GROWING up a GAA-mad child in a GAA-mad household, I clocked up a lot of hurling and football matches with my parents and siblings, ever before I began playing. Once the East Cork/West Waterford point-to-point circuit got into full swing however, games were listened to on the radio.

Priorities, you know.

The candy floss, tombola and those straws that allegedly had some cash prizes inside them were an undoubted attraction but the highlights were out on the track and in the betting ring.

Nicky Dee was god, as he only lived a few miles up the road, on the far side of Dungarvan. He had the same status in my mind as Jimmy Barry Murphy or Christy Ring, booting in winners with regularity, despite being subjected to the weight of my 50p coin.

The competition was fierce – PP Hogan was the man. He would invariably win the open lightweight and a couple more, with Enda Bolger usually doing the steering. The Costellos were serious players too of course. More locally, Connie O’Keeffe always had a few nice horses and the O’Callaghan brothers were jockeys worth following.

So too was Jimmy Mangan, especially if riding for his father Paddy. They transferred their success to the racetrack too and there is a distinct memory of the excitement surrounding June’s Friend as she started clocking up the hunter chase victories. And because the open lightweights were so highly competitive and not the retirement homes for former elite track horses, hunter chases meant a lot more then.

In time, the mare progressed to the big leagues and while Jimmy wasn’t on board, he led her up on the day she won the Thyestes Chase in 1981. It was thrilling! The small man had prevailed and it was almost as if I knew them. Mangan trained Whinstone Boy to win the race in 2010 and it brought back vivid memories for him.

MODERN-DAY HEROES

Derek O’Connor, Jamie Codd and Barry O’Neill are the modern-day heroes now, geniuses of the saddle. Their conveyances cost much more and will be sold for more again. Colin Bowe, Denis Murphy, William Codd and a number of others have established a niche business selling on maiden winners.

It was a business 35 years ago too, though it had a more leisurely feel. Buying and selling was always part of the old point-to-point scene. It is the scale and pace of the business that is different now.

Many producers have fallen by the wayside as a result but not Mangan, who carried on after his father. Now in his 62nd year, he is still wheeling and dealing; breeding, buying, selling and training.

It is difficult, but there is not a trace of self-pity from the Conna man. He cannot complain. He has bred a Grand National winner and trained another. He has trained many winners and bagged some juicy pots, and in one way or another been associated with the likes of Monty’s Pass, Bindaree, Stroll Home, Whinstone Boy, Conna Castle and Letter Of Credit.

Of course there were a lot of ordinary horses too but he has eked out a living and is happy to trust his judgement, even if he cannot compete with the fat wallets. This is life. And anyway, it’s not like it wasn’t hard before, but it was all Mangan knew. Throw in the fact that he would go to anywhere to watch a race and you get why is still doing it.

“When I started, point-to-points used to be of a Wednesday,” recalls Mangan. “I would take a half-day from school to go to Fermoy or Kildorrery. They were very popular in that time. Life was grand and relaxed that time. It’s gone into the fast lane now.

“My father was always a breeder and a seller, like meself really. He bred Doorknocker to win the Champion Hurdle in 1956. I was only barely born at the time. He was always breeding horses and selling them and that’s how he kept alive.

“I do everything really. I go to the sales … I wouldn’t be a big spender but if I see something I like and if I can afford it, I’ll buy. I bought Bindaree, who won a Grand National (in 2002 and a Welsh National in 2003), as a yearling for £2,200. I have been lucky over the years. I’ve bought some great horses for very cheap money. I bought three horses one day and they didn’t cost me £5,000. One of them was Stroll Home and he won the Galway Plate for me (in 1997).”

DIAMONDS IN THE ROUGH

Stroll Home put his trainer on the map and had improved further the following year but sadly broke his leg in his stall and had to be put down. These are the type of challenges that have never changes but there is, Mangan insists, still a chance of finding a rough diamond.

“There’s such a supply of horses there now, there’s bound to be one that slips through. Conna Castle went to the Land Rover Sales. Walter Kent, a very nice man down in Wexford, told me that he got no bid for him there. He went up to the August Sales and I bought him in one bid, for something like €10,000. I sold him to a syndicate in Dungarvan and they had great fun with him. He ended up winning the Power Gold Cup, beating Big Zeb. He won 17 races including point-to-points.”

More recently, Mangan has just sold exciting four-year-old Castlebrook to Alan and Ann Potts in a private deal, after the son of Oscar enjoyed a bloodless victory in Tallow on February 5th. The gigantic bay remains in the yard and may run shortly in a bumper. If not, he will be put out to grass until next season. Whatever happens, his best is a few years down the road.

“I think we could have another champion,” Mangan said after the Tallow success. It isn’t like him to throw such lofty words around, so people took notice.

“He’s a very big four-year-old but he has great potential and hopefully he’ll be very lucky for them. He might get me back into the big time again. He does everything effortlessly with the track horses I have like Winter Magic and Kilcrea, who are alright and win their races. But this fella never comes off the bridle when he’s working with them and he’s only four.

“He’s 17.2 and a half. I told some shrewd horsemen that I fancied him below at the point-to-point in Tallow. They told me after that they went up to the parade ring, had a look and said there was no way he could win he was so big; he shouldn’t even be broken! And he wins in a canter.

“I bought him as a foal. I was selling foals at Goffs the same day and I just spotted him. I thought he’d make too much but he was a very big foal and it put a lot of people off. I got him for €12,500 or something like that.

“He may go for a bumper but his future will be chasing in time. He’s a big, massive horse. Whatever he does in bumpers or over hurdles will be a bonus. Chasing will be his job because he’s an absolutely incredible lepper. He seems to have everything at the minute. He’s definitely not slow but he definitely has stamina anyway, I can tell you that.

“I’ve actually never met Ann and Alan Potts but ‘twas very decent of them to let the horse with me. I will treat him like one of my own and hopefully we’ll have a bit of luck.”

MANGAN CONNECTION

Amazingly, on the same day Castlebrook was doing the honours at Tallow, Flemenshill was creating an even bigger impression in Oldtown. Alan Potts stumped up a record £480,000 for Wilson Dennison’s charge at Cheltenham last month but there was a Mangan connection there too, as Flemenshill was bred by none other than Jimmy’s daughter Jane.

Jane still owns the dam Southern Skies, who is now in foal to Archipenko and her father makes no attempt to conceal his delight with her success, not least because he bought Castlebrook’s grandam Stormy Skies from Willie Mullins’s sister, Sandra McCarthy.

“You might have seen a picture of Willie and myself in the Racing Post? What we were laughing about was…

“I covered the mare with Bobby McCarthy’s stallion Dr Massini, and of course she nicely obliged me by having two blasted fillies, which were absolutely worthless at the time. I met Sandra one day at the races and I said ‘Sandra, will you buy back one of those blasted fillies off me?’

“‘Jimmy’ she says. ‘Best of luck with them but I don’t even want to see them!’

“Next thing, didn’t Strong Flow (the result of a liaison between Stormy Skies and Over The River) come up for Paul Nicholls and win the Hennessy in a canter. The two Dr Massini fillies were half-sisters to Strong Flow (who followed up that Hennessy success with victory in the Feltham Chase).

“So Sandra rings me one night and says ‘Jimmy, do you still want to sell one of those fillies?’ I said ‘Sandra, you can f**k off’ and that’s what we were laughing at in that picture. So the dam of the horse that made all that money was one of those fillies.”

It’s a funny old game alright as Jimmy Greaves was fond of saying. Jane bred Carrig Millie from Stormy Skies to win three races under rules. Apart from Castlebrook, she has produced What A Good Night, Leg Iron and Kaituna from Southern Skies to win 10 races between them.

Her brothers Patrick, the former champion conditional jockey who is now working full-time with his father, and Brian, a farrier, also trick around with broodmares. They are Mangans after all. Mary, a keen eventer, even has time to breed the odd horse for the three-day code.

“It’s a nice game once you play it nice and handy,” he says and it’s a passion for the horse that has always sustained him.

“These are tough times on the small man. I’ve never seen things as tough. Nothing against the Willie Mullinses or the Gordon Elliotts or any of the big men. More power to them, they’re lovely people and I wish them the very best, especially with Cheltenham coming up as I can imagine they have a lot of headaches, but the small man is finding it very tough at the minute. But if he sticks in there, tips away and buys and sells, he’ll stay going, you know?

“It’s all about getting to sales in England, Cheltenham or Ascot. That’s the main thing. They’re schooling in Limerick and Thurles, the place is full with horses. Nobody knows nothing then whereas when they run it’s all recorded. If the horse runs more than twice, it goes down in value.”

Some change from his era as a rider.

“The old men were brilliant trainers, the likes of Padge Berry and them. They’d run them and their instructions would be ‘Pull him up now after two miles and he’ll improve from that’ and give him another run then in a couple of more weeks. They wouldn’t mind waiting. It’s completely changed now, it’s all a rush to get to the sales and get a big price.”

THE GRAND NATIONAL

The Grand National has been in the news a lot recently and Monty’s Pass’s 2003 success at Aintree will live long in the memory. Mangan disagrees that someone like him could not win it again.

“It was proved when Coneygree won the Gold Cup. Of course it can be done and it will be done again. I know the big fellas like Gigginstown – they could have seven or eight runners in the bloody National, which gives them a great chance, but the man with one horse can hopefully do it again.

“I never thought I’d have a horse to run in a National because if I owned him myself I wouldn’t be able to afford to keep him. But I was lucky that the lads in the Dee Racing Syndicate from Belfast had no notion of selling the horse. They gave me a free hand to go anywhere we wanted.

“The year before we went over to Liverpool for the Topham Chase and finished second to one of Willie Mullins’s horses, Time For A Win. We had been to Cheltenham (for the Mildmay of Flete) and I’d a tired horse going to Liverpool so there and then I knew what I was going to do.

“I said ‘Lads. We’re coming back here next year. I’m going to train this horse especially for the National and the way he took to those fences, I think he’s going to take some beating.’ He won the Kerry National in Listowel then. He’d been second in it the previous year. Barry Geraghty was supposed to ride, Lord have mercy on him, Kieran Kelly gave him a brilliant, brilliant ride. Kieran hopped off him and said ‘Jimmy, if I knew the horse I’d have won the Kerry National for you.’ He did turn around and win it the year after but unfortunately poor Kieran got killed.

“Monty’s Pass actually never won a hurdle race and I don’t think he ever would. I don’t know why. He just hadn’t it for the hurdle races. But Paul Carberry rode him against four runners in a novice hurdle above in Punchestown. Fota Island won it.

“Paul came in and said ‘I think Jimmy, he needs another run.’

“I said ‘Paul, his next run over at Liverpool in the National and that’s where he’s going.’ That run really put him straight.”

He is looking forward to upcoming sales, hopefully to sell well but to buy well too. That is the dream. To pick up the next June’s Friend, the next Monty’s Pass, the next Castlebrook. It isn’t easy but it’s not like that is anything new. He doesn’t have to look too far for context.

“You’ve just got to fight your corner. It was never easy. Our fathers before us had nothing and they survived. I don’t believe in handouts. You survive if you’re gonna survive and that’s it.

“I’ve seen all these things before. We were used to having nothing and that’s the way it goes. We’re happy and we’ve our health. They’re the big things. I was watching At The Races last Friday (February 24th) and Luke Harvey rang (former jockey and agent) Kenny Whelan and I tell you what, I take my hat off him. I rang him on Saturday after to congratulate him.

“Lismore GAA (were) running a night in Dungarvan and they wanted to run it for Kenny Whelan because poor Kenny is fighting cancer. Kenny said that there were people worse off than him, people with very severe cancer and he’d rather they’d do it for them.

“That’s why I’d never complain. I love going racing. I absolutely love going racing, even when I’ve no runner, just to watch the likes of Ruby Walsh, Paul Carberry, who won on Stroll Home in the Galway Plate for me, Barry Geraghty and Davy Russell, who started off with me – they’re super men, although I know Paul is retired now.

“That Bobbyjo Chase last Saturday (when Walsh gave an exhibition on Pleasant Company)… that was poetry in motion. Ruby is an incredible man altogether. I rode against Ted but I was great friends with Ruby’s grandfather, who was Ruby too. A real gentleman; they’re real good stock. People talk about the pedigrees of horses, the pedigrees of the Carberrys and Walshs and those, they come through too.”

You can add the Mangans to that category.