IF you want to tell the Bob Olinger story accurately, you have to go back to the beginning, back to when it all began for his breeder Ken Parkhill.

That goes back to 1975 when the man in charge in Castletown Quarry Stud, Trim, Co Meath had just completed his studies and qualified as a veterinary surgeon. To mark the occasion his father Marshall bought him a little filly called Sharpaway, who had earlier been bought by Ted Power for 700 guineas at the Ballsbridge Sales.

Sharpaway made her racecourse debut at the 1979 Punchestown Festival when she was owned, trained and ridden by Ken, and she duly won in spite of odds that had her as a rank outsider. It’s worth bookmarking that success.

When Sharpaway retired to stud, she was registered under Marshall’s name, but there began a family that has intertwined with the Parkhill family and provided significant and special success.

“That was the start of the dynasty, if you like,” Ken Parkhill says, reflecting back this week. “It was a great pedigree even apart from our end at all. Dawn Run comes into it further back and there were lots of very good horses there.

“We kept Sharpaway and bred from her. We try to keep the fillies as long and as best as we can. We’ve always put ourselves under pressure to do that. It’s a financial pressure more than anything else. We’ve had fillies that would have been worth a good few quid at the sales but you can’t sell the hen that laid the golden egg as they say.”

There were a number of significant decisions to keep mares along the way that got us to Bob Olinger. Sparky Sue was an unraced filly out of Sharpaway and she produced the Grade 1 winner The Railway Man. She also produced Downtown Train, who was another unraced mare but crucially was kept at Castletown Quarry and she produced a number of classy sorts like Puffin Billy, Zuzka and Tycoon Prince. She also provided another filly in Native Craft, who won over hurdles for Noel Meade.

Native Craft was retained and though she failed to produce a blacktype performer from five winners in her offspring, she did produce Zenaide and with this filly we return to our earlier bookmark.

Zenaide provided a special success for the Parkhill family, when she won her bumper first time out at Cork – when owned by Ken, trained by his wife Louise and ridden by their son Peter.

Zenaide has bolstered the Sharpaway line further, having already produced blacktype performers Myska, Darling Carlota and now Bob Olinger.

The son of the increasingly impactful Glenview Stud sire Sholokhov was backward in his early days and consequently didn’t make the big store sales.

“We decided to hold him back and instead send him to Pat Doyle to go for a point-to-point,” Parkhill explains. “That wouldn’t be the usual way we’d do things but we had done something similar with his half-brother Six Gun Serenade and it had worked out.”

Sometimes luck is on your side as Bob Olinger could hardly have been more impressive in a 15-length debut win at Turtulla, after which he changed hands for a presumably lucrative fee to Brian Acheson (Robcour), making a likely significantly bigger price than he would have as a store at the sales.

The gelding has only been beaten once since, ironically enough at the hands of Ferny Hollow who is another Castletown Quarry graduate, and he set himself up for the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle with an authoritative win in the Grade 1 Lawlor’s Of Naas Novice Hurdle.

Bob Olinger winning his Tutulla point-to-point in the Parkhill colours \ Healy Racing

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It is coming up to a year since Covid-19 began to take effect on the Irish racing industry and it often seems as if things are as uncertain, perhaps even more so, than they were just over 11 months ago.

Undoubtedly, the second halting of point-to-point racing has hit many hard. The effect of that has yet to be felt, tangibly, by the National Hunt breeding fraternity but it almost certainly will, with the premier store sales now coming into sight.

Parkhill says that he got on very well all things considered last year. You could say he is at an advantage, given that his stock is often placed at the top end of the market, which has been sturdy in these times of strife, but on the flip side there is a bigger outlay and so he has further to fall if the market drops badly.

So has he adjusted to take a more conservative approach?

“No, I don’t think so. We’re up slightly in numbers. We’re expecting 24 foals this year, we’ve two already on the ground.

“We haven’t really changed anything. My theory has always been that if a mare is worth having, she is certainly worth covering. If you miss out a year, then maybe when you do go back, she might not go in foal. If you miss a year that’s another year that you won’t have a horse to run for that mare. It’s time wasted. I can’t see much point in leaving mares empty.

“It’s very hard to calculate it (the risk) but the bloodstock sales over the last year have held up remarkably well when you consider the way racing is. Essentially people are buying horses that they can’t go to see racing. It’s hard to explain that but the sales have held up remarkably well.

“Look at the foals sales there in Goffs and Fairyhouse, they were unbelievably good.

“We couldn’t have hoped for much better last year, I don’t think we lost out at all (to Covid effect on the market). We got on brilliantly at the Land Rover where we had two nice horses and I hope they go on for the connections. We were lucky at the Derby Sale as well.

“There seems to be a fantastic appetite for racing and horses. If anything, you’d definitely have to take a big positive long-term view of the situation, it has shown the industry to be very resilient.

“If the whole backside fell out of the market, it would make you think now and going forward – you’d have to take a serious pull but it has held up well so far.”

Point problem

While Parkhill is significantly positive given the situation, he is adamant that the point-to-point stoppage is a huge problem and should be well ahead of any other priorities for Horse Racing Ireland at the moment on time.

The point-to-point fraternity are the key buyers at the premier National Hunt store sales. At the moment, many handlers have yards full of horses with no races to run them in and so no opportunity to enhance their value and sell them on.

When facing the Public Accounts Committee at the Oireachtas this week, HRI chief executive Brian Kavanagh was pushed by Wexford TD Verona Murphy for a solution to the problem, but basically admitted the only real solution is a resumption of point-to-point racing.

However with the Government announcing Level 5 restrictions will remain until April 5th this week, HRI moved to add five additional National Hunt fixtures, which will be staged on the track in March (see front page story).

“Point-to-points are the lifeblood of the industry,” Parkhill asserts. “The handlers that buy the three-year-olds, they’re the backbone of the whole thing. If they can’t get going, it’s going to have a serious impact on the sales.

“You’d have to be worried about whether they will be able to get the season back up at all at this stage. It would be a complete disaster because the majority of point-to-point handlers are full to the gills with horses and apart from financially, they just physically can’t handle any more horses, there’s only so much a sponge can absorb.

“I don’t think the point-to-point racing has contributed in any way to the spread of Covid. I can’t think of any cases coming from it. It’s all outside for one, which isn’t the case even with the racecourses. Getting point-to-points back on is head and shoulders above everything else in my opinion.

“If it doesn’t get going, there is going to have serious repercussions right back through the store sales this year back to the foal sales at the back end of the year. For years to come, it will have a knock-on effect.”

Backbone

Parkhill did this feature interview with Daragh Ó Conchúir nearly five years ago. At the time he was slightly worried about the backbone strength of point-to-point influence - that if one or two players came out, what would happen.

As it has transpired, it has gone the other way, this particular market force strengthening significantly. Many also feared what would happen when Gigginstown House Stud announced their winding down process two years ago now, but he maintains that there is no player big enough, whose exit will have a such a serious effect on the market.

In the same interview, Parkhill was naturally highly complementary about the growing trend of more opportunity for fillies. He was one of the first to take a chance on the increasingly popular leasing system whereby breeders can lease out their mares to a racing club who take on the costs and benefits of having a mare under the care of some of the top trainers in Ireland, and all going well, the breeder gets the mare back with an enhanced and potentially blacktype profile.

“I’m involved with several syndicates (Blue Bloods, Lion’s Mouth, John Battersby, White Grass and Brooklawn) and everyone involved has a tremendous interest. It’s a very nice way for people to get involved in racing without too much expense,” Parkhill explains.

“Now it’s not all positives, we’ve had big losses, but on the whole, it has worked. It’s really now that we’re starting to reap the benefits of it because the fillies that we had leased out, their progeny are coming onto the track now.

“In general, I think you’re starting to see huge benefits from the improvements made to the fillies programme,” he says.

“More opportunity means more fillies racing which means more top-class mares can emerge. There are fillies coming through that in years gone by may not even have got a chance to race. The mares’ chase is a great inclusion at Cheltenham and will provide another boost.

“I’ve read some people suggesting there aren’t enough high quality mares around but this is only the start of it, when people get into the system and try and have mares for these races, I think it will be a huge plus. I don’t understand the argument against the 7lb mares’ allowance either. Maybe 7lbs is too much for Honeysuckle, but how many Honeysuckles are there? Mares need the allowance.”

Parkhill’s plans to maintain the number of mares he will send to be covered this year has to be a positive for stallion farms around the country. The Meath man has always been keen to support the smaller farms with new stallions for the reason that they need that early push more than anything else.

The National Hunt stallion scene in Ireland is going through a transition period and that creates an attractive challenge for the likes of Parkhill to use their experience to match mares to the right partners.

“If anyone asked me to name the top five five National Hunt sires, I couldn’t do it whereas in years gone by, it would have been no bother, it would have been very obvious which ones you should have been using,” he explains.

“Just at the minute I would say we’re in a transition period because the old faithfuls have dropped away and there are a lot of very nice young horses coming on now from last year and this year, stallions with two- and three-year-olds now. It will be interesting to see which ones come through and get winners.”

Ambition

Even with the industry moving through a trying time, racing is still able to take place and that allows an outlet for so many and the challenge and ambition remains at the forefront.

Parkhill admits himself he didn’t have much of a choice but to get into this business, given his parents immersed him. They famously bred two Champion Hurdle winners, Morley Street and Granville Again, and that bloodline is still well and truly alive, most recently highlighted by the exploits of Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle winner City Island.

It’s amazing to have bred a Cheltenham Festival winner full stop, but it surely is special when you can link the family back to your parents. The sentimental value of such an accomplishment is arguably worth as much as any potential financial gain.

The Parkhill family line is well and truly alive too with wife Louise and sons Peter and Nicky, playing an integral part of the operation alongside a hardworking team of staff in Castletown Quarry Stud.

When Bob Olinger bids to win at Cheltenham in just under three weeks’ time, he’ll bid to give the Trim stud their third Grade 1 Festival winner in a row after City Island and Ferny Hollow. The Henry de Bromhead-trained gelding could be very good indeed, especially when he goes chasing next year. The sky is the limit at the moment.

Not bad given it all started with a little filly called Sharpaway.