LAR BYRNE is very aware that he is not owed anything by racing, having once been described by his late, great friend Dessie Hughes as the luckiest owner in the game.

Certainly, there have been many joyous occasions of celebration in a variety of winner’s enclosures, thanks largely to the dual Champion Hurdle victor and folk hero Hardy Eustace, but also due to the exploits of the ill-fated Schindlers Hunt, Acapella Bourgeois and Total Recall in the Slaneyville Syndicate colours.

There is a sense though that Aintree has not been kind, and not just because dual Grade 1 winner Schindlers Hunt lost his life there in 2000.

“The previous year, he was beaten a head (in the Melling Chase) by Voy Por Ustedes. Schindler’s walked through the second last fence that day and was unlucky not to get the big pot there though he was beaten by a very good horse. Then unfortunately we lost him the following year.

“Hardy Eustace never performed to his best ability in Aintree either… I was involved in a horse called Rare Bob in the Grand National. There was a bit of bad luck in that too. On the morning of the race he had a dropped foot.

“Dessie had his foot in a bucket of ice water for a few hours prior to the race to try to get the swelling out of it. He ran a very creditable fifth after all that.

“Yeah, there’s a lot of what could have been… it’d be lovely to settle the score there. I suppose it would be dreaming to think you could lift it. If you could run a good race and come away with some prize money, wouldn’t it be fabulous? And if you’d be lucky enough to lift the big prize, we’ll lift the big prize too! We won’t refuse it!”

TREMENDOUS OPPORTUNITY

The laugh is long and genuine. He and his siblings know how to celebrate. They also know that in Total Recall, the current favourite for Grand National at Aintree, they have a tremendous opportunity of joining the catalogue of giants to have held off all-comers up the most recognisable finishing stretch in jump racing.

The nine-year-old Westerner gelding has already won the Munster National, Ladbrokes Trophy and William Fry Handicap Hurdle this term, accumulating in excess of €200,000 in prize money along the way. Were he to prevail next Saturday, Total Recall would join Many Clouds as the only horses to have done the Ladbrokes Trophy-Grand National double.

Total Recall and Paul Townend with owners The Slaneyville Syndicate after their win for trainer Willie Mullins in the Ladbrokes Trophy Chase (Photo:healyracing.ie)

It will be an emotional occasion for the Byrnes. The Slaneyville Syndicate comprises eight siblings, with Lar the youngest. The original cast was nine but Catherine passed away in January.

“Catherine and her husband PJ (Murphy) summered the horses up in Westmeath every year. Cheltenham was very mixed emotions this year and I’m sure Aintree is gonna be mixed emotions too.

“Maybe we’ve another buddy up in the sky along with Dessie Hughes, Kieran Kelly (the jockey who rode Hardy Eustace to victory in the Royal and Sun Alliance Hurdle before being killed by a fall) and all the others to help us along.”

SHARED GLORY

The name of the syndicate comes from the original family home in Tullow. Byrne hung up his own colours once the rest of the gang – Joe, Pat, John, Alicia, Ger, Bernard, Michael and Catherine – decided that they should have a go together, having enjoyed a front-row seat at so many of Hardy Eustace’s thrilling triumphs.

"You take the good with the bad but I suppose no-one will give us much sympathy with the season we’ve been having, but the lows are miserable when they do hit you."

Sharing the glory with his brothers and sisters has been incredible and the involvement means they meet up far more regularly than might have been the case otherwise. The wonderful days and nights created by winning horse races and sharing them with Catherine and the rest of the clan, are priceless.

Of course Hughes has a pivotal role in the story.

“Dessie bought Total Recall from Gerard Neilan as a five-year-old after winning a point-to-point down in Galway. He always liked him. He won his point-to-point at his fourth attempt and was very fresh in winning it but Dessie was confident enough he could get a bit of manners on him and get him into a nice rhythm and he duly did that.

“He never spoiled him as a younger horse, which was a great thing. Sandra took over the reins and she kept it on the same keel as Dessie was doing. She treated him as a novice. I heard Willie thanking Sandra after Newbury for not spoiling the horse; she kept him over the shorter trips, which stood to him now.”

This is important.

TOTAL RECALL

The easy narrative has been to marvel at Total Recall’s 29lb rise in the ratings and give Mullins all the credit. But the Hughes’s were instrumental, displaying the kind of patience that seems almost out of step with the contemporary scene.

RIGHT: Total Recall ridden by Paul Townend being led in by Lar Byrne and Katie Black after winning the William Fry Handicap Hurdle

“Dessie said to me after buying the horse, ‘This fella has the profile for a Grand National.’ I went along and told other syndicate members that this fella would be running in the Aintree National in 2018. They all thought I was on the happy pills, that this fella is dreaming again.

“We have to get there yet but fingers crossed he’ll get there now. I think he has the right profile for a National.”

Total Recall goes into the race on the back of falling at the third last in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, when an improving sixth.

“We were very disappointed at Cheltenham. David Mullins reported on the day that he was absolutely cruising. He had no doubt he would have been alongside Native River and Might Bite jumping the last, that anything might have happened then but he certainly would have been placed.

“If you’re looking for the good out of it then, he spilled over far enough out that he didn’t get involved in the race, so therefore we have a fresh horse going to Aintree.”

Looking back on the season to date, he recalls a text from Ruby Walsh that filled him with hope. It suggested that the starting handicap mark was ideal for landing a big pot before moving on to bigger and better things.

“We went to the Munster National and a lot of people would say now Willie was given a present in a handicap rating of 129. Sure he probably was, but why wouldn’t you use it? I wouldn’t apologise to anyone for that.

“Willie was very confident that day to me. He said ‘This fella will win, I just hope he doesn’t win too far.’ I was wondering was Willie on the happy pills as well but he was proved right.”

NEW TARGETS

Mullins suggested Newbury couple of weeks later, confident that they had the horse to finally end the dreadful record of Irish horses in the contest and for the trainer himself, lay to rest the ghost of Be My Royal, who had been controversially disqualified after being first past the post in 2002.

“That was a phenomenal race and as good a finish as you will ever see. You’d feel very sorry for Nicky Henderson and Whisper’s connections that day, to give a fella like Total Recall a stone in weight. And he needed a stone because he only won it a neck.

“Fair play to Willie, he had another call to settle over there with those boys for taking the previous race off him. It meant an awful lot to him.”

They resolved to take Christmas off before taking advantage of a hurdle mark of 125 to land another juicy pot at the Dublin Racing Festival. And while the Gold Cup was something to take in on the way to Aintree as, with David Mullins confirming his uncle’s view that this was a Grade 1 conveyance, it will be the end target next year, all being well.

“Let’s get over Aintree over first and fingers crossed, he runs a very respectable race. We’re probably only gonna get one crack at that and hopefully he can do it but I would think, and, it would be left very much to Willie Mullins as to where he wants to go next year, but I would imagine it would be graded races he would be going for with the Gold Cup as the main aim next March.”

This being racing, there is less positive news about Dolciano Dici. A three-year-old hurdle winner in France two years ago, he once again got the kid glove treatment at Osborne Lodge, running just the once on these shores for Mullins in a hot novice in January. He has a chip on a sesamoid bone however. It is inoperable and could be career-ending

“Sin a bhfuil” is Byrne’s matter-of-fact response. It’s disappointing but you can’t change it. You take the good with the bad but I suppose no-one will give us much sympathy with the season we’ve been having, but the lows are miserable when they do hit you.”

GOLD CUP POTENTIAL

Acapella Bourgeois is a little more complex. Twice a Grade 2 winner over hurdles, the prospect of putting fences in his way excited everyone. He added his third Grade 2 over fences and connections were sure they had a Gold Cup horse on their hands.

“He’s a horse that is oozing with ability. If you’d only get him to settle in his races and switch off, there’s no doubt but that he is Gold Cup potential. Unfortunately, Willie hasn’t gotten a win out of him yet. He spilled over on the first day out this year in Navan. Paul was trying to settle him, get him to switch off, the horse wasn’t paying attention and came to grief.

“Then he got beat by a very good horse of Willie’s (Polidam) and unfortunately, he burst (a blood vessel) the last day. Willie reports that he’s in very, very good form now and ready for a run. I would be hoping we’ll see him in Punchestown but as you know, if your burst once the tendency is that you’ll do it again.”

If he stays straight, you wonder if they might be better off to let his natural enthusiasm take over, rather than burying him in the pack.

“We’re gonna have to make up our minds. To be a Gold Cup horse, you have to be able to get the trip and Acapella has proved that he’ll get the trip and would stay going all day. As Willie said to me, he also has the speed to go over a short trip and if you have a tendency to burst, maybe the shorter trip is the route to go. But again, I would very much leave that to the trainer.”

Byrne has always left the purchasing of stock to the trainers, and Sandra Hughes sourced the latter duo in France. He will place his faith in Mullins and his team now, though there won’t be the same war chest available as might be the case with some of the trainer’s other clients.

“It’s a very different type of budget. Traditionally, 50, 60 grand is the type of horse we’d buy and we’ve had incredibly good luck in that market. To say that Acapella Bourgeois and Total Recall can go play with the big boys is incredible really.”

None was bigger, in achievement or heart, than Hardy Eustace.

HARDY EUSTACE

“We were lucky enough that Dessie picked up Hardy Eustace at the Goffs Land Rover for relatively small money (IR£21,000). From day one, he always loved him. He went on and won the Land Rover Bumper the following year (ridden by Kevin O’Ryan and beating another future Hughes stalwart Central House) and won nearly 40 grand in prize money, so this fella was on a winner from the start.”

He won the Royal Bond Hurdle in his novice season “albeit off the bridle three furlongs out, with Back In Front smiling at him, thinking that he’d have him devoured but not to be.

“Then he went on to Cheltenham and won the Royal and Sun Alliance and he was off the bridle at the top of the hill. You’d be wondering ‘What are we doing here?’ But he was tough as teak, you’d never get to the end of him.

“The first Champion Hurdle, he returned 33/1 on the day. All the geniuses were saying ‘What are they doing running that horse in the Champion Hurdle? He’d sluice up in the Coral Cup over two-mile-five and they’re going two mile; what kind of gobshites are they?’

“Dessie took the battery out of his hearing aid and said ‘We’re not going to listen to those.’ He put blinkers on him for the first time and he said ‘I only want them on him to go up by the stands the first time. I don’t want the crowd to distract him. If he’s distracted for one stride that’s the party over for the Champion Hurdle.’

“And he said to Conor (O’Dwyer), ‘Once he goes past the stand, pull them off him if you want because they’re not needed. Just go a proper gallop.’

“I can relive that race so well in my own mind, coming over the last, Rooster Booster came up alongside us and your man just kicked on and went and won it by five lengths. Just as tough as you get.

“Roll on the following year, Harchibald and Brave Inca gave him a race and it was probably one of the best Champion Hurdles of all time.

“It was certainly a pleasure for us and for the whole family and he became an Irish horse. You’d be delighted to be associated with a horse like that.”

He was saddened when Sandra Hughes told him she would be handing in her licence, given the long association he had with Osborne Lodge, and the friendship he had formed with Dessie and Eileen first, and later Sandra and Richard. But he felt the decision was the right one given her difficulty in attracting new owners and wished her luck.

IMPROVEMENT STILL NEEDED

With the perennial champion based over the road in Closutton, it made sense to send the horses there and they have had no cause to regret the decision.

Byrne agrees with Luke McMahon’s contention on these pages last week that the owner’s lot had improved considerably in Ireland but that there were some tracks lagging behind still.

“The prize money is good and racecourses are now paying attention to owners. It’s not the same hassle anymore in getting extra admission tickets for a day or getting someone a bit of grub, whereas before, if you didn’t have your badge, you had to be God Almighty to try to get in. Certainly, they are realising that they have to step up to the mark and they are stepping up to the mark.

“Now some of the racecourses in Ireland could still do a lot of improving but in the general scheme of things, they are doing a good job. Punchestown, Leopardstown, Navan, Fairyhouse, they’re all doing it very correct but there is room for a lot of improvement.

“If you haven’t got the owner, you’ve nothing. You’ve no horse racing. It’s very important for the industry to have as many owners as possible. A huge percentage of horses are owned now by a small number of very good owners I might add, but is that good for the industry in the long-term? I’m not so sure. It probably isn’t you know.”

In Australia, one in every 310 people has an involvement in a racehorse. That, or something near it, should be a target here given the affinity with the horse. In 2017, there were 3,687 active owners in Ireland, 547 of those syndicates.

If you said there were an average of 15 people in those syndicates – most likely very generous – that would make it around one in 500 with some leg in a racehorse. Getting involved needs to be made easier and more attractive Byrne maintains. Racing needs to be brought to the people.

“HRI need to try and encourage more syndicates like ourselves. Be it a group of friends or family or whatever. That’s the only way you’re going to expand the owner base.

“Absolutely it’s the way to go. If you’re trying to take the burden of training a racehorse on your own, it can be very expensive if you’re not winning races. When you have nine or 10 in a syndicate like that, to be able to share the costs is important. Also on the day you win, you’re celebrating with a bunch of people rather than yourself.

“Could HRI do more to encourage syndicates? They probably could.”

The Byrnes celebrating in Liverpool next Saturday would be as fine an advertisement as any.