SAD to see Charlie Swan and Joanna Morgan are handing in their training licences but, as we all know, it’s increasingly difficult to compete with the top trainers on the track, over jumps or on the flat.

And still plenty of young trainers keep entering the business, many of them doing it on the cheap and even losing money, just to try and establish themselves. What kind of owners is this policy likely to attract? Owners who leave bad debts, I would guess.

There is money to be made in training racehorses but at the moment it helps if you are training them for the export market or for an existing owner based overseas. That is the model which our leading point-to-point handlers have followed so successfully. Finding Irish-based owners who can pay €1,200-€1,500 per month to keep a horse in training and going racing is extremely difficult. Yes, it requires a bigger initial investment to buy the raw material yourself but at least you know where you stand and you don’t have to chase owners for training fees.

Charlie’s big ‘wins’ in recent years have been selling young horses he trained for his in-laws, Timmy and Trish Hyde, to England. He trained recent Warwick Grade 2 novice hurdle winner Three Musketeers to finish second at Dromahane last April while the runner-up in the Warwick race, Ballagh, won a Navan bumper for Charlie in the Hyde colours.

Carol Hyde, Charlie’s wife, is an excellent judge of a horse and, with her assistance and his own contacts, Charlie will have plenty of clients in any new bloodstock venture. In Norman Williamson and Eddie O’Leary he has two brothers-in-law who are among the best in the business.

Joanna is already an established pinhooker and her daughter Katie McGivern does well at the breeze-ups. It makes sense too for her to focus on this side of the business.