THE talk is supposed to be about Cheltenham, but first it’s about Dubai.

“Surreal,” Justin Carthy is saying. “There was a strange atmosphere at the races. You could hear the bangs in the sky above you, drones being intercepted by the shield.”

Sitting on the plane on the tarmac in Dublin, he saw pictures of Donald Trump on the screens in front of him and he thought to himself, ‘He wouldn’t do anything stupid this week, would he?’

Strange the things that you think, strange the things that you remember that you thought when happenstance plays its cards. By the time he landed in Dubai, the bombs had landed in Iran.

“Paul (Shanahan) and I were waiting to check in at the hotel, when we got a phone call to say that the air space had closed.”

Racing went ahead at Meydan. Super Saturday. There was a nervousness about the place. No panic, just a nervous undercurrent.

Ryan Moore and William Buick rode doubles and Simon and Ed Crisford had a treble and the remarkable Rebel’s Romance won the Dubai City of Gold, his 21st win. Sheikh Mohammed arrived to see him do that, and the people were assured. All against the backdrop of what was happening in the world outside of racing’s cocoon, and the unknown and unpredictable impact that it would have.

Loud bang

“We went back to our hotel after racing,” says Justin. “We were on the 24th floor, just having sandwiches and a drink to calm the nerves. Then there was a loud bang above us, and you were thinking, that sounded fairly close, you know?

“You were just hoping that the missile defence system was working, and it was. They were brilliant. Then suddenly the sirens went off on the phones. It was such a strange phenomenon. All the phones, everybody’s phone, all blaring. We were all ushered down to the ballroom, everyone in the hotel down to the ballroom for safety.”

It was like being in the movies, he says.

All he wanted to do was get home.

“People were brilliant,” he says. “Coolmore organised a route for us to get out through Oman, but then air space was closed before we got there. Then Prince Faisal from Saudi Arabia arranged a route for us out from Riyadh, and we decided that we could go for it.”

They didn’t know for how long Riyadh air space would remain open.

“People said that we were mad, leaving. An 11-hour drive to Riyadh, across the Saudi border. But we just wanted to get home. I was straight onto Louise and Joe Tully in Tully Travel, and they were brilliant. I must have booked about 14 different flights, from Oman, from Dubai the next day, from Abu Dhabi, and flights from Riyadh that we didn’t make, and organising visas.”

Desert dash

Six hours to the Saudi border, five hours from the Saudi border to Riyadh. Eight people in the car, but not much talk. They got to the Saudi border, but there was an issue with Justin’s visa. His passport said PI, his visa said P1. They got it sorted but it took another hour. And you don’t know for how long the window is going to remain open.

“There were times on the road journey that I did think that we should have stayed. Like at the Saudi border when there was the issue with my visa. I didn’t know what was going to happen. And then, on the road to Riyadh, we lost phone coverage at different stages. It just went dead. When that happened, I was like, ‘Ah here we go.’ And nothing around us. It was all so bleak. Just us and the road across the desert, sand for as far as you could see.”

There were three flights leaving from Riyadh, one to Paris, one to Geneva and one to Zurich. Shortly after they arrived at the airport though, the flight to Paris was cancelled. They got on the Zurich flight and held their collective breaths.

“That was still a nervy time. The board said that our flight was cancelled, but then it was back on again. Even on the bus out to the plane. One of the stewards told us that they wanted to get everybody on the plane, so that the captain could see if there was a window in which he could take off. Eventually we got onto the runway, up, up and away. Some relief. At least I’ll be home for Cheltenham!”

Cheltenham debut

It is 27 years since Justin Carthy first stood as a bookmaker at Cheltenham, the first race on which he bet there was the 1999 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.

“It was the first time that they allowed pitches to be sold in Britain,” he says. “Before that, they were all handed down through families or whatever. They had the auction in Chester, and we saw it as a great opportunity. We bought pitches at all the big tracks, Newbury, Ascot, York, Cheltenham. We paid £28,000 for our Cheltenham pitch, number nine on the rails.”

Back then, you couldn’t have a board on the rails. You couldn’t display prices. You stood there with a card on your arm, and punters would come up to you. What price Joe Mac? What price Cardinal Hill?

“I remember looking at the book before that Supreme Novices’ Hurdle and seeing that we have over £100,000 in it. Holy lantern! And it was all on credit, all on trust. Michael Tabor came up to me before the race and said, ‘Do you take a bet, young man?’ I knew who he was, and I think that he knew about me from J.P.”

Justin got to know J.P. McManus through the late Jimmy Hayes.

“Jimmy and I were best pals,” says Justin. “We miss Jimmy lots. I got to know J.P. through Jimmy, and I think that Michael asked J.P. about me.”

The Martin Pipe-trained Hors La Loi won that Supreme Novices’ Hurdle under A.P. McCoy, Cardinal Hill unseated at the second last and Joe Mac finished second, and that was a good result for the fledgling rails bookmaker.

Licence to thrill

Justin cut his teeth as a bookmaker with his father Noel, clerking for him at Shelbourne Park greyhound stadium, clerking for him at Leopardstown, clerking for him whenever school allowed and sometimes when it didn’t. Doing the pencil, he says. He thinks he started clerking when he was 12 or 13. Different times.

“I got a job then with Shane Browne,” he says. “John Browne was the name of the company. I clerked at the big Leopardstown meeting at Christmas, and I loved it. I loved the numbers, you had to be fairly quick, and the different types of people you met. Then I got my own bookmaking licence when I was 19 and we bought a small betting office in Deansgrange. We bought pitches on all the main Irish racecourses and it went from there.”

The problem is that it was all-consuming. Racing is like that. School came second and, in time, even sports had to take a back seat. A talented Gaelic football player – his father Noel played on the Wicklow team that won the All-Ireland Junior Championship in 1969 – it was inevitable that there would come a point at which a choice had to be made by young Justin and, when that time came, there was no betting on what the outcome was going to be.

“I remember, I was at a race meeting down the country on a Friday afternoon,” he says. “We had a championship semi-final. I drove back, but I was late for the start of the match, which started at 7.30pm or 8pm, in Ashford. The manager put me on, he put me on fairly quickly after I got there. Anyway, we won the semi-final. But I remember the manager telling my dad that he wasn’t going to start me in the final.”

Incredulous look.

“I was like, no. I dismissed it, you know? My dad said, I’m telling you. He says he’s not going to start you because you were late and you know, you can understand that. And he didn’t start me. I came on with 20 minutes to go. We were beaten by a point. I took off my jersey after that match and I never played again. I probably regretted it afterwards, but it would have been difficult anyway. I was getting busier and busier with racing.”

His racing colours are the blue and yellow of Wicklow.

Memorable days

Chronicle Bookmakers grew into a huge success story. In partnership with Dermot Desmond, some of their most memorable days were at Cheltenham. Including Champion Hurdle day 2005, when they laid Hardy Eustace big. One punter had £700,000 to £200,000. It looked like it might be a good day when Harchibald loomed up, but then Hardy Eustace rolled his sleeves up and stretched his neck out and galloped on up the hill.

They took it on the chin, rolled their sleeves up themselves, and resolved that they would get it back. They did. They broke even at the 2005 Cheltenham Festival.

Chronicle continued to grow, and it reached a point at which it was taken over by Ladbrokes in 2013. Part of the take-over deal was that Justin would continue to work for them, but he lasted six months.

“It was different,” he says. “It was very different to what I was used to.”

His team are dipping their toe in again now, they have set up VIP Sports on the racetrack with Daragh Fitzpatrick.

“Racing is a brilliant game. It teaches you so much, about so many different things, discipline, work ethic, people. You meet so many different types of people in racing, so many different types of character are involved. Our son Ben is really interested in it. He’s up every morning when he’s going racing, shirt and tie, and he’s asking lots of questions about the game. It’s brilliant to see that enthusiasm.”

He is making new friends every day.

“We need to do more to bring young people into the game. Get them to the races, let them experience it, enjoy it, maybe they’ll come back. Let them learn about the game, about the horses, about the people.”

Festival winner

VIP Racing occupies some of his time, and his horses occupy some more. Like Band Of Outlaws, winner of the Fred Winter Hurdle in 2019.

“That was the worst thing that could have happened!”

He watched from the parade ring as Band Of Outlaws travelled well down the hill. You could see his white blaze, J.J. Slevin at ease on his back. Then he was squeezed up a little between Coko Beach and Praeceps on the run to the final flight. J.J. moved him to the near side, hits the front, over the last and up the hill. Some feeling.

“Everyone wants to go to Cheltenham, everyone wants to have a runner there. Everyone wants to try and win a race there. To have a winner anywhere is great. But Cheltenham, it’s definitely a different animal, you know? Ask me, what’s your favourite meeting every year? Cheltenham. What’s your favourite racecourse? Cheltenham.”

Band Of Outlaws was J.J. Slevin’s first Cheltenham Festival winner, and he was Joseph O’Brien’s first Cheltenham Festival winner since he took out his trainer’s licence.

“Just to have a runner there is amazing. But to have a winner there, to lead a horse into the winner’s enclosure there. That’s some buzz. The problem is, you want to go and do it again.”

He has chances this year too. Winston Junior, trained by Faye Bramley and whom he owns in partnership with Ronnie Bartlett, will be a big player in the Fred Winter Hurdle, all going well. Stattler will go in the hunters’ chase, Kim Roque in the Kim Muir and Lord Byron maybe in the Triumph Hurdle.

And then there are the horses who belong to The Cheeky Pups, the syndicate that Justin has put together with some of his friends. They could have a few runners this week, Walking On Air and Glengouly and No Ordinary Joe, who will run in the Imperial Cup at Sandown today first.

“It’s brilliant to see the enthusiasm among the lads,” he says. “Some of them are new enough to racing, but they’re onto me every day. How’s Glengouly? How’s Joe? On what days are we going? What are we hoping for?”

A Cheltenham winner. That would be unbelievable.