I PULL up at Fenway House, the home of Brendan Duke, to conduct my first in-person interview for my new podcast project. For the past few weeks I’ve been interviewing over Zoom, but now (November 2020), restrictions have finally eased enough for me to visit my guests in person, to hear them from a two-metre distance, rather than through a laptop screen.

I’ve two backpacks with me. One containing my recording kit, the other a box of sweets as a feeble thanks to my gracious host and interviewee. We sit down and begin. I ask Brendan if, before we being talking about the subject of the interview: his horse, Openide – he can begin by giving me some context around his career at the time of the horse’s arrival.

“Well, first of all, I always address him as the wonderful Openide”, he politely corrects me before telling me the humble beginnings of a brief meeting with Jim Bolger at Leopardstown, leading to 20 years as his assistant trainer. A year with Charlie Mann followed, before Brendan got his own name on the door at Coppington Stables, Lambourn in 2001.

One-eyed mare

And that very year, along came Openide. Bred by Brendan himself, his name is the first of many reasons I come to love this horse, being out of a one-eyed mare called Eyelet, and by Key Of Luck.

I ask what the horse was like in his formative years.

“The very same as he is today. Exuberant. Not big. But had this idea in his head that he was 17.2hh and 550kg. He wasn’t. He was 15.3hh, with a good set of shoes on him, and that’s as big as he was. But he didn’t think that way. He came along at a time where it was probably like it is now, here, if we’re being absolutely on the table with this. I was really struggling for winners and I only had eight horses.

“This horse came along and we broke him, got him riding, got him going. Mick Thornley of Lambourn fame was working with me, and he rode him out. And from day one, every single day was a comedy session. He absolutely took the piss out of Mick. We were really struggling, but I liked him. I liked him.

“Mick said to me one day in October, ‘why don’t you run this little prat?’. I said ‘Mick, he’s not quite there. We’ve come this far with him, let’s hang on for the moment’.

Cheltenham

“I walked in two weeks before Christmas, and Mick was tacking him up. I said to him, ‘by the way, I’m going to run this horse at Cheltenham on New Year’s Day, in the listed bumper. He said to me, ‘well then you’re f*****g madder than him!’

“Mick, I’m real happy with this horse.”

“Jesus Christ, do you understand Cheltenham? That’s a winners’ bumper isn’t it?”

Indeed it was. A field of well-touted horses lined up, including Alan King’s heavily fancied Senorita Rumbalita, with the debuting Openide a 66/1 chance, ridden by 7lb claimer, Charlie Studd, then without a winner for 392 days. Yet, not uncharacteristic for Brendan – “I fancied him”.

“He jumped out, tried to make all, and Senorita Rumbalita came to join him just around the furlong marker. The rest of them didn’t count. She bumped him, but that was a real help, because he just said ‘no, this ain’t happening’. Although it was his first run, and the first time he’d ever been away from Lambourn. He put his head down and he won by a neck.

“That was just, an unbelievable feeling. I bred him, I was absolutely depending on him, although I hadn’t got one cent on him. And when he needed to take his coat off – when the die was cast – there’s plenty of people, and horses, that tell you that they’re tough. But when it comes to displaying that they’re tough, and you need a friend – he was some friend.”

Emotional

Brendan apologises for getting emotional as he recalls that day. The most unnecessary apology I’ve ever been offered, not least because I’m not far behind him.

That was the first of several great occasions we discussed. On Arc day in 2006, a listed two-year-old race in Tipperary was won by Brendan’s Zafonical Storm, beating the 1/2 Ballydoyle hotpot, Chinese Whisper. Later in the card, Openide won the Grade 3 Like-A-Butterfly Novice Chase under Davy Russell.

“I said to Davy, ‘this will win. You can take your time on him. You can ask him in Thurles to take off at these fences, it’ll be quite safe’. I remember Davy came back beaming. ‘The two of you are some details! What a right horse this is’.

A friend

“Every time he went out, I was not worth three cheers. He was an absolutely brilliant jumper, but brave. He would lay his life on the line for you. You never want anything to happen to your friends – human or equine. And he was such a friend.”

As with all horses, there were days when things conspired against him. Openide was runner-up in the 2009 Kim Muir at Cheltenham, with his trainer certain in his view that his winning chances were ruined by the torrential rain and wind that wreaked havoc with the schedule that year.

“I will always remember that, because he got a better reception than the winner. But, if there was real justice, he would’ve won that race. But I take the view that yer man upstairs was on holidays, and he left a muppet in charge.”

Over an hour has passed, and I mustn’t outstay my welcome. We end on the pleasant note that at his grand age, now 20, the horse is alive and well, just down the road.

“He’s as bold as he ever was. Every single day that I get up, I’m grateful to him. So I always call him the wonderful Openide. Because for me, he’s very special. He makes me emotional. Any time I think of the things he did for me, I am just incredibly grateful to that horse.”

I pack up and head to car after one of the most enjoyable conversations I’ve had in a long, long time. The only negative is when, half way down the N7, I see my backpack and groan as I realise in my excitement, I forgot to give Brendan the sweets. Oh well. I’ll bring him two boxes next time.

The full interview will be released on the Horse Racing Heroes Podcast on Wednesday February 3rd. Find it in your usual podcast app, or by visiting horseracingheroes.com

Mark Walsh@MarkWalsh (Twitter)