CHELTENHAM is the focus of most racing conversations from now until March and Jim Balfry of the Supreme Horse Racing Club is as caught up in it as anyone. The largest National Hunt syndicate in Ireland and Britain hope to be represented by the likes of Airlie Beach, Bunk Off Early, Listen Dear and Kemboy but while having a winner at the festival “would be right up there”, Balfry finds it difficult to imagine anything overtaking the events of June 21st, 2014 at a little place called Royal Ascot.

Pique Sous was one of the first horses they bought. Willie Mullins told them he had two nice horses down at Tracy Gilmore’s that they could have their pick from, so they plumped for the grey and the deal was done. The resident of the next door box was Digeanta, who proved a six-time winner but the Supreme brains trust have never regretted their decision.

Victorious eight times, including in a Grade 2 hurdle, the stunning-looking grey was third in a Champion Bumper and sixth in a Supreme Novices’ Hurdle in which the one-two-three read Champagne Fever, My Tent Or Yours and Jezki.

National Hunt ground never really suited the gelding, so Mullins began targeting opportunities on the flat. And that is how they ended up winning the Queen Alexandra Stakes.

“The buzz that created was something else,” says Balfry, leaning back in his chair. “It would be very hard to beat that. That day, it was 26 degrees. We were all there in the sun, about 25 of us, all the women were in their finery.

“It was the last race of the week. Ryan Moore rode the horse and was presented with leading jockey for the week in our colours. It wasn’t like going into Kilbeggan and not even getting a cup of tea or not being allowed into the owners’ and trainers’ bar until after the second race because there was a private function – which happened when Airlie Beach won there and I had a couple of lads over from England to see her run. In Ascot, there were bottles of champagne going like there was no tomorrow, flowing like the Niagara! We had a great evening.”

The next plan was to go for the Galway Hurdle, as the son of Martaline was thrown in, but he picked up an injury, and more since, meaning he had only seen the track twice since, before last night’s return at Dundalk. Pique Sous is 10 now but Balfry is confident that he retains his brilliance and that the relatively low mileage means he has plenty to offer. He has won on the all-weather before, under Paul Townend, and been given an entry in the Winter Derby at Lingfield on February 25th.

AVANT TOUT

If Royal Ascot was the highlight of Supreme’s 80-odd winners to date, the low point arrived more recently.

“That came only a couple of months ago with Avant Tout. He was ante-post favourite for the Hennessy. We thought maybe he was going to be a Gold Cup horse and the way Outlander is so short for it now, who’s to say that he wasn’t? He was rated 154 without being tried and the day in Naas (November 6th), going down to the first, he kicked himself and did his tendon and had to be put down. That was a really gutting day.”

The vagaries of racing have been highlighted quite a bit in the last couple of weeks but Balfry is well accustomed to it. Although not from a racing background, he recalled listening to Grand National commentaries on a neighbour’s radio in Caherconlish, a village just outside Limerick city, and being taken by how animated one particular man became. It grabbed a hold of him.

PRISON OFFICERS’ SYNDICATE

By 1995, he was a prison guard in Portlaoise when a colleague, Gerry O’Neill placed an advertisment in the prison officers’ magazine seeking interest in establishing a syndicate. The Syndicate of Prison Officers’ Racing Team (SPORT) was established and one of their best horses was Micko’s Dream, named in memory of initial member Mick O’Hehir, who had died, leaving behind a young family. The syndicate gave his share to his widow, Elsie.

It was a story that captured the public’s imagination and the horse, sent to an up-and-coming trainer called Willie Mullins, won 14 times and was placed on 10 more occasions. Among the success included the Grade 1 Irish Independent Chase at Fairyhouse as well as the Fortria, the Thyestes, the Leopardstown Handicap, the Dan Moore Chases.

He was rated 160 by the time disaster struck, when suffering the exact same fate that would befall Avant Tout 15 years later, knocking into himself in the closing stages of the Clonmel Oil Chase in November 2001.

Sport Racing Club is still on the go and have a couple of horses with Peter Fahey but Balfry is no longer involved. He retired from the prison service in 2010 and now works full time for Supreme.

He had retained a relationship with Mullins, helping him out with some other syndicates. In 2008, Steve Massey was looking for a couple of horses to lease for the Marks & Spencer’s social club, so Balfry set him up with a mare. And as they worked together, they realised that there was a gap in the market. So they established Supreme and with Mullins just about to go into overdrive, hitched their wagon to the juggernaut.

They were a bit fortunate in that regard, as they had initially planned on going with Donald McCain, but felt the BHA were making it difficult for them.

“They had Middleham and Elite and those and I’d say they didn’t want the upstarts coming in from Ireland. So we brought the two horses back and the two of them won here.”

KEN PARKHILL

Supreme Carolina was the first and the entire operation has been a resounding success. It is notable that many of their best horses have been fillies. And many of those are leased from Ken Parkhill, of Castletown Quarry Stud. Mullins pointed them in that direction early on and both parties have enjoyed a wonderful relationship. Supreme’s members have had memorable occasions on the track, while Parkhill has winners, and in the case of Zuzka and Myska, blacktype winners, whose offspring will be in demand.

“A lot of breeders do the same thing and by doing that, they would have brought people into racing for the first time, or brought in new syndicates.”

It is an area he feels that Horse Racing Ireland are falling short in. A statistic emerged around the time of last year’s Melbourne Cup that one in every 310 people in Australia were involved in racehorse ownership because of the vigorously proactive approach of the authorities in putting trainers in touch with people wanting to get into the sport. Syndicates are central to that approach. It is remarkable, given the coveted place of the horse in Ireland, that the figure is closer to one in every 1,700 people on the island. He hopes that HRI’s racehorse ownership manager Aidan McGarry and recently appointed owner recruitment manager Amber Byrne will do more in a practical sense to address this.

“I should be able to ring them to say, ‘How do I get a horse?’ or ‘Is there a breeder somewhere that we can organise an agreement with for a mare?’ What happens when you establish a relationship like that is you build up a body of trust with him and that is ongoing. I can ring Ken now and we have never had so much as a cross word.

HRI AND SYNDICATES

“To me, the new owners in Ireland need someone to talk to, to guide them. The paperwork is one thing but it’s about putting people in touch with the right people, building relationships. All the members of Supreme Racing are on my phone. I know every one of them personally. That personal touch between HRI and the syndicate isn’t there. I think they could do an awful lot more, be more proactive with syndicates.

“There’s a big breakdown from starting off and getting to where we are. Now we’re exceptional because I’m full-time, Steve Massey is full-time and we’ve a full-time administrator because there’s a lot of work. But when you are starting off, you need someone to go down there, take you by the hand and make relationships. Build up those relationships between the new man and the breeders and trainers.”

The gap between the ownership experience in Ireland and Britain has long been acknowledged but Balfry praises Punchestown, the Curragh, Tramore, Cork, Ballinrobe and Sligo for their excellence. Many others remain very poor though.

“There’s a lot of courses will give you nothing at all, not even a cup of tea. Whereas they’ll go the extra mile in England. You might get a bottle of champagne with your colours on it. It’s the little touch that makes the owner feel special.”

Supreme own around 50 horses now and are always open to accepting new members. They cater for people interested in participating at all levels, with the emphasis on ensuring that they maintain their interest in racing, even if suffering a setback such as the loss of a horse as valuable as Avant Tout.

In such instances, they will transfer a share in another horse on a temporary basis, or lease a mare for them while they decide if they want to continue. That is more likely to happen while enjoying the other aspects of racehorse ownership, and diluting the bitter pill of the loss of a good horse and significant investment. There is also the facility for a shareholder to sell his/her share privately, as long as the new person is acceptable to the group.

MULLINS’ GENIUS

Perhaps the greatest attraction though is being so connected to the most powerful operation Irish jump racing has ever seen. And Mullins is very cognisant of the importance of being generous with his time.

“He’s a very nice fella. He’s very sharp. Willie’s biggest asset is that he’s very clever and he misses nothing. His attention to detail with the horses is second to none. With the members, he might not know everyone’s name but he’ll know they’re with him and he’ll always give a couple of minutes, which is all he has to give. And when we’re down at the gallops, he’ll give the people all they want, pose for all the photos. There’s no problem.”

Why has he become so successful though?

“Well sure, he’s probably just a genius but apart from that, I’d say it’s the team he’s built. It’s not by accident that he’s going to France and buying winners, winners that go on to win Grade 1s in Cheltenham and others are going and they’re not buying them. He has a huge network of connections in France and here on the point-to-point circuit in Ireland.

“The light goes on in Willie’s I’d say every Sunday evening after point-to-points or racing in France. He has the lines and he has (Harold) Kirk there full-time looking for them. We’re very fortunate to have access to that expertise.

“The team he has at the yard is brilliant too and they do a lot of the work while he’s in the office. But there will never be a gallop take place that he’s not in the middle of the ring for and everyone will have to wait until he’s there. He knows every horse, all 200 of them, or however many are there.

“And like I said, he’s a genius.”

Mullins makes all the decisions as regards potential assignments and his experience of that process makes Balfry chuckle whenever he hears or reads commentators criticise the maestro for not revealing his plans earlier. Quite simply, the man cannot tell you what he doesn’t know.

“He’d break your heart. You could ask Willie at 10 to 10 on a Friday morning, ‘are we running tomorrow?’ and he’d say ‘yeah.’ You could check the declarations at 10 o’clock and you wouldn’t be running. He won’t make up his mind until the last second.

“I said to Patrick one morning at five to 10 one morning ‘what are you riding in the bumper tomorrow?’ and he said ‘I’ll have to wait ‘til the declarations to find out.’ At five to 10!”

CHELTENHAM PLANS

With that in mind, intended Cheltenham engagements come with a health warning but right now, the likelihood is that Grade 1 victor Airlie Beach will line out in the Trull House Stud Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle, Kemboy in the Neptune or Albert Bartlett, Listen Dear in the Arkle if all goes well in the Opera Hat at Naas today and Bunk Off Early appears in the Deloitte tomorrow before what would be an appropriate pot at the Supreme.

“He won, in my opinion, the best maiden hurdle this year in Leopardstown. There was a real good field in it and there was no second in it. He hammered them. We think he’s very good and has a very good chance in the Supreme but he has to win (the Deloitte). They’re all after winning their maidens and they won’t really know about them until after (tomorrow).”

But as for a Cheltenham win trumping June 2014?

“It’d be up there. It probably would be very hard to bypass Royal Ascot. Especially with the top hats!”