Limerick trainer Eoin McCarthy learning from mistakes as his star continues to rise
RIGHT APPROACH: Trainer Eoin McCarthy at his Temple Athea Stables in Limerick: ‘If we keep doing the simple things right, the rest will look after itself.’
For Limerick trainer Eoin McCarthy, the 20/21 National Hunt season was a breakthrough campaign.
The 33-year-old operated in a restricted capacity for over a decade, but last season marked his first as a fully licenced trainer. The 10 winners registered from 89 runs the last term was a personal best, but McCarthy has much loftier ambitions.
“The big dream at the minute is to get a Kerry National horse,” he says as he eyes the big prize on offer each September at the Listowel Festival meeting, a track located just 14km from McCarthy’s racing base.
Last year’s Covid-induced shutdown of racing afforded him the time to formulate a plan.
“When horses started coming back in July, I decided Listowel was going to be the big target, I wanted to lay down a marker to say, we are here. We ran 10 horses at Listowel and eight collected prize money, we got a winner and hit the crossbar with plenty, the season sort of snowballed from there.”
He is now enjoying increased success and its resultant exposure, but the former jockey admits to plenty of mistakes along the way. Purchasing horses on credit was an early strategy — one which allowed McCarthy to acquire stable stars, Cosmic Rock, Mattie’s Mountain, and Le Figaro Faoudel. But that business model also placed huge pressure on the trainer and team to deliver results quickly. He has now discontinued that policy and has no regrets.
“I definitely enjoy training a lot more without that pressure. I’m all about the horse and at least now, we have all our horses paid for so if the horse needs time, that’s what he will get, we can train a lot more patiently now.”
In his infancy as a trainer, McCarthy concedes he did “what I thought you were supposed to do”.
The point-to-point sphere was central to the yard in those days, but it soon became apparent that approach wasn’t working.
“We couldn’t compete,” he says. “I didn’t have the buying power and when we had the horses to compete, we couldn’t sell them. We were over in Doncaster (sales) with a mare who was second in her point-to-point, a full sister to a Grade Three winner and we couldn’t get a bid for her.
“I basically begged a fella to buy her and eventually got seven grand for her — she won a bumper two weeks later. I came home and said to dad: ‘What am I doing, they were placed in a point-to-point, and I can’t sell them, wouldn’t I be better off handicapping these horses for the track’?”
McCarthy now follows his intuition. He does so in relation to many of his horses who are often deemed “low-grade handicappers”.
But he refuses to adapt his methods to suit such a label.
“I do not want to train him like other people train a low-grade handicapper, I want to train them like a good horse. I do not want to run them every two weeks, I want to run them, give them a chance and treat him like he is a good horse.
“If you let them a chance to recover, you are giving them a chance to improve physically and mentally. I would rather get them fit and healthy and when they are well, they will tell you.”
Trusting his instincts has been key to the operation’s success.
“We ran horses in early November, and they won, they did not run again until Christmas as there was a race over the same track and trip, so why change what was after working?
“Other fellas were saying to me “oh, there’s a race in a week’s time for them, but you know, that’s when handicappers stop progressing.”
With an eye on the season ahead, the Listowel Harvest Festival in September could well be the primary target once more, with McCarthy hoping for up to 20 runners.
Having gone to Listowel as a child and ridden there on countless occasions as a jockey, there are few tracks McCarthy knows better.
“When I was riding around Listowel I would have been placed on a donkey,” he says with a laugh, “you’d see the same with Kevin Brouder, he is probably worth about four lengths around there. Chris Hayes is probably worth a couple of lengths; they have grown up watching it all their lives.”
McCarthy is also focused on further expansion at his Athea base.
“We have bought a further three acres next to our existing gallops for additional 40 stables. We will also be putting in a schooling strip this summer so we will not want for anything. If we keep doing the simple things right, the rest will look after itself. ”
