AS a professional gambler, former on-course bookmaker and racehorse owner, Luke McMahon is a multiple racing stakeholder. His views on a variety of sectors within the sport/industry are always worth hearing.

The fan in us all wants to be an owner and McMahon has enjoyed a good degree of success. He knows plenty of bad luck too however. Grade 1 winner Whiskey Sour, Cheltenham victor Bleu Berry and Uradel will all sit out the entire 2019-2020 campaign due to injury.

Cilaos Emery hasn’t been straightforward either.

“He was the first foal I ever bought. Harold Kirk bought him (at Tattersalls Ireland November NH Sale in 2012). He cost €7,200. I don’t have any land but Philip Reynolds, who is a good friend of mine, took him and had him until he was two. He then went to Jason Titley, who broke him and was riding them away quietly from two to three. He always loved him. He just used to say he did everything easy.

“He was a bit hot. That is why he always wears the hood. The year he went to Cheltenham (fifth in the 2017 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle), I don’t think he travelled particularly well and I don’t think he ate and drank well. He was very keen in the race but still ran very, very well. He went on then and beat Melon in a Grade 1 in Punchestown.

“Jason has always said that whatever he did he was always going to be a better horse over fences. I was more keen than anybody to stay over hurdles. I never get involved, but I was keen to give him another trial over hurdles because I half-thought he would make a Champion Hurdle horse. And I think he might have because he only had two runs the next year, he was just beaten by Mick Jazz in Leopardstown the day Faugheen flopped. Mick Jazz got to within three lengths of Buveur D’Air in the Champion Hurdle.”

It proved a moot point as McMahon’s first Grade 1 winner fractured a cannon bone in what proved to be his final race over the smaller obstacles. That ruled him out for 391 days but the frustration wasn’t over, as following a comfortable defeat of Impact Factor and future Arkle victor Duc Des Genievres on his chasing debut at Gowran Park 12 months ago, the Califet gelding met with a further setback schooling and was not seen again until the facile Poplar Square Chase success at Naas in November. He followed that up with a seven-length defeat over the vastly more experienced Ballyoisin in the Hilly Way at Cork.

Excitement

The excitement is building but with that comes anxiety.

“You are always worried when you get a horse that has only run five times in three seasons. If I was ever even talking to Willie, I hardly ask him how he is. I am just dreading to see Willie Mullins’ name coming up on the phone.

“It mightn’t have been Ballyoisin’s ideal track or ground in Cork but the way he jumps, I was worried that he would be getting away from us all the time. I was saying to myself, ‘Danny will probably take his time and try and get there between the second last and last.’ But I seen him move up alongside at the fourth last and said he must be going fairly easy to do that. He is a talented horse, there is no doubt about it, but the fact that he has only one run as a novice it is going to be hard when you are taking on those horses who have so many runs.”

Cilaos Emery has always preferred an ease in the ground so McMahon is keeping an eye on the skies and the forecasts, with Dublin Racing Festival in mind.

“If this rain keeps going I don’t think (course clerk) Lorcan Wyer will have any worries in Leopardstown. But I have been praying for it. I did a stat there, 148 horses ran last year at the Dublin festival, and 40 of them, after two more runs, never ran again. I think it was 13 or 14 never ran again. Thirteen ran once. And another 21 ran twice and were never seen since. That’s one third of all of the horses that ran.

“I don’t know if he is going to go there (for the Dublin Chase). I don’t train horses, I don’t have to make those decisions. But there aren’t a lot of other options that I can see.”

All his wins have been over two miles so the Champion Chase seems the likeliest Cheltenham target but he does have a Ryanair Chase entry too.

“Again, I don’t get involved. But to me, when am I ever going to have a runner in a Queen Mother? That is the way I would be dreaming but I try not to dwell on it because every time you dream… You get used to the disappointment, you have to take it on the chin. But to have a horse in the Queen Mother would be the stuff you would be dreaming about when you were a kid.”

Bleu Berry brought his colours to victory in the Coral Cup two years ago, an emotional maiden Cheltenham triumph given his late father introduced him to racing with a tour of the summer meetings that became a staple and was repaid later in life by bringing him to the major cross-channel festivals.

Whiskey Sour is the “family pet” though, having propelled McMahon’s son Aubrey to the first of two consecutive GPT Festivals in 2017 – Uradel followed up 12 months later – before becoming a Grade 1 winner.

Meanwhile, McMahon has some two-year-olds being educated by Titley.

“It is hard to go and buy horses nowadays. You are hearing about horses that are winning point-to-points. They are making £400,000 at the sales. Apply all the other expenses and you’re talking €550,000. If Cilaos Emery went to the sales, what would he make? What is he worth?

“I was talking to Noel Meade about it the other day and he said it doesn’t work like that. People want to buy into a dream. I can see that people that have bombs of money don’t want to wait two years for a horse. They don’t want to buy an unbroken three-year-old. They don’t want to go and spend half-a-million on five or six stores and wait two years and find that none of them are any good; when they could have just gone in straight away and bought your top point-to-pointer or your good horse in France or whatever it may be. That is the way that game has gone, but I am not in that margin unfortunately.”

It is part of his ambition to provide Aubrey with opportunities. McMahon Jnr is riding out with Enda Bolger, Gordon Elliott, Ross O’Sullivan and of course Willie Mullins, “working his nuts off”.

“He is not getting his spins easily… he just needs experience. He is working hard and good on him. He needs to work hard and it will happen for him.”

Cilaos Emery is McMahon's big hope for the major spring festivals \Healy Racing

Sour taste

The pilot’s five-day suspension following a ride on his father’s Batcio at the beginning of January 2019, and in particular what unfolded at the subsequent appeal was a bitter pill to swallow.

“It left a sour taste in my mouth. The young lad rode in Tramore with a horse that was keen. He’s even keen over fences. He tanks along. He had a couple of disappointing runs and they were trying something different. When I hear Ruby Walsh saying that if he did one thing wrong in Tramore, maybe he should have held onto him longer…

“The committee that sat in front of me (for the appeal), I couldn’t believe that they accepted the fact that he didn’t stop the horse but because the public might have thought it didn’t look good they had to uphold the suspension. What kind of a rule is that?

“They brought a barrister (Louis Weston) over from England, cost I don’t know how many thousand. It left a sour taste in my mouth with (IHRB chief executive) Denis Egan and co. That a young lad would go out and pull one up, that was 16/1 or 20/1? And that they would go to such lengths?

“Look who won the race. Notebook beat Janidil. Janidil is fancied for the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle and Notebook is favourite in the Arkle.

“We felt there was an injustice done, the suspension itself didn’t really make much difference to Aubrey. But we moved on. Nobody died.”

Change approach

A professional gambler who focuses almost entirely on Irish racing, McMahon has had to change his approach over the years.

“I don’t bet anything like I used to. The market isn’t there anymore. I don’t know anybody that bets with Betfair because they have this premium charge. No man alive can sustain paying premium charges. So you are dealing with Betdaq and Matchbook. The liquidity in our markets is small until about the last three minutes. It is getting like what dog racing was like 20 years ago. Everything is happening when the dogs are going into the traps.

“The big players have what we call robots, these algorithms. They are betting with huge funds and if they make a horse an even-money chance and he is 2/1, it goes into evens, and if they think he is a 2/1 chance and he is 4/5, they lay it. As a result I am finding it hard to get the markets right in terms of prices. I am just getting left behind and a lot of fellas are the same.

“It is very hard if you are betting big. Your first bet every day is so crucial. If you are betting big, and you go behind big early, you just can’t get it back. You have to have about three wins in a row to get it back. If you turned up at Fairyhouse today (Tuesday) and wanted to have your absolutely max on one of them, you are going to struggle to get it on. There are no layers for midweek racing and who would blame them?”

It is around 10 years since McMahon stood in the ring and he doesn’t miss it, believing that it is almost impossible to make it pay now. On-course bookies threatened to strike at the end of last year, due to concerns over race planning and the viability of their trade as a result.

“I think they just wanted to get the publicity to bring something to a head. But there are good lads out there, Ray Mulvaney is a good trier. As Ray said, it is just a continuous fall. Years ago, you went into the ring every race. There were characters there. Now it’s a soulless place and I feel sorry for them. You need bookmakers in a racecourse, you need the atmosphere. But how do they compete against apps? How do they compete against the exchanges? People betting cash in large amounts, they are not being replaced.”

Punchestown

As an owner, he has high praise for Punchestown in particular.

“They really raised the bar. Leopardstown is quite good. Other places, they are good but they could be doing better. Eddie Moran, who represents HRI, is a terrific guy. He is very personal and looks after people well. There are still the tracks where you wouldn’t even get a cup of tea.

“Another track, I showed up with a ticket in my hand but because I had a 7Up instead of a coffee, I was charged 50 cents. I just said to myself, ‘Jesus, God Almighty.’ Some places are doing a bit better. But any fella that goes to Punchestown with his missus, or a couple of lads, they will feel they had the dog’s bollocks of a day.”

As a gambler, Racing TV is a key.

“I watch it but I made the point (in the March 2018 Big Interview) that the lads in the local I drink in, that love their racing, wouldn’t get it and not one of them have. People are paying so much money now for TV with Netflix and streaming stuff, they weren’t going to fork out the extra money when they had it as part of a package with At The Races.

“Racing TV’s coverage is good when the time allows it. They have fantastic punditry. Fran Berry on a Friday in Dundalk is superb, you could keep listening to him. Gary O’Brien is a tremendous anchorman. Kevin (O’Ryan) is good, people like Jane Mangan are a find and a half. She is phenomenal. And it’s great listening to Ruby talking about race-riding.

“But I didn’t go racing on Saturday because the weather was so bad. I was sitting down looking at it and it was race after race after race coming at you. There was no real time for punditry at all.”

He doesn’t disclose if it was a winning day or not but there have been quite a number of them already for Luke McMahon, and plenty more to come.