Reflections on the Irish Flat season as Dylan Browne McMonagle and Aidan O’Brien star

Jockeys: Dylan caps memorable year

It was fantastic to see Dylan Browne McMonagle make the journey back from Del Mar to collect his Irish Champion Jockey trophy late in the afternoon at the Curragh last Sunday.

Having won the Breeders’ Cup Turf in sensational fashion aboard Willie Mullins’ Ethical Diamond he was back in Ireland just hours later to lift the trophy at the tender age of 22.

His has been a relatively short career, but a stellar one at this stage and it is a great achievement, capped by winning the Irish St Leger aboard Al Riffa.

For Dylan to gain that initial win in the Jockeys’ Championship at such a young age, he has fulfilled all the potential and talent since he first took to the saddle on the back of being crowned champion apprentice.

One would think that with normal luck, given his association with the powerhouse stable of Joseph O'Brien, that Dylan, considering his international experience, can be one of the leading lights not only in Ireland, but on the world stage. It'll be fascinating to follow his career.

He's got all the attributes you want in a top rider and, while runner-up Colin Keane taking the Juddmonte job helped open things up on the domestic front, as well as Billy Lee’s mid-season injury curtailing his championship challenge, Dylan was very much a worthy winner.

Ben Coen back in third also had a very good season and of the younger brigade Joey Sheridan had a very notable campaign with 36 winners to finish ninth in the table having garnered support from some of the top stables this year.

At the other end of the scale 56-year-old Niall McCullagh had a real heart-warming result with a huge success in the €600,000 Irish Cesarewitch where he pitched up on the reserve Puturhandstogether for an emotional victory.

Another that has to be mentioned is Ronan Whelan. He was rewarded in the final quarter of the season with those Group One successes on Precise and Hawk Mountain and that just shows you the depth of talent in the Irish weighing room at present.

As far as rides of the year go, Declan McDonogh’s effort aboard Fleetfoot in the premier handicap on Irish Derby weekend sticks out like a beacon, that was a great ride, and last season’s champion apprentice James Ryan produced a never-say-die ride aboard Sea Lantern at Roscommon on September 1. Off the bridle a long from home, I wasn’t surprised to see he traded at 970/1 in-running on Betfair!

All in all, Ireland has so many capable riders should the opportunities arise, but in an ultra-competitive environment we had a very worthy winner of the jockeys’ title in Dylan Browne McMonagle.

Trainers: O’Brien dominates headlines again

Aidan O’Brien is Champion Trainer again in both Ireland and England and there’s still half a chance he can equal his own Group/Grade 1 world record in a calendar year with two more needed to equal his 2017 total of 28.

His team were awesome all year with Minnie Hauk, Lambourn and Delacroix mopping up seven Group 1s between them during a golden Classic season. Delacroix really came to the fore with his Coral-Eclipse and Irish Champion successes in the second half of the campaign.

I enjoyed the needle between the Gosden and O’Brien camps as Delacroix v Ombudsman became a theme of the season, and it was quite refreshing to see a natural rivalry develop as the year went on.

Outside of Ballydoyle Joseph O’Brien reached 100 winners for the year which is some achievement and a big shout to Johnny Murtagh, third in the table, with his best-ever tally of 56. When he gets the right ammunition like Zahraan and Alakazi he has proven himself and he’s a growing force.

Adrian Murray has the investment from Amo Racing and he gave connections some big days with Arizona Blaze and Bucanero Fuerte winning big sprints at the Curragh, while Paddy Twomey and Donnacha O’Brien also enjoyed their best seasons to date.

This competitiveness should ensure healthy competition in the middle to higher tier of the trainers ranks and a special mention goes to Joe Murphy, who has long held a licence and trained his biggest ever winner with Cercene in the Group 1 Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot which produced great scenes back in June.

It was a fantastic illustration of the strength in depth of the Irish trainer ranks.

At the other end of the spectrum one trainer just starting out was Danny McLaughlin, one of the younger brigade in his mid-20s and he rounded off the campaign with seven winners from his new base at the Curragh.

Having produced a number of horses to run well first time out he’s very much a name to watch out for in the future.

Another just starting out in the last 18 months is Stephen Thorne, already champion all-weather trainer, and he went some way to proving he can do it on the big days on turf as well when Pink Oxalis landed the premier fillies’ handicap on Irish Champions Weekend at Leopardstown.

Outside of the home team, a nod to William Haggas who deserves full credit for being very aware of the Irish programme and its characteristics. He recorded three winners from nine runners and trousered the best part of €150,000 from a small team.

It’s not the first time he's come away from Ireland well rewarded for his endeavours.

Thought for the Year: On the premises

Talking of young trainer Danny McLaughlin made me think that the biggest impediment to trainers getting off the ground in Ireland – and most countries probably – is the availability of stable yards and facilities.

Access to the right facilities to get up and running with a licence is prohibitively expensive and that’s if you can even find the right premises.

Unfortunately, in the last 10 years, the Curragh training grounds, whilst the gallops have been totally renovated and improved by the assistance of Moyglare Stud and Eva Haefner, the horse population on the Curragh itself has declined due to a large number of stable yards being sold for other purposes.

Of course we’ve had the sad loss of powerhouse stables like Dessie Hughes and Kevin Prendergast who passed away, while John Oxx has fully retired too and those Curragh stalwarts leave a gaping hole.

It was a little bit disheartening to be on the Curragh gallops a couple of times this year to see how quiet things are in the main part of the morning. The gallops themselves after 11:30 in the morning are very, very busy with outside visitors which include trainers Willie Mullins and Joseph O’Brien, who are amongst a multitude of visiting trainers who come to use the gallops on the Curragh.

But for Irish racing to be sustainable and for the Curragh to have a more productive use of its excellent facilities the authorities in charge are really going to have to look at providing some sort of subsidised stabling or starter yards given there's a number of sites on the periphery of the Curragh that would be very suitable.

In an era where we're looking at spending a lot of money on a new all-weather track at Tipperary and with the expansion of the fixture list, one way to ensure that there's a healthy amount of runners and competition in the industry is to provide a suitable starting point with stables that won't push trainers, in their initial three to five years of setting up business, under unrealistic financial stress.

The advent of 300 to 400 stables in the vicinity of the Curragh gallops would provide a huge incentive for people to set up, as trainers would undoubtedly use them, avoiding the huge financial burden before they can see if they can survive as public trainers.

Horses: The stars of the show

It has been a fantastic season and all thanks to the stars of the show: the horses.

Minnie Hauk obviously lit up the campaign with her performances and while unfortunately we didn't get to see Albert Einstein too much hopefully he can remind us of why he is such an exciting prospect as a three-year-old.

Likewise Montreal created a big impression by winning his maiden in early August by eight lengths at Leopardtsown and he is another exciting prospect to look forward to.

Recency bias acknowledged, but a star of the show in their own right, perhaps at a slightly lower level, is Chally Chute for Ross O’Sullivan after winning the Group 3 Comer Group International Loughbrown Stakes last Sunday.

He’s a homebred by neighbours of mine, Julie White of Giltown Stud and her husband Dom from New Abbey Stud, and it was fantastic they had such a level of success with this seven-year-old son of Fast Company.

Having suffered a slightly unlucky defeat in the Irish Cesarewitch the he delivered a big day for his owners last weekend and likewise Barnavara for Jessie Harrington has been an underrated star of the season, given she started her campaign running in a Guineas trial in the early weeks of the year and has done nothing but improve since, winning at Listed, Group 3, Group 2 and finally Group 1 level on Arc Weekend.

It just goes to show that all horses can get beaten in those initial couple of starts, but when they finally start to progress there's no end to their scale of improvement. Hopefully we'll have more of the same next season.

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