SATURDAY
February 7th
On Saturday morning I was waiting for a visitor who had been most polite in making an appointment and was probably expecting coffee from a silver pot in the library, Downton style.
As I prepared for his arrival, I was horrified to find Alice jumping up and down in our recycling wheelie bin in order to maximise its capacity.
Not only would it be quite an injury to explain in Mullingar Accident and Emergency if the bin fell over but it is hard to think of a better way to shatter any illusion this poor man may have had about life at Ballinlough Castle.
For anybody with a passing interest in racing, the day, and indeed the whole weekend, was dominated by the announcement that A.P. McCoy would retire at the end of the season. Let’s hope that he has the Irish season in mind as it would be fantastic if his final farewell was to take place at Punchestown.
I remember him winning the Goffs leading rider award about 20 years ago at the old Punchestown, which was presented to him by Leo Powell, then Director of Bloodstock.
He was known as Anthony then before the racing world media abbreviated him to Tony first and then A.P. There is no greater sign of success in the racing world than when you are instantly recognisable from just a Christian name or initials as is the case in many area of life. Think of Lester, JP, Ruby and DK and they are as instantly recognisable as Elvis, Angelina, Beyonce or Sting.
I also remember meeting McCoy in Dubai, when he was either injured or suspended, and attending Easter Day Mass with Ronnie Beggan and himself that time.
I conducted several auctions in the 1990s in Dubai and it remains the most difficult place that I have ever sold. Basically the buyers are all male, most with moustaches and/or beards, and dressed identically in white Arab dish-dashes and headdresses so, as a result, I always struggled to remember exactly where the last bid came from.
At that point, thankfully, I could always hand over to an Arabic translator, which provoked a renewed flurry of bidding and the situation would be saved.
One year I was doing a larger sale and my fellow auctioneer was from Tattersalls. He would freely admit that the heat in Dubai seriously affected him, and that was before we had finished breakfast in the hotel.
When we were actually selling, in a temporary sale ring on the edge of the desert, he looked so hot that I amused myself by pouring some water around his feet, which were concealed by the front of our rostrum. I then told those in charge that the sweat was running out of his trousers which precipitated some serious concern about his possible imminent collapse.
SUNDAY
February 8th
Our neighbour Janet Williamson drops round with Alice Plunkett who is in Ireland to film some pre-Cheltenham footage for Channel 4 Racing. As a result she missed out on her normal role of interviewing victorious jockeys post-race, which is why Rishi Persad got the McCoy scoop on Saturday afternoon.
As the wife of Britain’s most famous three-day-event rider William Fox-Pitt, she is better qualified than most to understand the challenges facing top riders and that empathy results in her getting great interviews with the jockeys and trainers.
Sunday afternoon belongs to McCoy when Carlingford Lough wins the Hennessy at Leopardstown, another top class horses bred by the Vasicek’s Kenilworth House Stud. I am delighted to see Land Rover Sale graduate Apache Stronghold win the Grade 1 Flogas Novice Chase. He was bred by Jim Robinson near Enfield so is another good horse that I was lucky to have encountered on my travels.
Alice (Nugent, not Plunkett) and I decide to name the filly that we have put into training with Richard Fahey.
We have had a horse with Richard before and he did a great job with the filly’s half-sister Lily’s Angel, as did Ger Lyons for the second half of her career.
Richard is probably the only trainer who could pass as my body double. This is unlikely to offer him a second career but supposing that it was a condition for training the filly, it rules out John Gosden or Eddie Lynam among others from the start. My attention was caught by one TV interview over the weekend when a trainer spoke about horses doing something natural. When the micro-chipping of thoroughbreds was first introduced, I proposed that Europe should adopt the branding system of identification as used in Australia.
This was rejected at one meeting as not being natural so instead we take the “natural” route of injecting technology into their neck before the subsequent “natural” covering them in leather, sitting an (unnaturally) light person on their back and getting them to gallop in circles. I wonder what came first, natural yoghurt or natural horse racing.
MONDAY
February 9th
On the way home I stop in Trim for a pilates class. I am the only man in the group which has its good points and its bad ones. Trying to balance on one leg while holding in my stomach (and how I try on the second bit) may not sound exerting but I would definitely be referred to the wind panel if I was a horse.
Mind you, if the lovely Jessica makes me spend much more time in a prostrate “rest” position I might well be guilty of a different wind problem altogether.
WEDNESDAY
February 10th
It is the first day of the Goffs February Sale. Trying to see an early Lot which was not on show the previous day, there is still no vendor on hand. He eventually appears and takes so long to get the bridle on that I rather fear he might still be here for the Land Rover Sale but eventually the foal emerges for inspection by a gathering crowd.
Most horses at Goffs walk better around the circle of grass in each show area and when I suggest this, the vendor totally misunderstands me, stands still and rotates the unfortunate animal around him in such a tight circle that I cannot imagine how it stayed upright.
I had not seen my fellow auctioneer Andrew Nolan since his brother James and the family business Nolans of Kilcullen, won the Champion of Champion Award for all the butchers in the UK and Ireland which is a truly remarkable achievement. Given how skilful James must be with his knife, I would suggest that Andrew gets him to cut his hair in future because there is every chance that he would do a better job than he probably paid for earlier this week.
I meet with a couple of breeze up vendors who nominate horses for the London Sale. As always vendors tell us to keep the numbers tight unless, of course, it means excluding one of their own horses. However, the Breeze-Up section of this sale will be tighter in 2015 which will doubtless result in a degree of indignation along the way, but we are confident that the London Sale can really build on its inaugural success. A couple of faces missing at the sale and both very unwell in hospital are the affable Mark O’Hanlon of ITM and Joanie Downey of Goffs.
Joanie retired from her full-time position in Goffs about 20 years ago but has been on hand at sales ever since to look after the staff tea room and there has never been a more popular member of the team. Let’s hope that both Mark and Joanie are on the mend soon.
THURSDAY
February 12th
Following on from the first day’s weanlings today’s sale is a mixed catalogue with horses-in-training, two-year-olds and breeding stock. There are three six figure lots today to add to Abbeville’s €145,000 Shamardal filly yesterday.
The Aga Khan sells recent winner Arif for €100,000 to David Watkins but the day really belongs to Sheila and Cathy Grassick whose Newton Stud fill the top two slots. Having realised €130,000 for their mare Fringe, they top the sale close to the end at 6.00pm when Dreaming Of Rubies, in foal to Dawn Approach, sells for €220,000. The next highest price of the day is for Gigginstown’s National Hunt Urticaire, who may well have set a Goffs record for a National Hunt breeding prospect when making €80,000. One guilty pleasure that I always enjoy on a Goffs sale-day is a slice of one of the delicious cakes on sale at the Goffs café. I may as well make hay while the sun shines because I feel that a period of increased nutritional austerity is just around the corner.
Alice is always looking for ways to motivate my health drive and I hate to think what she meant when she announced this week, “I am really looking forward to Lent”.