THE Tetrarch Stakes is the feature race at the Curragh on Monday and this year the race has been named in honour of my father, Dick McCormick. From Summerhill in Co Meath, he was The Tetrarch’s work rider in 1913 before going on to become a classic-winning trainer in his own right.

Trained in Stockbridge, Hampshire, by Galway man Atty Persse, The Tetrarch only raced at two years and won all seven of his races, with Steve Donoghue on board. According to Donoghue, in his autobiography Donoghue Up, Dick McCormick was “the only other man ever to sit on The Tetrarch’s back long enough to stay there”.

My father honed his riding skills as a 10-year-old in the hunting fields of Co Meath with the Meath and Ward Union Hunts. Having received his early education in Mountbellew Agriculture College, Co Galway from the age of 10 to 14, he found the lure of the horse was more powerful than farming and he signed a five-year apprenticeship with the legendary H.S. ‘Atty’ Persse in Chattis Hill, Stockbridge, Hampshire. Dick would later be promoted to be the trainer’s right-hand man, a position he held for 20 years.

Known as ‘The Spotted Wonder’, The Tetrarch had his most celebrated win in the 1913 Coventry Stakes at Royal Ascot, then run over five furlongs, where he won by an ever-widening 10 lengths. But how good was he really? In Dick’s words “good enough to win the Stewards Cup (at Goodwood) with 9st-7lbs (133 lbs) as a two-year-old.”

Bred by Edward Kennedy at Straffan Stud near Baronrath in Co Kildare, The Tetrarch was owned during his racing career by Major Dermot McCalmont of Ballylinch Stud, a cousin of Persse. The horse only had a short stud career – mostly at Ballylinch – and sired just 130 foals.

Huge influence

However, these foals proved to be hugely influential on the stud book, both in Europe and America. His daughter Mumtaz Mahal became one of the most important broodmares of the 20th century, as ancestress of Nasrullah, Royal Charger and Tudor Minstrel.

This is also the family of 1936 Derby winner Mahmoud (ancestor of leading US sire Tapit), Northern Dancer and Secretariat.

Another daughter, Herodias, imported into the US, became ancestress of Cosmic Bomb, Prince John and Lamb Chop.

When Steve Donoghue started training in 1937, my father fulfilled a long-held promise and became Donoghue’s assistant trainer. It was generally recognised that, while Donoghue was the public face, in reality Dick trained the horses.

With the advent of World War II, the stable was dissolved and Dick returned to Ireland where he began to train in his own right for the first time.

In 1944, Dick McCormick trained initially as private trainer to A.P Reynolds in Kildalkey, Co Meath. The partnership won 40 races in three years including the Phoenix Stakes, Beresford Stakes and the Irish Oaks.

On dissolution of this arrangement, Dick moved to the Curragh where he became a public trainer at the famous Co Kildare training facility. During his Irish based training years, 1944 until his death in 1963, Dick McCormick was iconic for training fillies, particularly two-year-olds.

After all, he did win two Phoenix Stakes (otherwise known as the‘1500’), Leopardstown Produce Stakes, Beresford Stakes, three Maher nurseries, Patriotic, Irish Oaks, and Madrid Free Handicap, all with fillies.

Dick also produced a number of high-class apprentices including P.J. Corrigan, P.J. Crosby, J.T. Farrelly and the doyen of them all, P.F. Conlon, who, according to Irish Horse Annual statistics of 1949 (at which time he in the middle of his five year apprenticeship: 1946-1951 to Dick), rode 35 winners (including seven doubles) of such races as the Royal Whip, Maher Nursery, Anglesey Stakes, National Produce Stakes and the Ulster Cambridgeshire.

Notable indeed as ,with 374 flat races open to him, this stood as a post-war record for 27 years and was achieved in the era of Michael Beary, Aubrey Brabazon, Tommy and T.P .Burns, Martin Molony, Liam Ward, Georgie Wells and Morny Wing.