Keatley Looks To Conjure Up More Magic

It is like the magician who pulls off his most dazzling trick and the audience is baying for an encore. For Adrian Keatley, who turned a five-race maiden costing 12,000 guineas into a Classic winner sold on for £1.3million, the question is how do you follow that? The exploits of Jet Setting (Ire) (Fast Company {Ire}) will have inspired every owner and trainer to believe that racing's top events are not the private domain of the moneyed elite as she rose right through the ranks to hold off the outstanding Minding (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) in the G1 Tattersalls Irish 1,000 Guineas.

Bought by John Kilbride for the Equine Growth Partners at Tattersalls after a season with Richard Hannon, she was transferred to the China Horse Club at the Goffs London Sale and, as revealed by TDN last week, will be put in foal to Le Havre (Ire) this year. “The only trouble is that the closer the coming season gets, the more worried I am about how I am going to even get close to having as good a season as I had last year,” said Keatley. “Hopefully we can bang in the winners, if we can keep building the number of winners and trying to get into the top bracket as much as we can. “Any yard, including the biggest in Ireland and England, if they have a Guineas horse that doesn't race at four it leaves a gap. How often do even the big lads come along with a Guineas horse one year after another? Hopefully we'll get back there some day.”

Keatley assisted National Hunt trainer Oliver McKiernan at home before gaining more exotic experience with John O'Shea and Chris Waller in Australia. Jet Setting was not his only achievement as he won more Flat races in Britain (10) than Ireland (eight), making a particular impact at Ayr. Like the lottery winner who buys another ticket, he will be trying again. “It's not a bad selling point for a fella to have after going into his fourth season training,” he said. “We'll have about 40-plus on the Flat and hopefully 16-plus 2-year-olds. We went to fair money for a few and at the moment they're looking fairly good.”

“We try to buy horses that would be forward types–unless you have the top-end breeder-owners or John Magnier buying, there are not so many that can buy the War Fronts, Galileos, Shamardals, Dubawis, so we have to try to buy the best of the rest. This year we put our heads on the block a bit to try to find them. “They're unnamed but I've a cracking Declaration Of War, a nice Dark Angel (Ire), an Elzaam (Aus) that we think could be special, and a nice Fast Company (Ire). If the ground is going to be soft early on, Fast Companys have a great record. He's not going to grow into a massive horse so hopefully he can be out early as well. “Hopefully a few of the 3-year-olds are well-handicapped and once we're winning, that leads to better races and better quality.”

Perhaps his next star player will be a rather more recognisable one. G Force (Ire) (Tamayuz (GB}), with whom David O'Meara worked similar miracles to win the G1 Haydock Sprint Cup, had fertility issues at Tally Ho Stud and was bought by members of the Equine Growth Syndicate. A first season with Keatley did not yield a victory, but there were green shoots. “After his last run at the Curragh (Listed Testimonial S.) we thought we'd have the win and he just got too worked up and overly excited about the whole thing,” he said.

“We made the decision to castrate him and do his wind as a precautionary thing. I was really happy with his work when we got him back in November; he was showing signs of what he was capable of doing. We planned to go to Dubai, he was going real well on the grass then we worked on the all-weather and he wasn't as effective on the quicker going. We thought it was better to give him a break, he'd probably never really had one, especially with other horses. “There's some serious money to be picked up in some of those big sprint handicaps and hopefully he'll get into the Group bracket, he just needs some juice in the ground. He won't take much getting fit and we'll be trying to campaign him straight away. He ran well in a conditions race and then in the Ayr Gold Cup–he was only a couple of lengths off being at the very top again.”

The trainer has whiled away the winter by developing a boutique jumps string with an emphasis on quality over quantity. Even if those reservations over topping 2016 persist, he is clearly itching for the new season to arrive. “Why can't we have the Flat go from the start of March to the end of November?” he said. “Three months is more than enough to have a break from the grass and there are more than enough horses – this country is full of horses rated below 65 or 70. You've got the top horses and top jockeys going abroad and it would give everyone else a chance.” Through his actions, Adrian Keatley has given everyone else a chance already.