Murtagh Primed for Phase Two

MURTAGH PRIMED FOR PHASE TWO 
Story & Photos by Emma Berry 

If there’s one thing that many racing fans will miss this season, it’s the sight of Johnny Murtagh, one of the most successful jockeys of the modern era, being led in on a big-race winner at a major festival. It’s not, however, something that bothers the man himself, whose agenda it is now to be walking in alongside those winners.

“It’s nice to be at the races and seeing all the lads, but I don’t miss the riding at all. I was pretty clear when I made my decision and that was it,” claims Murtagh, now 43, who retired from race riding in February to concentrate on his burgeoning training operation at Fox Covert Stables on The Curragh. 

“I never felt pressure riding,” Murtagh added. “I used to always say to myself ‘this is what you work hard for and this is what you do.’ The hardest part of the riding was keeping my weight down. I used to run every day and had that constant battle of being so disciplined for such a long period of time, from February, and in the end right up until after Hong Kong in early December. It was a constant, everyday thing and you learned to manage it.” 

“The training is totally different,” he said. “Every day you go out and something could happen–a rider falls off, a horse bangs his knee–and I won’t say I feel pressure, but I do feel very responsible for the horses and a duty to the owners who have sent me these horses. They want me to do the best I can with them and that’s what I’m trying to do–to keep them out of harm’s way and prepare them physically and mentally the best way I can so they show up on the day and run to their best.” 

Murtagh’s mantra for his stable, situated exactly a mile from the mile start on The Curragh racecourse, is “relaxed and happy”, and it is certainly borne out by his friendly and welcoming team of riders and yard staff. 
He says: “If you have a happy yard and a happy atmosphere with good staff, generally it rubs off on the horses.” 

It’s easy to take the Irishman at his word on a sunny spring morning as he buzzes around the stables, fixing a breast girth to a handsome but lively son of Murtagh’s 2002 Derby winner High Chaparral (Ire)–“We’ve just gelded him but he doesn’t seem to realize he’s a gelding yet”–and cracking jokes with various members of his team. Just as he was adored in his public role as a jockey, so it seems that spirit of bonhomie remains in these more private mornings of routine exercise for the 52 horses in his care. 

He quietly sings the praises of his head girl Valerie Keatley, herself a former trainer, after teasing her loudly. It’s doubtless part of a daily routine in which the ever-smiling Keatley will give as good as she gets. The same can be said for the trainer’s 18-year-old daughter, Caroline, who is one of the stable’s two apprentices and shoots her father black looks as he grins while yelling at her to hold on to her neck strap. 

“She’s so like me,” Murtagh says from the car as he watches the eldest of his five children deftly lead the string on The Curragh’s round gallop, riding a filly by yet another of her father’s former star rides, Yeats (Ire). “She’s a bit too honest at times for my liking! She tells it to you straight, that’s for sure.” 
“She’s probably a bit better than she knows,” he added. “She’s riding well and knows the horses well and I’m excited for her.” 

From starting out in 2012 with a handful of horses sent to Ireland from England to run on the all-weather at Dundalk by owner Andrew Tinkler, the stable has morphed quickly into a thriving concern. Tommy Carmody initially held the training licence at the premises owned by Murtagh and his wife Orla. Then, last summer, Murtagh, while still a jockey, opted to perform a dual role, assuming the training duties in the middle of the season. 

“We started with five horses,” Murtagh recalls. “It was myself, Tommy and Niall [McCullagh] at the start and we’d ride one or two lots each. Our first runner was a winner and our second runner was second. Ursa Major (Ire) won his maiden and over those three months we had some success, then Royal Diamond (Ire) came to us. A month later another five came over so we had to get some more staff and it just snowballed.” 

“I thought it would be a great idea, so I could really see what was involved in training, and I said to Orla ‘let’s do it for a few months and see if we can break even’.” 

The one blot on the landscape of an otherwise perfect start to his training business was Murtagh’s falling out with the Aga Khan, for whom he was retained jockey. With Murtagh out injured, Pat Smullen was called up to take the ride on the Aga Khan’s Hartani (Ire) in the G3 Irish St Leger Trial in August 2012, only for the colt to be beaten a nose by the Carmody-trained Ursa Major, a resident of Fox Covert Stables. Murtagh’s retainer was swiftly cancelled. 

He says: “The training just started to grow and the thing with the Aga Khan was a bit of an oversight on my part. But I thank God I wasn’t riding Hartani. I didn’t really think anything of it at the time. I just thought, ‘John Oxx is racing against the likes of Dermot Weld and Mick Halford every day of the week so what would be different?’ I suppose we just didn’t realize how big we’d get and how quickly. I think it was then that I thought, ‘this is the path for me’. Nobody can ride forever.” 

Hartani’s next outing will have done little to improve the Aga Khan’s mood, with the colt finishing eighth, more than five lengths off another Carmody/Murtagh runner, Royal Diamond (Ire), in the G1 Irish St Leger. Ridden by his best man and long-term friend, Niall McCullagh, Royal Diamond’s Classic success for the close-knit team is certain to remain one of Murtagh’s sweetest racing memories. 

“Niall and I met when we were apprentices–we were also with Richard Hughes–and we’re all good friends. We’ve been hanging around and traveling to the races together ever since. I got a great kick out of him winning the Irish St Leger on Royal Diamond–it was his first Group 1 and his first Irish Classic,” says Murtagh of the jockey who performs a vital role at the yard. 

“Niall rides out for me every morning after he’s ridden two lots for John Oxx and it’s great for me that he’s in here every day. He’s probably a lot more sensible than I am and he gives me a different point of view, which is great because you have to keep an open mind when you’re training horses. I know I don’t know everything so it’s good to bounce things off him and all the staff, who are with the horses all the time.” 

While involving his staff as much as possible, another of Murtagh’s apparent strengths in his new role is his insistence on leading by example. No job is too menial– whether it’s sweeping the yard or jumping in the giant dustbin to squash the empty feedbags and shavings-bale wrappers. 

In the Murtagh family, the hard graft doesn’t end with Johnny. Budding jockey Caroline rides four lots a day, while her mother is the lynchpin of the busy racing office, not to mention unofficial hospitality manager, a role she performs with consummate ease. Having supported her husband through 20 years as a jockey, with the accompanying battle with the scales, she says her first thought on hearing of his decision to retire from the saddle was, “Great. Now I can cook him whatever I like.” 

Orla adds: “Johnny doesn’t do pressure. He loves it. I hated all the admin at the start and I put a lot of pressure on myself to get it right but now we’re in our third year and it’s getting easier. We’re dealing with owners who are very successful in their own line of work and they expect things to be done to a very high standard.” 

The perception that Murtagh’s yard is a private training establishment for Andrew Tinkler–who has 15 horses at the stable–will be well and truly quashed this season by the growing number of international owners who have sent him horses to train. They include Alan Spence, Saleh Al Homaizi and Imad Al Sagar, and Qatar Racing, which bought Purr Along (GB) for 1 million guineas at the Tattersalls December Sale in partnership with Newsells Park Stud. The 4-year-old daughter of Mount Nelson (GB) is now one of an exciting team of older horses under Murtagh’s care, along with a decent bunch of 2-year-olds, a number of whom will be appearing on racecourses before too long. 

Royal Diamond, who provided Murtagh with his final success as a jockey at Ascot when winning the G3 QIPCO British Champions Long Distance Cup last October, has a return to the royal racecourse on his agenda with the G1 Ascot Gold Cup his midsummer aim, while last year’s G1 Racing Post Trophy place-getter Altruistic (Ire) is the one who carries the stable’s main Classic hopes for the season. 

“He’s by Galileo (Ire), so you’d like to think he’ll be improving this year” says Murtagh. “His great asset is that he’s so relaxed about everything. I’d like to start him off in the Derrinstown Stud Derby Trial, then all being well, send him to Epsom.” 

These are bold ambitions from the man formerly employed by John Oxx who now hails him across The Curragh as a fellow trainer. 

“I’m not intimidated by the established trainers–I want to be competing against the best,” he says simply. “This year I went looking for horses to train and I had the back-up of being able to show some form in the book. 

“I keep saying training is easy, just to wind the others up a bit. The last 20 years of my life haven’t been easy–it was tough graft. As long as I can keep at it, the next 20 years won’t be easy either, but right now I love every minute of it.”