LEO McArdle has been involved in racing for a long time but he’ll tell you himself, it is probably only the last few years that he has started doing it right.

“I was breeding horses for 10 or 12 years but I was a bad breeder,” McArdle says. “I was breeding from mares that hadn’t won or were poorly related, and sending them to good sires. I enjoyed hands-on side of it, but it was stupid, both finincially and logically.

“One day Willie Mullins said to me over a cup of coffee, ‘Leo, you don’t know anything about breeding. You’re better leaving it to the people who do know, the people who have been doing it in their families for years and years – leave it to them.’

“He was right as well. I’m a very good judge of shoes – that’s my business – but not of horses! My father used to say: ‘It takes a good man to know the little he knows about his own business without trying to know other people’s business.’”

McArdle changed his strategy and now buys filly foals from breeders Robert and Debbie McCarthy down in Waterford. He trusts the McCarthys wholeheartedly, so much so that when Robert rings him up with a filly foal, a price is agreed on the phone and he is down with his nephew Edward Tavey to collect the filly the next day.

It was the McCarthys who bred Kate Appleby Shoes, the mare who proved instrumental in turning the Leo McArdle racing experience around.

“I was on a very bad run with my mares and horses for about three or four years. Most of them weren’t even getting to the track. I went to see this mare (Kate Appleby Shoes) at Gowran Park and I just remember watching her come clear on her own in the straight – not another mare near her.

“I was in the stand with my son Simon and I leaned back on a post and just started laughing. I went down to the parade ring and Willie told me to lead her in and then, I couldn’t stop crying! Willie was there laughing at me and I said ‘Willie, this is my Gold Cup.’

“It just released all the frustration of the previous few years. It was an incredible feeling. There is absolutely nothing like leading in your own winner.”

In winning at that day at Gowran Park, Kate Appleby Shoes scooped the first of her three Weatherbys ITBA National Hunt Mares bonuses, worth €5,000 each. She is one of only a handful of mares who have secured the bonus hat-trick, by winning a mares’ bumper, hurdle and beginners chase. McArdle has another prime candidate for a hat-trick in the shape of last month’s Tipperary mares’ bumper winner Fort Worth Texas, who won four point-to-points before winning her first bonus on her first attempt.

In all, the Monaghan man has won six bonuses amounting to €30,000. If he, as he says himself, was doing things stupid at the start, he’s not doing them too badly now.

“The mares’ bonus is incredible, it’s absolutely fantastic. We’ve won €30,000 from the bonuses – it’s like winning six more races.

“I can’t get over how so many shrewd owners in National Hunt racing still seem to heavily favour buying a gelding over a mare,” McArdle says.

“If you own a mare, look at all the things you have in your favour: you have these mares’ bonus races, you have the option to race against other mares in graded races for very good money, you get a big allowance if you want to take on the geldings and if your mare is any good at all, you can probably sell her on when she is finished racing.

“Besides from that. I’ve always favoured fillies and mares. A good mare is a good animal. They have big hearts and that is a huge factor in jumps racing.”

So McArdle’s new strategy in racing is paying off. Trust the mares and trust the people.

“I trust Willie Mullins and Colin Bowe. I trust Robert and Debbie McCarthy. And I’d trust John Nallen down in Tipperary, who I’d often call for advice. John doesn’t bullshit and he’s always straight with you.

“We have lots to look forward to now – Willie is training a filly by Ask and one by Saddler Maker who’ll both be running over the summer. Then Fort Worth Texas will go over hurdles next September. Colin Bowe is a very good judge and he likes her a lot. It’s very exciting.”