WHEN Answer To Kayf saw off all challengers in the Red Mills Irish EBF Auction Novice Hurdle at Naas on Saturday, he provided further reward to the patience and perseverance of Terence O’Brien, his team in Carrigtwohill, Co Cork, and owner Denis O’Connor.

The eight-year-old novice hurdler had no run at four, no run at five and just one run at six, finishing second in a point-to-point at Knockmullen House. He was third in a Cork bumper on his track debut early last season and then well beaten in a Killarney bumper, before O’Brien left him off for the summer and took stock.

That time was key. When the son of Kayf Tara came back this season, he won his maiden hurdle first time up at Limerick in October, just got mugged late on by the talented Waterford Whispers at Fairyhouse in early December and then finished an excellent third to Loughglynn in a Grade 2 novice hurdle at Limerick over Christmas.

After his win on Saturday, he has booked himself and his connections a ticket to Cheltenham next month, most likely for the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys Handicap Hurdle, and he will go to that race with a live chance, allowing his owner all the mystique that comes with a trip to Prestbury Park in the middle of March.

It’s legitimate to wonder that if Answer To Kayf had found himself in one of the big yards, would he have been given the time and care to prosper as he is doing now?

O’Brien agrees with that sentiment.

“He’s a bit unusual, you know, an improving eight-year-old novice,” he mused this week. “We just always had a lot of problems with him from the start, problems with his hocks, and we could just never keep him sound.

“After he was well beaten at Killarney we didn’t know what to do with him to be honest, but we brought him in and gradually got him going again, and we found he was able to stay sound and he was able to take his training. He just looked like a different horse, it was a bit of a revelation really.

“I’d imagine he might not have been afforded that time in a bigger yard. Look, I’m not saying what we did was the complete right decision because for every five horses you give that time to, maybe three or four of them just won’t come through for you. Luckily it came good this time.

“You never know where they come from. He was the last horse I thought would show for us this season and then all of a sudden he turned out to be our best horse. I suppose that’s why we stay in the game, you never know.”

Perhaps the Answer To Kayf’s journey is a perfect microcosm to that smaller National Hunt trainer in Ireland. A setback here, a disappointing run there, you’re wondering if it will ever happen, but then it comes good and almost immediately everything seems worthwhile.

O’Brien can attest to it all. While his family is steeped in horses, stretching right back to the start of the 1900s, he admits that he is a trainer by accident more or less, taking out his licence again during the 2007/’08 season, after an eight-year hiatus, and right before the economic crash.

Bug for horses

Like his father, he was a farmer first, but the bug for horses never left him. He rode in his first point-to-point at the age of 15, and while a career in the saddle never took off, he began training on a small scale from the early 1990s. At the start of the millennium he reined back and gave in his licence, but uniquely, the horses found their way back to him.

“I suppose it was by accident really,” he reflects. “I started breaking horses for people and then decided to dig in a gallop close to our outside yard – we had a good hill there. I invested into walkers and stables and all of a sudden, I kind of had to do it.

“That was in 2007 or so, just around the time of the recession. I was probably lucky to stay going because I was after investing a lot more than I should have. It was tough going economically, to keep the show on the road, but I don’t think we had really bad times.

“It certainly wasn’t easy. If I knew then what I know now, I don’t think I would have gone training but I was in it at that stage and it was sink or swim – we kept paddling as hard as we could and we’re still paddling.”

While plenty of small trainers have fallen by the wayside, plenty have kept going as well. It seems like a taxing way to go through life day to day but O’Brien says it’s not a simple situation.

“It is a way of life and you build up a lot of experience along the way,” he explains. “Sometimes things might not go right and your confidence could take a hammering but then you kind of realise that you’ve done it before so you can do it again. Whereas when you start out, you don’t have that background.

“With time, you train yourself to not get too high when you win and not too low when things go wrong. I know other trainers who can be very hard on themselves. Speaking to them, it’s like gallows humour, because you know a lot of people are struggling, especially at the lower end, which accounts for probably the majority of trainers in Ireland.

“I’ve fierce admiration for a lot of those guys. Look, I’m lucky enough that I’ve got a farm behind me and I could fall back on that if worse came to worst but for some trainers it’s all or nothing and maybe that is what keeps them going.

“It’s addictive and it’s an identity. Some people would be asking you what you’d do if you weren’t training but maybe a lot of trainers aren’t qualified to do a whole lot else. This is their life. I suppose once you can keep trading, getting a few quid for a young horse every now and then, you’re okay.

“I’m lucky enough, I’ve often been at my wit’s end and then you’d get the sale of a young horse you won a point-to-point with and that keeps you going for another six or 12 months. Something always seems to turn up to keep the show on the road. It is a good way of life, but as a business, I wouldn’t like to present it on Dragon’s Den anyway.”

Good week

This week was one of the good ones. After a couple of close misses, Whiskeywealth scored later on the Naas card to give O’Brien his second double of the season. He trained only his second ever winner in Britain at Ayr on Tuesday, when Pitwood Road ran out a facile winner of a mares’ bumper, netting his owner a £10,000 bonus in the process.

The future looks bright for all three horses and there are more coming along, like Stickman, who ran very well to finish third in a maiden hurdle at Clonmel on Thursday.

Answer To Kayf and John Shinnick won for Terence O'Brien

“That’s the thing that keeps you going – it’s the satisfaction of bringing on horses,” O’Brien says. “I suppose it’s no different than training a young soccer or hurling team. You are imposing your training methods on the players and you can see it paying off. There is a great kick to that.

“Racing has probably never been as competitive here, so when you’re competing and winning, you know you’re in the thick of something very good.

“I suppose the big thing is when you see your owners getting such a kick out of the game, that you can play a role in delivering that to them. We’ve syndicates organised by John Kelleher and Richie Gardner and we’ve won with everything we’ve had for them so far and the buzz some fellas get out of it –it’s hard to beat.

“Even seeing the O’Connors (owners of Answer To Kayf) at Naas on Saturday. They had all of the family there and they were thrilled. You get it hard to put a price on that really.”

O’Brien has sent out eight winners this season, which equals his best ever tally in 12 years, and while the ratio of romance to business in his operation will likely always tip towards the latter, hence the selling of his most promising stock, the hope is that a good horse can filter through and stay in the yard.

“We’ve evolved down the years but there has always been the element of buying young stores and selling them when they have a bit of form,” O’Brien explains. “That is part and parcel of what we do. The last couple of years a few people have got involved, we probably have seven or eight younger horses coming through now with shares in some and I own some myself. That helps pay the bills.

“On top of that you’ve syndicates and owners who have been with me from the start. I’m lucky that this year is probably our busiest year. We’re riding out 38 horses now, between pointers and track horses. We’re busy and things are going reasonably well at the moment so fingers crossed.

Answer To Kayf is a live Cheltenham Festival hope for Terence O'Brien \ Healy Racing

“You’re always hoping you can bring along that decent horse, the festival type of horse. We’ve had a good few down the years. Magnor Glory won a big handicap hurdle at Listowel for us, Lakemilan won lots of big handicaps, Articulum was third in the Arkle and performed to a very good level in good handicap chases.

“Before that we had Ballyadam Approach who won the big 100,000 handicap chase at the Punchestown Festival and finished third in an Irish Grand National.

Morale

“We’re kind of lucky enough over the last couple of years that we’ve had a few horses come along and kept the flag flying. You need that really, when you don’t have a good horse, it’s hard to keep the morale up for yourself and hard to keep the morale up for your owners and your staff. I’ve a great team here and I’m lucky to have them.

“Michael Browne is my assistant trainer and he has been fantastic. To be honest, he is the reason the yard is going as well as it is at the minute. He adds a fierce energy to it and enthusiasm and he just loves the game completely. He does all the social media, and it was he who got me going on the syndicates as well.

“I’ve four or five full-time with me that are very reliable and we’ve got seven or eight part-timers as well. We’ve a couple of kids coming in at the weekends. Johnny Shinnick is coming in a couple of days a week, and Darragh Allen and James Murphy come in a few days a week.

As ever, one of the main themes of the National Hunt season has been the domination of the top trainers. Many bemoan the state of jumps racing, the era of the super stable, which has led to the aforementioned struggle for smaller yards such as O’Brien’s.

“We can all see the dominance and the lopsided nature of the game right now,” O’Brien says, picking up the point. “Even Gordon must look at Willie sometimes and be scratching his head with all the money he and his owners have spent, and he can’t lay a glove on him.

“People call for changes to be made all the time but at the same time I’d just worry about trying to skew the market in favour of smaller trainers. You’d want to be very careful of how that would work out. I haven’t seen a coherent plan that could work yet and this is a game that has been running for a long time. If you go tinkering with it, you could cut off your nose to spite your face.

Auction races

“If there was one thing we could look at, maybe it’s the auction races like the one we won on Saturday. I presume the genesis of those auction races was to give smaller trainers who don’t have a regular supply of expensive horses a chance. But what is happening is that the point-to-point lads are filtering so many horses that you often get a couple of good horses at the bottom of the market that go on to make big money in subsequent sales.

“Maybe we could do something to keep the bigger yards out of those races. We won the other day which was great, but I just thought when I saw Willie turning up with two, you’d feel a little hard done by if you got beat by one or both of them.

“Look I don’t know what you could do there either but essentially you’ve got to keep going and hoping to beat the bigger yards. On the flip side, that gives you a great kick, and the confidence that you can do it.”

O’Brien can look forward to the rest of the season with confidence. With a team of near 40 horses in his yard, he has every chance of a personal best tally which he will achieve with three more winners.

“We definitely have a lot more arrows to fire than we had before,” he says. “We have definitely grown our business in the last few years, and if we can just increase the quality a bit, and get a couple of nice horses, it would be fantastic.

“I think we have a chance. We definitely have better horses than we had before, so we’ll do our very best with them.”