Brendan Walsh, the self-taught Shanagarry man who thrived racing the American way
DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - MARCH 27: Ryan Moore riding Extravagant Kid wins the Al Quoz Sprint during Dubai World Cup at the Meydan Racecourse on March 27, 2021 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (Photo by Francois Nel/Getty Images)
Not being immersed in horses from the moment the starting stalls of life open is clearly no impediment to a hugely successful career in racing.
Exhibit A, Brendan Walsh. A Grade 1- and Breeders’ Cup-winning trainer based in the American thoroughbred heartland of Kentucky, who has accumulated more than $22m in prizemoney since taking out a licence in 2011, the 48-year-old Shanagarry native is looking to add to an international CV that features the UAE Derby with the money-spinning Extravagant Kid, who will have Frankie Dettori on board in tomorrow’s red-hot Group 1 July Cup at Newmarket.
Extravagant Kid is a globetrotter himself, having won at Group 1 level in Meydan last March before finishing just two lengths behind Oxted in third, in the King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot.
An easing of restrictions means Walsh arrived in England on Tuesday, whereas he had to watch Ascot from base camp.
He won’t be able to visit home but is hopeful that a Christmas reunion with his mother Mary and the rest of the East Cork crew may be on the horizon.
Walsh is not quite sure where the equine obsession took hold but it was only when he tormented his late father Patrick, as an eight or nine-year-old, that the first pony arrived on the small sheep and dairy farm.
“We taught ourselves,” recalls Walsh on the line from Newmarket. “I always loved horses for whatever reason. There was never going to be any other way. I went to school and I wasn’t too bad at school. But I was never going to do anything else other than horses.”
Crucially, the obsession came in conjunction with patience, a willingness to learn and a determination to place himself in a variety of centres of excellence to ensure that he would.
He spent time at the neighbouring Irish National Stud and Godolphin’s Kildangan Stud in Kildare, before doing some pre-training in France and then progressing to be a stable foreman for Godolphin’s racing divisions in Dubai, where Jimmy Lenehan was a valuable mentor, and Arlington. Stints with trainers Mark Wallace, a Tipperary man, in Newmarket, and then Waterford native Eddie Kenneally in Lexington followed.
The latter move was with an eye to learning the American way because he had decided that this was where his future lay.
“From the get-go it was a thing that always excited me. American racing, I always liked the whole thing. I came out here with Godolphin and I got a taste of it. I had no real training background. It would have been very hard for me to start training in Ireland or England. I saw Mark Wallace. Mark was as good a trainer as you would find anywhere but it was always a struggle.
“I had a name in the States and a Visa and I just thought if I am going to start training on my own then America was going to be it… I got a start anyway. But I think it would have been very hard for me to get a start like that in Ireland or England. It is very expensive. In America, I started with half a dozen horses. If you have a bridle and saddle you get stalls at the track and away you go.”
Initial progress was gradual but the last few years have seen a rapid ascension. The first winner arrived in 2012. The maiden stakes success two years later. At the end of 2014, Cary Street was victorious in the Breeders’ Cup Marathon and in 2016, Scuba repeated the trick.
Maxfield is the superstar he has been dreaming of. Owned and bred by his former employers Godolphin, the giant son of Street Sense has been managed expertly through an injury that ended his juvenile campaign prematurely and flourished in Walsh’s hands.
With seven triumphs from eight runs, including at Grade 1 level at two, the now four-year-old’s emphatic Grade 2 win at Churchill Downs just over a fortnight ago has earned him an automatic spot in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Del Mar in November.
“I think the horse that I will always be grateful for is Cary Street, who won my first Breeders’ Cup Marathon. He was the horse I won my first graded stakes with. I claimed him for $10,000 with another fella. I owned half of him, we sold a piece of him to a guy who has been one of my best owners ever. It is funny the way it has worked out.
“But then of course winning (the €2.5m UAE Derby) in Dubai with Plus Que Parfait was big. His form that year in the States was not very good. Lucky enough the people who owned him were Dubai based and were keen to go. That actually worked out better than what we initially thought.
“Then we went back to Kentucky and I was approached by Godolphin, who I had been working for so many years before. Then I was just lucky enough the first year to train for them that a horse like Maxfield came along.
“He speaks for himself. He is just a fantastic horse. He is just an absolutely special horse. I could be training for another 20 years and I would never get another horse as good as him.”
Doping is a hot topic in Irish racing at the moment and Walsh has noted that, without having any knowledge as to whether or not there is a problem.
It has clearly been an issue in American racing however, where there is no overall governing body and thus no harmonisation of regulation. The banning of one of the sport’s most successful trainers, Bob Baffert, by New York and Kentucky state jurisdictions after Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit tested positive for a banned substance – putting Baffert into the 30s for doping violations – has now gone to the courts. This comes after the arrest last year by the FBI of trainers Jason Servis and Jorge Navarro for involvement in systemic doping.
“I do think it is starting to clean up in the States. I am not saying it was rotten. But obviously there are people taking an edge here, an illegal edge. Hopefully between the arrests last year and now the Baffert thing, that they are looking into him.
“The main thing that needs to happen is there needs to be a national racing body like there is in England, Hong Kong, Ireland. People are guilty or they are not guilty like they are in England, Hong Kong, Ireland. And they come down on them. There are grey areas with the thresholds and medications too which there doesn’t seem to be in other countries. I think that needs to be sorted out.
“There are some great horsemen, some great trainers in America. I could talk about them all day. Jimmy Jerkens, Bill Mott, Richard Mandella, Eddie Kenneally… They are all over the place.
“I thought that a lot of the talk was bullshit. This fella is taking an edge and that fella. You never really believed it. But since they have gone into it the last year and a half and the arrest, and everything, I guess there are people taking an edge.
“I don’t know how anybody can do that and have any respect for themselves. Turn around at the end of the day (and say), ‘I had a great career’ but at the back of their mind (they know) they cheated.”
Extravagant Kid is a testament to a horse enjoying life and Walsh is hoping for a big run against the cream of the sprinting crop.
“He is unbelievable, it is rare that you find a horse to be so consistent anywhere in the world. To turn around and win his first Grade 1 as an eight-year-old. We wouldn’t have sent him if we didn’t think he was capable of doing it.
“He is in his element here now. I hadn’t seen him since he left Kentucky until yesterday (Tuesday). I couldn’t get over how well he looked. He looked as good as I have ever seen him if not better.”
That is a testament to Charlie Lynch, the son of Northern Ireland-born trainer Cathal, who has been the Kid’s Passepartout on his travels. And as he considers the journey he too has travelled, Walsh knows that surrounding himself with people of high calibre has been the secret of his success.
“It has gone great. I can’t say it hasn’t. We have had a great run. But I have had great luck too. Things have fallen into place for us. The first few years were difficult enough as they are with anybody. It is tough going. Jesus it is no party, a lot of hard work and a lot of bad days too as well as the good ones. You lose some nice horses, things don’t work out as good as you would like them to work out from time to time. For the most part it has worked out really well.
“I have a great team, some great lads, a couple of really good Irish lads among them. They put in a huge effort day in, day out. And they have been a big help. There’s been lots of help from different people along the way. The right horses came along at the right time. Then of course you have to get lucky.
“I am just part of it. Everybody will tell you that. You are just part of it. It takes a huge team to make it all happen. It is as much down to them as it is to anybody.”
