2004

EVERY horse coming in and out of Goffs next week will, as usual, pass under the eye of Ollie Harrington.

Referred to by all as ‘the back gate man’, Ollie has been with Goffs for 28 years. “I’ve seen some good horses go through those gates,” he says. “Derby winners, Oaks winners, Guineas winners. They all have to walk past here. Me and the vet, Ted Collins, get to see them all.”

Not surprisingly, the Orby Sale is his personal highlight of the year. “You get to see all the top-class yearlings, and you take note of the good-looking ones, the good walkers that show themselves well. Lots of people say to me ‘keep an eye out for a good one’, and I’ve put a few men on the right road.”

Asked to describe his job, he makes it sound like the most boring occupation in the world. “We have two books – one for marking them in, and one for marking them out,” he says, greatly underplaying the responsibility of the position. “Everyone with a horse has to have a pass or they don’t get out. It doesn’t matter who they are, I ask them their name and where they are going.”

The system works – Ollie hasn’t lost a horse yet.

Born and raised in Kill, Ollie has been working with horses since he was 15, and has never strayed too far from home. “I served my time with Mrs Anne Biddle at Palmerstown Stud, right beside where Goffs is now. She was an American woman and I was there for 14 years.”

His next port of call was Bluebell Farm in Naas, home of trainer Ted Curtin whose patrons included wealthy Americans, Nelson Bunker Hunt and Franklin Groves.

“I rode some very good horses as a professional for Ted, but I never rode a winner. I used to ride them first time out and give them an easy race.”

Ollie returned to Kill and gave two years with the late Ruby Walsh (“a great judge of a horse and a very shrewd trainer”) before he joined Goffs. He succeeded the well-known Joe Coates as stable manager “about five years ago”.

When the sales are on Ollie usually starts work at 7.15am and mightn’t finish until 9.30pm. He isn’t idle for the rest of the year. “There’s always horses in and out of here. Agencies use Goffs for stabling, or as a pick-up point for sending horses abroad.” Sometimes Goffs doesn’t have enough stables to go around. “There are 960 horses in next week’s sale, and we only have room for 676. So nearly 300 have to move out to the Curragh racecourse.”

The Curragh is a popular haunt of Ollie’s. “I love going racing on my days off. Even if I never have a bet, I just love it. I go every Saturday and Sunday, and especially to evening meetings in the summer.”

He not only follows the fortunes of the horses he has seen walk past him in Goffs, but also keeps an eye on his nephew, Seamus Heffernan, who he describes as “one of the top four jockeys in Ireland.” Seamus has recently taken to the jumps, so maybe he’ll end up aboard Kalaid, a horse that Ollie has bought a share in along with his son Oliver and daughter Geraldine. The five-year-old is in training with Derek Barry.

“We’re hoping to run him in about four weeks’ time,” reports Ollie, who has had a bit of luck as an owner in the past. “The first horse I was involved with was Fado. Mrs Biddle sold it to our syndicate for £1,000 and it won a few days later at Ballinrobe with Mick Kinane, an apprentice, riding.” You wouldn’t get much for a grand these days.

Ollie has seen fortunes change hands at Goffs in recent years. “We had a great year in 2003, especially the foal sale. I’d say it was the best we ever had.”

So what advice has Ollie for those thinking of getting involved? “If you’re buying a foal, go for the best. Make sure it’s a good mover, and that the dam of the half-brother has won. It’s a waste of time buying a foal for resale if there’s no breeding there.”

Oh, and make sure you pick up a pass-out after you buy, otherwise you won’t get out.

[Fado, a daughter of Ribero and the Milesian mare Tragedy, went on to have eight foals, seven of which ran and six were winners]

Morgan and Kilkilowen toy with the opposition

1981

THE upward trend continued at Punchestown last Saturday when the attendance was of substantial proportions, and the Totalisator aggregate showed an increase of almost 25% on the previous year. That was the good news, but on the other side of the coin all six favourites managed to get beaten, and only two even reached the first three.

In a great finish to the featured National Trial Handicap Chase, Senator Maclacury managed to hold the favourite, Go Metric, by a head after the advantage had swayed from one to the other from the third last fence. On the run home Go Metric closed, but Paddy Kiely retained the advantage to the line. Dickwyn trailed in third, beaten another 20 lengths by the John Walsh-trained winner who is owned by Mr F.D. Cullen.

The five-year-old Kilkilowen turned in about the best novice performance of the season in the Poulaphouca Chase. It was not that he won by 10 lengths that mattered. What registered was the fact that he could have gone ahead at any stage of the race, but was hard held and constantly checked. At the fourth last fence, Ken Morgan gave him an inch of rein and he moved on.

Hardly out of a canter in the straight, he toyed with his rivals before beating Troyswood and Tam by 10 lengths and two and a half lengths. Jim Dreaper’s charge was receiving weight from all his rivals, but this strapping fellow looks as if weight would not matter generally.

[Kilkilowen won 12 chases and one hurdle race in his career, five of his chase wins coming at the age of five, and his biggest success was in the Listed Aynsley China Cup Chase at Leopardstown. He was the best of three winners from his dam, the Vulgan mare Vultang, and one of the others was Belle Bavard, the dam of Hennessy Gold Cup and Thyestes Chase winner Couldn’t Be Better]

Hall teaches the Americans a lesson

1956

MAJOR Cyril Hall, manager of the Aga Khan’s studs in Ireland, has written to The Blood Horse in Lexington, Kentucky, to dispel a hesitancy on the part of some American horsemen to refer to Nasrullah and other sires as Irish-bred.

In his letter, Major Hall states: “Nasrullah was bred by H.H. The Aga Khan here at Sheshoon, and is classed as Irish-bred as far as breeders in England and Ireland are concerned. His dam, Mumtaz Begum, was here during her pregnancy until about a month before foaling, when she went to Newmarket to be mated with Bahram during the next season.

“Nasrullah was therefore foaled at Newmarket, as were the majority of our horses, because at that time the majority of high-class sires were there, and, with a long journey involving a sea trip, it is not practicable to foal mares here and send them over with their foals at foot.

“Now that we have many high-class sires in Ireland such as Tulyar, My Babu, Palestine, Arctic Prince and Solar Slipper, many high-class mares from English studs come here to foal before being mated with them, but their produce is still classed as English-bred. It is, therefore, the practice in these islands to take the nationality from the country of origin.”