I WAS pleasantly surprised that Ian McCarthy had time to chat to me on Wednesday afternoon. The former National Hunt jockey was just back from bringing horses to gallop at the Curragh before travelling to Deauville, where he is selling at the Arqana Breeze Up Sale, and if that weren’t enough, he had two runners at Wexford on Thursday afternoon.

All this comes just days after completing the cross-country double at Punchestown with Fountain House. Writing this, I start to feel ashamed that days earlier, I was complaining to myself I didn’t have enough time for all the menial tasks on my list.

So, how does he manage everything? “Usually, I’m worried about trying to keep on the staff; that I’ve enough for them to do!” McCarthy says with nervous laughter, reluctant to talk up his success or abilities, though I suppose the horses are doing that for him.

While he seems to find more hours in the day than the rest of us, McCarthy hasn’t yet figured out how to be in two places at once – he’s currently missing a family trip to Disneyland. “It’s what we signed up for, isn’t it?” he reflects.

He’s clearly become an expert juggler, but even after experiencing the thrill of training Punchestown winners, he has no intention of adding ‘trainer’ to his already jampacked CV. “I wouldn’t be able for the training,” he explains.

“It’s grand here, you have no pressure. We own the horses running during the week ourselves, and the two horses running at Wexford are for owners that don’t want to sell. Of course, like anything in the industry, it can be tough, but when it’s going well, it’s brilliant.”

‘Going well’ would be an understatement when describing McCarthy’s operation at the moment. Fountain House’s wins in Saturday’s Howden Cross Country Chase and Tuesday’s Kildare Hunt Club race came by a combined 49 lengths, making it five wins in a row, and the Kildare yard’s only other runner that week, Hearts And Spades, finished second in the Bishopscourt Cup.

Multitasking

McCarthy’s Punchestown double may have attracted the most attention in the media, but the Jack of all trades is also enjoying a career-best season between the flags and has sold point-to-pointers for six figures, while horses he pre-trained – the bread and butter of his business – are flying high on the track.

“The horses have been healthy all year – the breezers, the pre-trainers, everything,” he says, modestly. “The yearlings always get their sickness, but we have the yard divided up into two areas, which seems to work well.

“We have two different sides to the yard, two different walkers. We’re fairly strict with disinfectant and stable management. They’ve been so healthy the whole year through, and it makes it so much easier, and the results speak for that.”

The purpose-built site in Kildangan includes 49 stables, the bulk of which are filled by flat-bred two-year-olds, most of them pre-trainers, along with 15 to 20 point-to-pointers. While his background is in jumps racing, McCarthy’s favourite part of the job is working with the flat juveniles.

It’s not entirely surprising, given what they’ve gone on to do – Group 1 winner Jannah Rose, Queen Mary winner Quick Suzy, multiple Group 1-placed Vespertilio, dual group winner Ocean Jewel and Irish Leger Trial victor Leinster began their careers with McCarthy.

Epsom Derby runner-up Ambiente Friendly was sold by McCarthy’s Grangecoor Farm at the breeze-up sales, for which he also prepared Hierarchy, narrowly denied in the Mill Reef Stakes.

The Grangecoor honour role is growing all the time, too, with the twice group-placed Skydance a likely classic contender for Willie McCreery and Al Shiraa’aa Racing. Debut winner Rebel Moon is another horse to follow in the same ownership and trained by Joseph O’Brien, and the flat season is only in the early stages.

“I find it satisfying, following them on their paths,” McCarthy comments. “I enjoy working with them at home, with no pressure to go racing – that’s why I have no intention of training.”

Trading horses ‘keeps the business in motion,’ as McCarthy puts it, but the point-to-pointers and their wins also provide the hardworking staff at Grangecoor with thrills along the way – a very important element, given the industry’s challenge to recruit and retain staff.

“I’ve a great bunch of staff who deserve great credit, particularly three lads who are with me full-time – Jamie Kemmy, Evan Kemmy and Nathan Sullivan,” McCarthy reports.

“They have been at the majority of the point-to-points with me throughout the season and they love it; they’re getting great enjoyment out of it. They’re looking after the horses and they’re getting rewarded with the horses winning.

“It probably makes it interesting for the younger staff. They’re learning an awful lot in different aspects of the game – they have everything from yearlings to pointers, to three-year-olds coming in from the store sales. They probably have a good interest of pedigrees, too, which is good, so that they see the broader aspect of it as well.”

Planning ahead

McCarthy himself has always looked at the bigger picture, planting the seeds of his current career while he was still riding, he explains.

“Even when I was claiming 7lb, I kept a couple of horses on the Curragh in rented stables. I always had an interest in doing something like this; I had it mapped out for a long, long time to go down this route.

“The clients I have make it; you’re working with a real good quality of horse, very well-bred horses. I’ve had some great support from some high-profile owner/breeders, but the smaller clients are equally important – they’ve been hugely loyal from the very start.”

Without any official recognition of where winners begin their careers, it can be difficult to summarise McCarthy’s success, but his statistics in point-to-points this season have been impressive - 13 wins from 26 starts.

Quality over quantity is key for McCarthy, as is a patient approach, which paid off when Kiss Rose sold for £170,000 at the Tattersalls Cheltenham Festival Sale. “The Bleahens weren’t just getting what they wanted for him at the store sales, so they gave me him to train,” he says of the Lisronagh maiden winner.

“He sold very well; he was just a horse that took time. He didn’t run till he was five, and I had him since he was three. We give them all the time that they need.”

Priceless

Given McCarthy’s experience buying and selling under both codes, I’m curious as to which are easier to buy – flat or National Hunt horses? “Both are competitive, but I’d say the jumps game is probably a little bit tougher,” he replies. “I get great enjoyment out of the point-to-pointers, but from a business point of view, I’d say that the breezers are more feasible.”

That said, the pleasure he gets out of the jumpers is priceless, he adds: “I get great enjoyment out of it after riding over jumps for 15 odd years; I probably couldn’t get away from the bug of it. It’s as close a thing as you get to training.”

The La Touche is now the goal for Fountain House following five consecutive wins, and an impressive 13 career wins overall, from 19 starts in the silks of McCarthy’s wife Nicki.

McCarthy bought the Lucky Speed gelding when he had three runs to his name, based on the recommendation of Eoin Mahon, who has been the stable star’s regular rider, but missed Punchestown due to injury.

McCarthy’s father led celebrations as the family-owned horse returned to the Punchestown winners’ enclosure, and McCarthy explains that the horse’s achievements has been a real tonic for his father.

“We probably could have sold him at various stages, but we decided not to,” he says.

“My father was sick at the time that he was second in Punchestown [2024 Festival] – he got cancer in the back of his eye. After that it was decided that we’d go back and try to win a couple in Punchestown. He’s made a full recovery since, but that’s why it means so much to all of us.”

First career

Despite the large family presence at Punchestown, McCarthy didn’t come from a racing background but he made some important connections early on in his career. After attending RACE alongside Shane Foley, Paddy Kennedy, Matthew O’Connor, Sean Flanagan in 2004, he spent 15 years with Dessie Hughes on the Curragh.

After that, he moved to Ted Walsh, but he enjoyed his greatest times in the saddle aboard Jarlath Fahey’s likeable mare Jennies Jewel.

McCarthy rode the daughter of Flemensfirth to win a Grade 3 chase and place in three Grade 1 hurdles, including when outrunning odds of 33/1 with a fine second in the Champion Stayers Hurdle at Punchestown.

McCarthy and Fahey previously combined to win a Grade 3 hurdle with Maca Rince, just three years after the rider attended RACE. Two years later, the Galway native celebrated Galway Festival success aboard Noel Glynn’s Island Myth.

McCarthy enjoyed another landmark win in his native county a few years later, combining with Stephen Nolan’s 12-year-old veteran Prince Rudi, the rider and trainer having also landed a Grade B at the Fairyhouse Easter Festival 18 months prior.

Ian McCarthy would have gained insight into the breeze-up sales while based with Ted Walsh, who of course shares facilities with his daughter Katie, a successful breeze-up consignor.

This brings me back to McCarthy’s most imminent challenge – selling ‘a very nice’ Sioux Nation colt as Lot 167 at the Arqana Breeze Up Sale this afternoon (Saturday). Further ahead, Grangecoor Farm has juveniles entered at the Tattersalls Ireland Breeze Up Sale, the Goffs Classic Sale and in France.

So far, this year’s breeze-up sales have posted lower returns across the board – in stark contrast to a boom in demand 12 months ago. Has it been as bad as the statistics suggest?

“The first two sales have been tough, but I think it will change,” McCarthy surmises. “I think France is going to be strong – there’s a great calibre of horse there. I think Fairyhouse will be good as well, it’s just been a tough start.

“What’s going on in the world hasn’t helped either, but I think with the season after getting into flow, I think there will be an appetite for horses.”

The different facets of McCarthy’s operation means that he can weather the ups and downs of different markets, and given how his horses are faring, you can certainly understand an appetite for horses like that.