It’s all about the winners for ambitious Elliott
He is unfailingly polite but it is evident that Gordon Elliott has somewhere he needs to go to or something he needs to do.
The answers are hurried, often beginning before the question is finished. There is no rudeness but you can sense the impatience.
The Meath man thought that Wednesday might not be too bad but he has been up to his eyes. Finally, there’s a window, but it’s a short one.
In a hurry, impatient, some place to be and something to do. A perfect encapsulation of Gordon Elliott’s training career.
It is hard to believe that he is still only 36, so much has he packed in since taking out his licence in 2006. The impression from the very beginning was that this wasn’t someone interested in gradually establishing himself as a solid operator, just making a living in one of the toughest spheres. He had a target and wanted to achieve it as quickly as possible.
The ultimate destination (“of course you want to be champion trainer someday”) hasn’t been reached yet but some serious milestones have been attained along the way.
“To be honest, if you’re not ambitious and you don’t want to train winners, you shouldn’t be at it” Elliott reasons. “We just want to keep training winners and we’re happy with the way things are going. Once we keep doing our best for the horses and the owners, we’re happy.”
This is a man who scaled the Grand National peak before he had even had a victory in Ireland. Think about that for a second.
Nicky Henderson is one of the leading trainers in the history of horse racing, and he has yet to claim the Aintree feature. David Nicholson never won it. Alan King is still trying. Martin Pipe, who was Britain’s champion trainer 15 times, only won it once. Willie Mullins, the record-breaking Irish handler, has one victory. The most successful jump jockey ever, AP McCoy broke his duck at the 15th attempt.
Elliott was training 13 months, with the hero, Silver Birch, one of around half a dozen residents of Capranny Stables. The gelding’s famous success was his trainer’s fourth under Rules. It was enough to make National Velvet look like a true-life documentary.
Though raised by parents with no link to racing, Gordon was quickly besotted by the sport. By the time he was 13, he was working at Tony Martin’s, who trained a point-to-pointer for his uncle.
Three years later, he had an amateur jockey’s licence.
His first winner came on board the Michael Cunningham-trained Caitriona’s Choice in a Ballinrobe bumper on May 25, 1995. Ironically, Martin was 15 lengths back in second, riding one for another top-flight amateur who was beginning to concentrate on his own training duties at that stage.
Willie Mullins was to house plenty better horses than Ballineva, and it is the Closutton maestro Elliott must dethrone if he is to get his hands on the Holy Grail.
He is a long way off yet, but despite being in the nascent stages of his career, is closer than anyone since Mullins overtook Noel Meade in 2008.
These things are relative though.
“Ah listen, Willie is in a league of his own at the moment but once we keep training winners and trying our best, that’s all we want to do.”
Make no mistake though, he yearns to top the tree. He soaked up what he could from Martin, Liam Browne and Gordon Richards. Then there was the aforementioned Pipe, the master innovator who introduced interval training and had his horses fitter than anyone else.
Smashed records ensued.
“You always keep your eyes open and you did that everywhere you went. I worked for a few good people and thank God things are working out well for me.”
He won two amateur chases at Cheltenham’s October and November meetings for Pipe in 1997 and, overall, booted home almost 200 point-to-point winners back home, as well as 50 on the track.
Injuries and an ongoing battle with the scales accelerated the move to training.
The maiden winner came at Perth and Arresting prevailed twice more at the same venue that summer. It wasn’t until the 2010/2011 campaign that his tally of winners in Ireland outnumbered those in Britain (62-36). That was a significant aggregate figure for a rookie but it told much about his planning.
There are a few terms that come up regularly in conversation. Unsurprisingly, “training winners” is one of them. It’s an obsession and Elliott will go anywhere to feed it. Nowadays, the path to tracks in Scotland or northern England is well worn but Elliott, like Pipe, was pretty much a trailblazer.
“We take our horses wherever we have to go to get a winner. At the time, the type of horses we had, that was where we had to go. It worked very well for us and we got notice for doing it.”
That was the bread and butter. The profile went through the roof after becoming the youngest winning National trainer in history but that could have been a double-edged sword.
Most people get to learn their trade unencumbered by the pressure and spotlight he was operating under.
“I wouldn’t say we got a horse out of winning the Grand National. We had to prove after winning the Grand National that we could train winners and thank God we haven’t looked back.”
The knockers hung around too, waiting for the neophyte to fail.
“We just mind our own business and let everyone else worry about themselves.”
Relentlessly, he drove on. The initial Irish victory arrived via Toran Road at Kilbeggan three weeks later. Displaying his versatility and aptitude for laying one out, he won the richest flat handicap in Europe, the Ebor at York with Dirar in 2008.
The first Grade 1 came courtesy of Jessies Dream two years later in the Drinmore Chase. The next six have arrived in the last 22 months. He has had four Cheltenham Festival winners, starting with two on one day in 2011. He was a neck away from recording a treble.
Elliott has been in the top three NH trainers in Ireland for the last four seasons (second to Mullins twice) but has found a new gear this term, and on 58 winners, is just four off his best tally. Little wonder Gigginstown House Stud (aka Ryanair chief, Michael O’Leary), JP McManus and Barry Connell avail of his talents.
The man with the plan took an important step when his operation outgrew Capranny, which is owned by former Meath All-Ireland football winner, Barry Callaghan. So he bought Cullentra House in 2011. Just outside Longwood, it is a 78-acre farm with all the facilities custom-built to Elliott’s specifications.
Already this season, Don Cossack, No More Heroes, Free Expression and Mala Beach have confirmed earlier impressions that they are destined for even bigger days.
Don Cossack is delivering on earlier promise in real fashion and the recent John Durkan Chase victory made it three-in-a-row. He won’t be seen until next month but right now, his owner’s Ryanair Chase at Cheltenham looks the ultimate aim.
“We’re thrilled. We’re very proud of him,” says Elliott.
While the Don will be staying in Cullentra House over the festivities “we have a massive number of horses to look forward to for Christmas and new year”.
In excess of 40 entries have been made for Leopardstown, Limerick, Kempton and Down Royal. There is much more to look forward too.
“We’ve an army of horses to come out and we’re looking forward to them.”
Ironically, patience is the key to the youngsters advancing, particularly those whose future is over the bigger obstacles. And although Elliott doesn’t want to hang around when it comes to registering winners, he is an expert at giving his inmates time.
Altiepix was a nice bumper winner that we won’t see much more of this year, while Vercingetorix is a former Andre Fabre charge with some good flat form that is worth following in juvenile hurdles. Another interesting newcomer is Whistle Dixie, a half-sister to former Gold Cup winner, Kicking King.
And on it goes. Everything from one-time Classic hopefuls on the level, to animals bred to jump a fence and graduates of the points.
“We’re always on the lookout” as Elliott says himself.
His fiancée, Annie Bowles, has been there from the start and they got great craic out of her becoming champion lady rider on the point-to-point circuit last year. Simon McGonagle is head lad and he plays a key role as well.
“If you involve yourself with good people, you’ll be okay. We have very good staff. We’re very lucky.”
Lucky is another term he uses quite a bit. There is no fortune about it, of course. Bad luck can scupper you but jammy dodgers will always be found out.
Willie Mullins training 180 horses and having Rich Ricci, Gigginstown and Graham Wylie forking out massive sums of money to send him potential champions didn’t happen overnight. And it wasn’t down to luck. It has become fashionable for people within Irish racing to whinge about that champion’s primacy but it’s a results business and Mullins is proven as the man to get them.
What Elliott has shown is that there is plenty left for everyone else. It is possible to make your way and to throw down a challenge.
Interestingly, on his website (“I wouldn’t know how to turn on a computer but the girls in the office look after that, the social media and the app”) he describes No More Heroes as the Cullentra House inmate most similar to himself.
“He’s very laidback, loves his food and he wants to be a champion.”
No More Heroes turned over Mullins hotpot, the odds-on Shaneshill in the Grade 2 Navan Novice Hurdle last Sunday. It was the latest in an increasing slew of big-race wins for Elliott. No-one is putting it up to Mullins like this fast-rising go-getter. No More Heroes could well be a Gold Cup horse in time.
“He’s a nice horse who stays but I think he could be better with a step up in trip,” is as far as Elliott is willing to go.
What Mullins has become masterful at is moving the chess pieces around the board. With a burgeoning team and more big-name owners, it could be a problem keeping everyone happy. Elliott’s approach is simple.
“Once you say it as you see it and do your best, that’s all you can do.”
As is key in any Hollywood production, the story isn’t all sweetness and light. Shortly after landing a massive coup to win Troytown Chase, Balbriggan suffered a fatal injury in Aintree. Elliott had already lost the ultra-consistent Toner D’Oudairies, who won nine times for his handler and finished second on eight occasions.
“You have to keep your head up and keep going. Just look to the next day” is his matter-of-fact response to such setbacks.
Those words rang true on Saturday as Bayan dug deep to take The Ladbroke at Ascot for Elliott and rider Davy Condon.
Elliott was at Fairyhouse, where he said of the 14-1 winner: “This has been the plan and he had not run over hurdles since Galway.
“It was great, I’m delighted — he was very tough.”
It was an emotional success for Condon, who has been plagued by injuries and was having just his third ride back since a heavy fall at Cork in August.
As for the upcoming period, he jokes that what he is looking forward to most is the Christmas dinner. The truth is that he’d love to bag a few graded races.
Ascot, Perth, Dundalk, Meath point, Leopardstown, Tattersalls Farm… you could see an Elliott horse anywhere.
Grade 1 haute cuisine or all-weather bread and butter, it is all about the winners.
