Charlie McCarthy: 'In my dark days, Kopek Des Bordes pulled me through'
Kopek Des Bordes owner Charlie McCarthy with his sons David, James, CJ and Andrew after their win. Pic: Healy Racing
Emotions ran high in the winner’s enclosure after the third race on the second day of last month’s Dublin Racing Festival.
The Willie Mullins-trained, Paul Townend-ridden Kopek Des Bordes had just turned the Tattersalls Ireland Novice Hurdle into a procession, winning the sixth Grade One of the weekend by no less than 13 lengths to catapult himself to red-hot favouritism for the opening race of the Cheltenham Festival, a contest then known as the Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.
For owner Charlie McCarthy it was the fulfilment of a dream and the Fermoy man savoured every last moment with his four ecstatic sons, CJ, James, David, and Andrew.
But as the sons celebrated, their father knew some sleepless nights lay ahead. Part of the reason for his raw emotion in several post-race interviews was the fact he had been diagnosed with cancer.
“No-one knew I had cancer, I knew it but I spoke from the heart at Leopardstown about the tears of joy from the boys and everything else,” he explained when he spoke to the last Wednesday, a week after undergoing successful surgery at Cork University Hospital.
“My niece is a top surgeon in that department and she got the best man going, a guy called Kevin O’Connor and he did surgery on me and it has been a major success,” he said.
“I’m seven days after it and I feel superb. I barely realised I had an operation. I’m in superb form and I’ll be in Cheltenham.”
One suspects that being able to watch his pride and joy in the flesh at Cheltenham might mean even more to McCarthy than hearing the big-picture news his surgery was a success but he acknowledges that he’s one of the lucky ones.
“It’s a huge relief to me,” he admitted. “Funnily enough, when they were going to knock me out, one of the girls at work told me that they’ll put this thing over your nose and mouth and they’ll ask you to count from five down. Your man said to me: Charlie, you’ll get a bit dreary now. That was grand. Next thing I woke up and I said: ‘When are you putting the mask over my mouth?’ He said: Charlie: You’re after the operation.
“It's a success story. I’ve had cancer which I’ve got through and I’m disease-free and I’ll be there to see a beautiful dream that we started be completed.”
Whatever happens at Cheltenham, Kopek Des Bordes has done something beyond the mere act of winning races. He has given his owner something positive to focus upon at a time when fear could have overcome him.
“In my dark days, he pulled me through,” he admitted. “I just thought about him and the boys and it pulled me through. What happened to me pulled this family together, tighter than it ever was.
“The only emotion I had was when I was told I was going home Sunday morning. That’s when I got emotional. I said Charlie: You’re going home boy, you’re over and done with it, there’s only one way for you boy and that’s up. It’s a lovely story, I’m healthy and I’m enjoying life.”
He’ll enjoy it even more if Kopek Des Bordes does the business this week and victory in the Festival curtain-raiser would be especially poignant given the race has been renamed the Michael O'Sullivan Supreme Novices' Hurdle in honour of the Cork jockey who tragically died at the age of just 24 on February 16 due to injuries sustained in a fall at Thurles 10 days earlier.
“I live in Fermoy, he was from over in Lombardstown and it’ll be a Cork victory if it gets done,” McCarthy said.
“He was a special jockey. I saw Willie say the other day that he thought he’d have probably been his number one jockey in time and if the McCarthy family can win a race named after him as a tribute to the O’Sullivan family and us both being from the county of Cork, everybody and anybody will shed a tear.
“The town of Fermoy will be buzzing on Tuesday. Everywhere will be really because if he can win, I can tell the O’Sullivans how proud I am that the trophy is in the county of Cork. It would be a fitting tribute, a pure Cork success.”
Luck is a key component of life and sport and the fact Kopek Des Bordes is owned by McCarthy is as a result of a series of happy coincidences.
Kopek Des Bordes was purchased for €130,000 at the 2023 Derby Sale from Walter Connors’ Sluggara Farm by Harold Kirk and Mullins, a sum that would almost certainly have been considerably higher than that had he been able to walk on the day he was up for auction.
That short-term ailment ultimately benefitted the McCarthy family.
He explained: “Willie said he would have made double or maybe even more the price (he did make) otherwise. Walter told me that he hit his hind foot going into the truck that day and he had had to have a bit of a plaster but it’s all for luck. In life, whatever sport you’re at, you need that little bit of luck always and that little bit of luck fell upon me and the boys.”
That McCarthy was in the market for a horse was due to the relative success achieved by Chosen Witness and the joy his exploits brought the family.
“I have a horse called Chosen Witness with Willie and he won his bumper, he won his maiden hurdle and he won a handicap hurdle on the Scottish National card at Ayr with Paul on him at 16-1,” McCarthy said.
“I just felt we were getting terrible enjoyment out of Chosen Witness and I said to Willie one day: ‘I’ll buy a second horse.’ He said: ‘Come up, I’ve two I’ll show you.’ Up I went and he pulled out Kopek and I looked at it and it was like a bolt of lightning struck me. I said: Jaysus, this is the horse. Look at him, look at him stand. I said to Willie: You can show me the second horse but I’ve my mind made up, I’ll give you a cheque before I leave here, that’s my horse now. And that was it.”
It wasn’t entirely it. Mullins made McCarthy a promise. Kopek Des Bordes would win his bumper on debut at Fairyhouse on Easter Sunday nine months later. What happened? Kopek Des Bordes won his bumper on debut at Fairyhouse on Easter Sunday nine months later by 13 lengths.
“I bought him in July 2023 and Willie said to me: ‘He’ll win the Tattersalls Ireland George Mernagh Memorial Sales Bumper on Easter Sunday, a €100,000 race.’ He told me that there and then. That was July, Easter Sunday fell on March 31 last year and I could see Kopek Des Bordes coming and coming and coming and I said: Oh my God, am I seeing what I believe? I said to the lads: This is something special.”
Kopek Des Bordes didn’t run again for 270 days, reappearing in a maiden hurdle in the opening race at Leopardstown’s Christmas festival on St Stephen’s Day.
Fog meant visibility was reduced and, being blunt, Kopek Des Bordes jumped like he couldn’t see a hurdle. However, he still managed to get the job done in the hands of Patrick Mullins, a remarkable success in view of how poorly he jumped.
“He didn’t jump a hurdle,” McCarthy admitted. However, amid the gloom, there were positives. “Patrick said to me: ‘I never saw anything like it in my life, a horse to win a two-mile race having not jumped a hurdle.’”
He returned to Leopardstown five weeks later and while he was sent off the 4-5 favourite to bag a first Grade One, he had questions to answer, especially when he got worked up in the parade ring before the off.
But this was the day Kopek Des Bordes showed beyond doubt that he’s the real deal, a potential superstar in the making.
“There was an awful lot of doubters but by God he jumped that day,” McCarthy said. “He showed us the real Kopek Des Bordes. When Paul came in he said: ‘Wow, he’s an airplane, three times he tried to run away with me, I had to get rid of the loose horse with for a moment caused me concern but he was effortless, we never really broke out of a canter.’”
Plaudits flowed in the aftermath of that triumph and a few days later Mullins revealed one of the most glowing was provided by Ted Walsh.
“Ted Walsh rang me the following morning and said he hadn’t seen a performance like that since Golden Cygnet, which is something huge for someone like Ted to say,” revealed Mullins.
“It’s probably the first time he’s rung to say anything like that. Ted has a razor-sharp memory. There’s no grey in Ted’s vocabulary: It’s black or white. For him to come out and say something like that was a huge statement, I think.”
Golden Cygnet was a runaway winner of the 1978 Supreme but sadly suffered a fatal fall in the Scottish Champion Hurdle at Ayr a month later.
For his horse to be compared favourably to a horse of that calibre means plenty to McCarthy.
“He was a wonderful horse, Golden Cygnet, I remember him because I’m 66 years of age. He was a class horse and it was a pity what happened to him.”
The hope is the sporting gods will be kinder to Kopek Des Bordes. It’s a measure of his talent that McCarthy regards his biggest threat as himself. That he handles the atmosphere of Cheltenham without overheating. That he settles after the flag is raised.
“I’m really not afraid of anything else, I just think he’s quicker than the other horses in the race. It’s his to lose.” he said.
“Willie, David Casey, and Patrick are aware of it (the horse’s temperament issues) and they’re experts at their jobs. I’m sure they’ll have him in fine fettle.
“If I get a bit of luck, I should win. It is pressure but it’s pressure we’re well able to take and it’s a lovely pressure to have, a savage feeling.”
