and has never run a bad race,” says Nolan. “Although he’s only run twice over fences, he is a better horse over fences. If we can get him to his next run in as good a shape as we’ve had him all year, then he’ll do damage. I think he’s a very good horse and I think he can make the grade from being a top class handicapper over hurdles into being a top class chaser in conditions races.
“Please God he’ll go to Cheltenham, but the one thing I’d worry about is that he always seemed to be at his best around summer time and I just hope we’re not trying to peak him at the wrong time of the year. So far he hasn’t given us any of those vibes, but if that is the case then that’s the case. We’re not going to fall out with him.
“Cheltenham is not the be all and end all of everything - it would be great because it is our Olympics - but if he doesn’t get there then it’s not the end of the world.”
As for some of the negative reaction to victory of his other stable star Accordion Etoile (who next goes in the AIG Champion Hurdle in Leopardstown early in the new year) at Cheltenham in November, Nolan says he didn’t pay much attention.
“No, I wasn’t at all disappointed at what people were saying after that win - that he’d have to improve by 26lb if he was to take on the best in the Champion Hurdle, or things like that. It doesn’t matter to me whether he’s 5/1 to 50/1. For us, the hope is that we know what the horse is capable of. Any time he was beaten, we had a genuine excuse and blamed ourselves - we had not done enough with him and he was too fat.
“At the end of the day he’s only a five-year-old and you’re normally wrong a couple of times with a horse in his career.
“But he is unusual in that if you leave him in for just one day he puts on kilos. He’s an unbelievable thriver; he just piles on weight. Hopefully, we know him now and we know we can work him harder and that he is able for it. People may say that he was getting so much weight from the English boys when he won at Cheltenham, but what they fail to realise is that this was his first race in a handicap. Normally people will tell you that it takes a couple of runs in that company for a horse to jump as good as handicappers, but in that race he had every type of pace, but he was still on the bridle coming to the last and won handy. We couldn’t have asked for more.”
Nolan says that as long as the horses are happy then so is he. But, as viewers of yesterday’s coverage at Leopardstown will attest, the handler does get a little excited when his horses run. “I do get nervous before an event. When I played hurling I was always nervous, but I’m not as bad as I used to be. On a big race day I’m not a good one for breakfast. That’s because later in the day when the stomach would give the odd heave, then there’s nothing there to come up,” he laughs.
But, lying third in the trainers’ table with half the season gone, behind luminaries such as Noel Meade and Michael Hourigan, Nolan continues to prove the point that even as a self-confessed “blow-in to racing” he has become one of the country’s leading handlers.
“I’d be delighted to keep going the way I’m going and I have to say I never thought I’d get this far. When I started, I really did know bugger-all about the sport. I knew I loved the game, but I hadn’t a clue about the industry - no idea,” he says.
He’s proven to be a very quick learner and, for a failed farmer, he’s turned into a fine trainer.
