A PURCHASE price of €8,500 would scarcely command a second glance in a store sale results sheet. When the horse bought for that sum helps a relatively new handler reach eight four-year-old maiden winners in a calendar year, it merits rather more attention.

That was the contribution of Louilood at Portrush on Saturday, as the two-and-three-quarter-length success for the French-bred son of Bathyrhon ensured it was a worthwhile 850-kilometre round trip for Gary Murphy’s Wexford base to win that particular four-year-old maiden race for the second year running.

Twenty-four hours later, the journey to Loughrea may have been shorter, albeit still a 400-kilometre round trip, but the outcome was the same.

Murphy was back in the winner’s enclosure having saddled a second four-year-old winner of the weekend, when Bonnie Long Legs made a winning debut in the opening mares’ maiden at the Galway venue.

That weekend double, with his first two runners of the new campaign, has brought Murphy’s tally of four-year-old maiden winners in the 2026 calendar year to eight, already bettering his 2025 full-year total of seven.

Notable feat

Notably, ahead of this weekend’s action, no handler has saddled more four-year-old maiden winners than him in 2026 – undoubtedly a notable feat in itself - but it is the sums paid for the horses behind those results which make his record particularly worthy of attention.

The Cudgley Stables operator has, in a short space of time, been able to consistently achieve a level of success in this four-year-old maiden division with what can only be considered value purchases. The €8,500 purchase Louilood is the latest illustration of that. This is at a time when the value of horses being prepared for point-to-point debuts continues to rise.

That contrast was evident last weekend. The winner of Loughrea’s four-year-old geldings’ maiden had cost €150,000 at the store sales, a valuation supported by his pedigree as a half-brother to the five-time Grade 1-winning chaser Gerri Colombe.

At Portrush, Louilood’s nearest pursuer, Shoes Off, had last gone through the sales ring for €70,000 as a yearling at Arqana.

Big investments

Those prices reflect the level of investment now going into young horses bought to race between the flags. Strong pedigrees and an athletic physique can attract considerable competition from buyers, with handlers understandably prepared to reinvest in horses they believe can deliver a significant return.

Murphy, however, has been achieving his results at a very different end of the market. None of the horses with which he has won his 20 four-year-old maidens to date in his career have cost more than €23,000.

That upper limit was the price paid for True To My Word at last year’s Tattersalls Ireland July Store Sale. Louilood came from the same sale for €8,500, while To The Wire was bought at its 2023 edition for €17,000.

Catchem Black cost €15,000 as a foal at Goffs, while Hidden Fortune was an €18,500 purchase at the Tattersalls Ireland May Store Sale.

There are also horses he has won with whose previous appearance in a sales ring as unraced horses had failed to produce a buyer.

Crafted Pearl was bought back by her then vendor for €10,500 at the 2024 May Store Sale; Kells Bay was another vendor buyback at €15,000 at last year’s Derby Sale Part 2, whilst Rattlin Home had failed to find a buyer at €3,800 when offered for sale as a foal.

Hidden gems

Finding maiden winners from horses that fall into those budgets is one thing. Producing horses capable of making their mark at the highest level is another, and irrespective of the budgets handlers are working with, many can spend years waiting for such an individual to pass through their hands.

Murphy has already had Affordale Fury, an €8,000 store purchase who subsequently became a Grade 1 winner, and the €13,500 acquisition Only By Night, a Grade 2 winner that was beaten less than a length in a Grade 1.

Both emerged from purchases well removed from the more expensive offerings in Part 1 of the Arkle and Derby Sales. Both began their winning careers in four-year-old maidens for Murphy.

For a handler who only sent out his first winner in March 2022, that is already a substantial advertisement for his abilities, and last weekend’s results were just the latest in what is quickly becoming a long line of similar examples.

TO describe Emmet Mullins as a shrewd operator is hardly a new observation. The Kilkenny trainer has repeatedly challenged conventional thinking, with the results vindicating his approach.

Noble Yeats won the 2022 Aintree Grand National for him as a novice chaser, while Feronily progressed from winning a maiden point-to-point to Grade 1 success over fences within the same season.

Then there is the top hunter chaser, Its On The Line, whom he sourced for just £8,000 at an online auction, having spotted potential in a horse whose two maiden point-to-point starts had yielded fifth and fourth-place finishes.

This week, Mullins has spotted a loophole of sorts in the conditions of the non-graded winners’ open races, which has allowed him to enter Jeroboam Machin at Tinahely tomorrow.

New rules

These non-graded opens were introduced at the start of the 2023 spring term, following a run of open races that were being won by previous graded winners, and there have typically been six to seven such races programmed each season since.

Jeroboam Machin was a four-and-a-quarter-length winner of a Grade 2 bumper at the Dublin Racing Festival in 2024, with conventional thinking perhaps expecting to rule him out of tomorrow’s contest.

However, the conditions of the race only exclude horses who ‘have not won a Grade 1, 2 or 3, Hurdle or Steeplechase’, therefore ensuring a Grade 2 bumper winner remains eligible.

This weekend, there are two graded bumper winners possibly set to have their first runs in an open lightweight, with Redemption Day, who won the 2024 Grade 1 Punchestown Champion Bumper when under the care of Willie Mullins, entered for the novice riders’ open in Umma House tomorrow afternoon.

It would be the first time that we see the now nine-year-old in competitive action since his maiden hurdle victory at Naas all the way back in March 2025.

Ratings of the week

THE winning time that Louilood (93+) clocked in making a winning debut at Portrush on Saturday suggested he set a good tempo, as he went on to boss this race from the front of the field in a very professional introduction.

At Loughrea, Bonnie Long Legs (82+) came out on top of a protracted battle with the runner-up, which saw the pair pull 15 lengths clear of their rivals in the four-year-old mares’ maiden.

The geldings’ equivalent on the card was a more closely run affair. Seven horses turned into the home straight covered by less than five lengths, but Menelas Colombe (91++) was able to assert on the run-in to win going away at the line.

Three horses held leading claims coming to the last in Castletown-Geoghegan, but the swifter leap of Endless Drinking (89+) proved key here as he made amends for a luckless debut in the spring.