WATERFORD men Tom McCarthy and Michael Veale have been involved with horses together for a long time. They know each other twice as long. “50 years,” Veale proclaims, “I spent 20 years in South Africa and when I came back home, I wasn’t coming back to anything really so I said to Tom, ‘we’ll go into the horses together.’”

“That was around the mid 1990s,” McCarthy says, “But I think it was the other way around, I was the one who decided we’d go into the horses!”

Whosever decision it was, they’ve been in them ever since. Right up to when Carrigmoorna Wood won a mares’ bumper at Tipperary last month, on only her second run on the track. She’s away now for the summer and she’ll be back into training with Robert Tyner in October. The dream is alive.

She is one of many success stories for McCarthy, a farmer by trade, and Veale, who is primarily involved in forestry.

“We bought one by Classic Cliche at Doncaster one year. I think he cost £3,500 or something like that and we managed to get him sold at the Derby Sale for €70,000,” Veale says.

“Ah look, it’s what you’re into I suppose. Some people like going off on fancy holidays four times a year. I’m into buying and breeding horses. I’m into horses and I’m into giving it a go and as long as I can pay my way, it’s grand.”

McCarthy and Veale have been around long enough to give an accurate commentary on the changing climate for “the small man” involved in racing.

“I suppose earlier on we were buying young horses and selling them as stores and doing well every now and then. But that sort of practice has gone very expensive so we started keeping mares at home and breeding from them,” McCarthy explains.

Veale adds: “It’s a lot different now if you have a filly. The ITBA bonus scheme has been brilliant and anyone who tells you it hasn’t doesn’t know anything about racing.

“You can’t have the pedigree line good enough. With all the opportunities there for mares, it’s much easier than it once was.”

HISTORY

McCarthy and Veale, who are known as the Old Fools Partnership on the racecard, have had plenty of luck with the Weatherbys ITBA NH Fillies Bonus scheme and created a small bit of history when their Carrigmoorna Rock became the first mare to win all three bonuses available in the scheme by winning her bumper, maiden hurdle and beginners chase – the Willie Mullins-trained Screaming Rose became only the fourth mare to win all three last month.

She won five races on the track in all including a Grade 3 and a listed race over hurdles. She earned approximately €80,000 in total prize money and then another €15,000 from the bonus scheme.

Incidentally, the listed race she won was the opening race at Newbury on the same day Many Clouds won the Hennessy Gold Cup in 2014. She was sent off an 11/8 favourite, Tony McCoy rode her and she won with her head in her chest. That sort of experience is priceless.

“It was a very sad day when we lost her,” McCarthy reflects. “She was in a listed race up at Naas and took a very bad fall. She was only eight and it was shocking to lose one that good.

“We were very lucky to have her,” says Veale. “She gave us some great days. And it was great to win the bonus three times with her. I bought nearly a mile and half of timber with my share of one of the bonuses she won!”

With Carrigmoorna Wood, McCarthy and Veale, have a lot forward to. Her win at Tipperary prompted another €5,000 bonus from Weatherbys and ITBA-backed scheme. She was an impressive winner as well as that. She beat a Jessica Harrington-trained, David Bobbett-owned mare called Lovron Pearl, with the pair of them finishing 14 lengths clear of their rivals.

“We enjoy it,” Veale says. “I know Tom nearly all my life. We’re completely 50:50. At the end of the year we sit down with this little black book that we’ve had from the start and we sort out who owes what. I wouldn’t do it any other way.”