BASEBALL legend Yogi Berra had a wonderful way with words, though nobody is ever really sure if the New York hero was being really clever or unwittingly funny. It was summed up by his apparent attempt to play down this tendency with “I really didn’t say everything that I said.”

Among the classic Yogi-isms that are now part of everyday conversation is “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.”

There is another that would have had a resonance for Andy McNamara when he announced to the racing world 12 months ago that he was bringing a very successful career as a jockey to an end to take up training.

“It’s déjà vu all over again.”

A sizeable section of people within the industry thought he had taken leave of his senses – not by retiring, even though he was young at 32 – but by seeking to continue his involvement in horses in a line of work that offers no security, when as someone who studied maths in the University of Limerick after securing 515 points in the Leaving Certificate, he could have pursued another profession.

Just seven months earlier, former 10-time champion jockey Charlie Swan had handed in his licence having been worn down by the grind, while none other than Gordon Elliott was saying that he would not start out again in the current climate.

In this corner, Cork handler Liam Burke said McNamara was “off his flipping head.” Andy had heard it all before.

“When I went riding, I was in college at the time, I was six foot tall and turning 21 and everyone was saying I was mad but I went and did it and had a great time. So it’s a bit the same going training.

“You do what you want to do, what you’ve a bit of passion about. You’re obviously going to give more of a go and work harder at that than you are about something that you’re not that interested in.

“For a long time, when I was riding at the finish, my back was giving me bother so I knew I wasn’t going to ride until I was 37 or 38. So I was always looking towards what I might do and liked the thought of going training. I was ready to go.”

He had a flat-bred filly that he sold and she went on to win a maiden in France for Jean-Claude Rouget.

There were four young horses bought at Goffs and the Derby Sale too. Now he has 16 at his Mullingar premises, covering a broad spectrum from a two-year-old flat horse, a couple of breakers, two promising point-to-pointers and some National Hunt horses.

Quality

There is no area of speciality. He will buy and sell, try to find owners. But he will bid to focus on quality over numbers.

“I suppose starting off I didn’t have any horses for owners really so I went out and bought a few to have, something for myself to get up in the morning and do. I had the four of those. One of them has run but didn’t run very well, the other three will be ready to go in the autumn. A couple of them are looking useful enough so hopefully they’ll make that whole situation pay.

“It’s gradually getting going with owners. There isn’t any big owner in the yard but bit by bit, there are a few more owners coming in. I was lucky enough to ride some good horses and I would hope to put an emphasis on quality over quantity in training.”

McNamara grew up around horses and a training yard run by his father of the same name. He had ridden for all the top handlers. There wasn’t much that would surprise him you might think, but there is nothing like doing it yourself to open your eyes.

“The one thing, and people had said it to me, but it was still a surprise, was how time-consuming it is. You try and plan ahead a week and no matter what you plan, something always comes up to take half your time away.

“But I enjoy it. It’s a completely different lifestyle from being a jockey. There’s no comparison. Even a day at the races is completely different. There’s much more organisation going on.

“You get used to your routine and you put systems of doing things in place. I do see that having 150 or having 200 horses must be fairly daunting but that didn’t happen to the people that have that overnight. It’s like when I started out I had four and I was busy with the four of them, whereas now I have 16 and am just as busy. You’re getting into a routine with that now and I’m getting used to having that number.”

His owners have come from everywhere – not all necessarily contacts made in his riding days.

“Some of them are, some of them would be completely out of the blue from people that I’ve never met before, some would be people I’ve known but wouldn’t really have ridden for and then there’s others that I would have ridden for but not really known, such as the likes of Andrew Heffernan who has a couple of horses for me.

“It was great to get a good horse like Val De Ferbet straight off, that’s for sure. I’d have ridden a few other winners for Andrew but I wouldn’t have known him or expected to get a horse from him but he called me up out of the blue and sent me Val De Ferbet.

“As I was finishing up riding, a bunch of lads I know from Limerick, who would have probably thought I was gonna train from Limerick (Amicus Racing Syndicate), sent me Tara Gig. Then there are a few other syndicates like Realta Horse Racing Club, who sent me a filly. I was recommended to them through a vet I use.

“I have Golden Poet for a local syndicate, the DPOJ Partnership, and it was nice to get a winner for them at the local track in Kilbeggan and he will go there again on August 19th.

“I bought a horse that won a point-to-point for Denis Murphy at the Ascot July Sales for £75,000 called Rock On Rio. It’s nice to be able to buy one of that calibre. I bought him for Michael Carmody. I had never ridden for him but sold him a horse seven or eight years ago.

“You never know where they’ll come from. I’m not the very best at selling myself. It’s probably something I’ll improve on in time, that self-promotion. My Dad always told me I was too honest for my own good! But that can work in your favour at other times.”

He is on the blower to Andrew Snr fairly regularly, and no doubt younger brother Robbie is doing the same. It makes sense.

“I’d say he’s enjoying the two of us doing it, it gives him a bit more of an interest again. I’ve probably rung Dad a good bit for advice on every sort of a thing. It’s handy when you have someone that’s been through the whole experience and things come up that you wouldn’t have expected.

“A lot of it is practical, like employing people. I’ve never had a job, never got a wage riding out in a yard, paying people – day to day stuff like that. He trained as a vet as well so there’s a lot of knowledge that’s free-to-air you might say.”

FIRST WINNER

The first winner certainly didn’t come as promptly as he would have liked, unlike his sibling, who had a double on his first day going to the track. But it was “brilliant” when Robbie Power booted Double Speak to victory in a maiden hurdle for Brian Donlon on May 14th.

“He’d had a couple of problems before we got our hands on him. He’d been very fat so we put a huge amount of work into him and probably thought he’d need more that first day in Punchestown but he won well and it was great to get it.

“We’d had a couple go close just before it, hit the crossbar a few times. Then we had a lovely horse called B Cosmos for Dermot McIlveen, who has a two-year-old with me now. He would have been a lovely dual-purpose horse. On his first run for us, he fell at the last probably going to win in Cork and broke his ulna so that was a big disappointment. We had a couple of other placed runners so it was great to get that on board.”

Meanwhile, he is continuing his work with RTÉ Television, an insightful commentator and excellent interviewer, using his knowledge well to ensure that the viewer is wiser than was the case before the conversation began. It sounds simple, but there are many established media operators that fail miserably at the task.

It is, he admits, “a nice income stream” as he establishes himself but it also helps for the profile and keeps him in tune with everything that’s going on in the game.

“I used to find at the start that you’d have something in your head to say to somebody but because you’re on television you have to phrase it differently so the public know what you’re asking. So I used to go to ask the question and stutter it out to try say it differently but it’s getting easier.”

He was very good during the Galway Festival but the week hit the skids when his cousin John Thomas McNamara passed away and was laid to rest.

“It nearly made the week easier for me to be going to Galway, to get your head out of it a bit.”

He falters, battling his thoughts and emotions. Looking for words.

“It’s obviously very sad. It’s going to be a lot harder for Caroline and the kids. We’ve stuff to do and can go away but they have someone missing from the house every day. It must be an awful lot harder for them.”

He’ll be missed by an awful lot of people.

“He will… he’d always be very honest with you about everything anyway. He’d ring you up to give you a grief about one that went bad or how you gave one a bad ride.”

***

MCNAMARA put on about half a stone immediately after retiring from the saddle, due largely to being properly hydrated all the time and undoubtedly grubbing a bit better. But he has settled at that now, which is pretty impressive for a six-footer, particularly when he isn’t riding that much.

He certainly doesn’t miss the battle with the scales.

“Having to lose weight, there is an effect on your body from that and there’d be times you’d be worn out from it. There’s probably only so long you can keep that going for.”

He doesn’t miss race-riding at all, given that he was eating painkillers towards the end to dull the pain in his back. Yeah, it would be grand to drop back in and win a Champion Chase at Cheltenham or a Galway Plate but those are rare days and there is nothing about the day-to-day regime he yearns for.

“I did it for about 10 years and absolutely loved it. I did better than I thought I would. Loved riding, loved the good horses, but for a finish my body had given up, I wasn’t riding the same quality of horse so it was time.”

He considers Newmill and Sizing Europe the best he rode, and that was the buzz for him always.

“A big part of giving up riding, as well as my back, was that I wasn’t really on good horses anymore. You want to work with good horses and that will be really important for me… much more so than building up numbers.

“I am lucky in that Charlestown is such a great place to start off from. The facilities are excellent and Dot, Ciaran and Melanie have all been so accommodating and helpful.

“I really like to put an emphasis on doing flat work with the horses. You can see how it strengthens them, gets them moving better and hopefully riding better.

“I am still learning about this as a tool to use with racehorses but my wife Rhona comes from an eventing background and she is a big help.”

He is thankful too for the support of the likes of Claire Merrick at Equillence, who provide the rugs on race days, helping the operation look as professional as he wants it to be.

He is hopeful that he might have some nice inmates and that most of them should get a ‘1’ in the form book at some stage. That what the job description is.

It will be déjà vu all over again.