Colm Murphy promoting Relegate’s chances as he makes Cheltenham return
Having gone poacher turned gamekeeper for a while, Colm Murphy is back training - and eyeing Thursday's Pertemps, writes .
Killenagh is one of those unassuming rural townlands that lives just out of sight of our new motorway extensions. In this case it’s the M11, through the heart of Wexford, not too far from the new bridge that pulls the freight lorries west from Rosslare without troubling New Ross, which is now free at last!
There are two pubs, one either side of the crossroads and a much older bridge over the meandering Owenavoragh river.
In fields above, gazing lazily down on all this tranquillity, thoroughbred racehorses minding their stories behind ancient hedges.
Epic stories and gallant deeds from heroes such as Brave Inca and Big Zeb. Or Quito De La Roque and Voler la Vedette. And the leading man in all of them is Colm ‘CA’ Murphy, Killenagh’s trainer in residence.
Go back a generation — in racing terms is about 10 years — and Colm Murphy dined comfortably at the top table of Ireland’s National Hunt trainers. But like many colleagues of his size and scope the cold winds of recession blew through his yard during the crash years and he eventually mothballed his licence over three years ago.
Murphy had studied accountancy at college and remembered enough about balance sheets to realise that dreams alone did not make sustainable business strategies and hope would never pay the rent. He took the prudent option.
Happily, his self-imposed sabbatical is over and Colm Murphy is again open for business.
This week at Cheltenham could be vital to the speed of his renaissance and his hopes rest solely on the shoulders of the seven-year-old mare Relegate who goes in the Pertemps Hurdle final on Thursday.
Murphy spent his gap years swimming in two contrasting lanes. The day job was working for the Turf Club as a ‘stewards secretary,’ the balance of his time he spent deepening a breeding and selling business with his long-term business associate and friend, Paul McKeon, the owner of Relegate. The growing demands of trading business were directly responsible for his return to the training ranks.
“I’ve known Paul for years, ever since I rode a horse in a bumper for him when I worked for Aidan O’Brien,” he recalls, “I think the horse was called Blasket Sound. He was a client for years when I was training and we’d always been in and out of horses together. Our business plan was buying and selling, to build up a band of broodmares and sell the progeny.”
The plan began to get real but required some unforeseen adjustments.
He explains, “Suddenly we had a lot of three and four-year-old point-to-pointers coming on stream, most of them placed with different trainers. A good few of them didn’t make the sales and when the numbers kept getting bigger it made sense to train them ourselves. So, we had a board meeting and decided to bring all the horses back in house. Before, we were probably more dependent on outside clients and while we would very much look forward to training for outside clients again, we have the horses ourselves this time. To be honest I’m still not too sure how we got here, but we’re here anyway!”
Had he missed the everyday cut and thrust of training racehorses during his career change?
“You’d miss the good days — of course you would. But we were very fortunate to have had so many good horses. It’s hard work, but you get out what you put in. I was fortunate to be in a position to stop training and do something else. When you train racehorses you are completely married to the game.”
Murphy believes that the couple of years he spent in officialdom will bring him with another valuable layer of experience to draw upon in his renewed training career. He also recognises that his job move was an unusual one for somebody of his elevated stature within the sport. Was he seen as the poacher turned gamekeeper?
“That’s exactly what it was. It was an eye-opener to see the other side of it,” he says. “Basically, my job was to police the integrity of racing. Make sure that the jockeys adhere to the rules, that they don’t get up to anything too dangerous. Make sure horses run to their true ability as best you can.”
But he never felt that his role as a law enforcer negatively impacted on relationships with his colleagues of old.
“I can be just as contrary as the next fella but for anybody who already knew me it didn’t change anything. I certainly learned a lot looking at things from the other side.”
Included in that learning was when and where to use any discretion available to him. “We complain when we get penalty points even though we know they are there to do good. The question was, do you do a lad for being 10mph over the limit in a zone or do you leave it till he’s doing 100 over? I don’t think I made any enemies but honestly, I certainly don’t miss it.”
There’s a noticeable lift in body language when he switches from discussing his stewarding past to his training future and the importance of this week at Cheltenham. Even a man who chooses his words as carefully as Murphy can’t hide his excitement to be back in the game with Relegate.
She’s a lady with an interesting past. Murphy bought her at the Tattersalls Derby sale as a three-year-old for €35,000 and McKeon sent her to Mullins when his friend ceased training. She created one of those iconic Cheltenham memories when under a Katie Walsh masterpiece she emerged from the next parish to win the Festival Bumper two years ago, collaring her well-touted stablemate, Carefully Selected, under the shadow of the post.
Expectations were high that she would then progress to the level of all other those innumerable Grade One Mullins mares.
However, she only won a maiden hurdle since before returning him to Killenagh last spring to become the most prominent inmate at the stable of Colm Murphy, Rev 2.0.
“Relegate certainly came back as the highest profile horse,” he says.
“We’d originally bought her as a three-year-old, hoping to improve her pedigree and then keep her for breeding. We got her back from Willie just after she had run at Leopardstown at last year’s Dublin Racing Festival where she’d finished fifth (to Commander of Fleet) in the Grade One Novice Hurdle.”
She has only run once for Murphy since and that was a couple of weeks ago at Punchestown when she ran an eye-catching fourth in the final qualifier for Thursday’s Pertemps final. Crucially this earned her a five pound tax that the British handicapper likes to levy onto Irish horses which ensured that she gets her into the Pertemps Final. It’s an ill-wind that blows no good.
Elated by her Punchestown performance Murphy’s only concern now is that she may have been rushed a little too much.
“Unfortunately, the clock was ticking, and it was the last chance for her to qualify. It was far from ideal running her over three miles in heavy ground, but she’s been a bit complicated since she came back to us. She fractured her pedal bone and had some other issues as well. But we are delighted with her now.”
So how will he feel if she gives him his first win in his first reborn win in the white heat of a 24-runner uber-competitive Cheltenham festival handicap? No finer declaration that CA Murphy has returned?
“I’d probably be stuck for words if she wins to be honest. It’s a big ask and a massive, massive mountain she has to climb. But the handicap is normally very compressed between top and bottom and she stays so well, goes on any ground, and there is no substitute for track form. Don’t forget she is a grade one filly at the bottom end of a handicap hurdle.”
So is Relegate one that will restart the epic stories and disrupt again the gentle tranquillity of Killenagh?
“She’s not without a chance.”
