PAUL McKeon grew up in Sligo, going racing across the west of Ireland. Now living in Dublin the last 35 years, he’s spent more than three decades as an owner, learning that patience and luck often contribute more to success than the amount of money spent.

“As a kid I would have gone racing to Sligo, Roscommon, Ballinrobe and, of course, Galway,” he recalls. “I first got involved in ownership back in 1994. My God, that’s 32 years ago!”

Paul’s first foray into ownership came when he and a few friends bought horses with Aidan O’Brien when he trained in Piltown. “In the last seven or eight years, I’ve doubled down and probably have more horses than I should have,” he says through a laugh.

When looking through some of Paul’s more recent runners, I noticed that most of them were on the less expensive side. “A lot of it is luck,” he tells me. “What you won’t have seen, is some horses that we paid a lot of money for that never made it to the track. We have spent some money in the past, but what we’ve found is that we had better luck with some of the cheaper horses we purchased, like Impervious. We bought her for €26,000 and Savante only cost €6,000. We have bought expensive horses, but they just haven’t worked out for us.”

It was Relegate, however, that really changed the trajectory of Paul’s journey in ownership. Trained by Willie Mullins, and ridden by Katie Walsh, she was the winner of the 2018 Champion Bumper at Cheltenham, and Paul’s first runner in his own black and white colours.

“I think when she won the Champion Bumper, some people were thinking of making offers for her, but at the time it was such a surprise to win. I probably wouldn’t have as many horses now if she hadn’t won that.”

Young stock

Paul decided not to cash in on any of those offers, and has kept Relegate as a broodmare. “We’ve got a few broodmares down in Wexford with Colm (Murphy, trainer). We still have Relegate, and she’s had three or four foals for us. Her oldest is a four-year-old that might make the track this year. We’re breeding to sell as three-year-olds, but if they don’t sell, we don’t mind going to the track with them. Most of our broodmares are horses that we ran on the track, but we’ve bought a few over the years as well.”

Along with his horses trained by Colm Murphy, and his band of broodmares, Paul has a team of horses in training with Neil Mulholland, who he first met about 10 years ago. “Neil is a great friend of Colm’s. They both worked in Aidan O’Brien’s yard in Piltown, and that’s where I met Colm. He rode a point-to-point winner for me back in 1995.”

Having young horses is really when an owner can dream of the success they might have on the track, but through the undulations of racing, Paul has learned to be patient. “Since I’ve sent the horses over to Neil, the horses we thought were nice as youngsters take some time to mature. Transmission is rated 137 and his target is the Midlands National and probably the Bet365 at Sandown, but we couldn’t win a race with him in Ireland. I’ve learned to be patient with Colm and Neil and I don’t put pressure on them. The dream is alive until they hit the track. A lot of bubbles can burst then.”

It was the competitiveness of Irish handicaps that led Paul to UK racing. “I decided that Ireland was too competitive to try and win races with handicappers in particular. Neil was the obvious person to go to in the UK, and he’s got a fantastic facility down in Bath. I have four horses with him at the moment, and I also own shares in a few with some other owners of his. It’s been going really well with Neil. He’s a very underrated trainer.

‘You have to cherish it’

“As there’s so much racing in England, it’s less competitive. It’s so, so competitive here. You think you have a horse well handicapped and you arrive to the races and there will be three other trainers that think the same. At the upper end of the scale, you’ve got the big trainers with their graded horses that cost at least €200,000, so it’s really difficult to compete at that level. When you end up with a horse like Impervious that can compete at that level, you have to cherish it, because it’s rare that it comes along.”

Paul has also been involved with syndicates and partnerships, winning the 2020 Matron Stakes with the Johnny Murtagh-trained Champers Elysees and the Fitzwilliam Syndicate. For Paul, the benefits of a syndicate are in the social element. “It’s nice to be involved with other people in partnerships or syndicates. The Fitzwilliam Syndicate had about 15 members and we all invested quite a lot of money. We had 40 horses all told over six or seven years with Johnny Murtagh. It’s great having that social element too. You have your nights out and naming nights. I’d probably have a preference for partnerships or syndicates rather than being on my own. It’s fine making your own decisions, but you should be listening to what the trainer tells you anyway.”