There is a chance you might not be familiar yet with Paddy Turley and his family’s association with racing, but there is a good chance you’ll have seen his ever progressing facilities.

Indeed, most racing fans will have caught a glimpse of the set-up, a farm now doubling up as a training centre, as it is uniquely placed inside the oval of Downpatrick racecourse.

And if you’re not familiar with Turley himself just yet, there is a good chance you will be sooner rather than later. The 30-year-old is yet another audacious operator gathering a stealthy reputation in the point-to-point producer sector, while also starting to see results among the seriously competitive breeze-up scene.

It’s no coincidence that both sectors require a good evaluation of risk and reward, braveness, grit and graft. It’s all of the above combined with working with horses that gets him out of bed every day.

Just last week, his father Patrick’s home-bred Kairyu became the third highest-rated two-year-old filly in Ireland this season when she produced a thoroughly impressive performance to score in the Group 3 Anglesey Stakes at the Curragh. Bred to Starfield Stud’s Kuroshio, Paddy broke her in, trained her up as a breeze-up horse and sold her at Goresbridge to Michael O’Callaghan for €80,000.

Progression

It was a further step of progression for an outfit most known for its early exploits in the National Hunt game, most notably through the big touches landed with Lecale’s Article, sold for €320,000 and My Whirlwind, sold for £400,000.

Indeed just three days before Kairyu slit through the field at the Curragh, another former Kingsfield Stud graduate Belfast Banter recorded his second Grade 1 success, this time in the A P Smithwick Memorial Steeplechase Stakes at Saratoga.

Those two successes within just three days are the perfect illustration of the talents and ambitions of Turley’s operation; from a $150,000 handicap hurdle in the States to a six-and-a-half-furlong Group 3 two-year-old race at the Curragh.

Kingsfield has never been busier. Throw in an 11-year-old’s birthday this week and Turley is a hard man to get but he eventually takes half an hour to chat on Tuesday evening.

“We’ve 10 four-year-olds and five-year-olds leftover to go pointing in the autumn time and we have 17 three-year-olds that we bought to go pointing next year,” he asserts. “That is the busiest we’ve ever been at the store sales. It’s exciting now.

“We have six broodmares at home as well and my father breeds them. Whatever we get from them, we keep for the breeze-up sales. We wouldn’t have the pedigrees to be selling them as foals so we like to give them time to develop and train. We have developed our facilities exactly for that.

“My father got some kick out of Kairyu. He went down there and had a great day; that’s what it’s all about. He’s been breeding for the last 15 years and she is his first proper horse.

“We went over to the July Sale three years ago and bought three mares, and one of them (Vegatina) produced this filly. We sent her to Kuroshio who might not be the most fashionable sire yet but he gets plenty of winners and luckily he has done this and more for us.

“It’s very exciting to have that filly now. We have the mare in foal to Supremacy and hopefully there will be more to come from her.”

Racing bug

While Patrick (senior) always kept horses at Kingsfield, farming was the first port of call - tillage and haylage. Paddy had little interest in it however and caught the racing bug in a pretty bad way from an early age, encapsulated by the gateway to the huge achievements the sport can provide for those brave enough to have a go.

However nothing has been handed to him, not least given his own father had little interest in the National Hunt game. He started working with local trainer Brian Hamilton, and it was there that he met Decky Lavery, who works closely with him now.

“Brian is a very good trainer and I learned a lot from him,” Turley says. “Decky and myself were there at the same time and we were riding in points. Decky would have rode all of them and I just tacked up the bad ones!

“I suppose we kind of hatched the plan from there. Decky is here with me now and he rides everything and has three of his own three-year-olds as well. He was my best man at my wedding so we’re close enough and it’s nice to be in it with him. He’s a quality rider and works very hard.

“After Brian’s, I went down to Tally Ho for two years and sure I learned a huge amount there with Tony, Roger and Henry. There were so many horses, you couldn’t help but learn and it was a great place to be.

“I suppose we started buying and selling a few horses when I was with Brian and we had a few winners. The idea was always to come back home and every time we got a few quid gathered up, we’d invest a bit more, and that has been the case for the last few years.

“We’ve our own gallop now and everything - we don’t use the track at Downpatrick which some people ask. We also put in a new barn, a schooling strip and a sand school. Sure every year you’d be looking to improve things.

“It’s always busy and I’ve a young family as well - my wife Mary helps out we’ve three boys, Cathan, Patrick and Rory.”

Undoubtedly the big headline touches with My Whirlwind and Lecale’s Article have made a significant contribution. Lecale’s Article, secured by Turley for €26,000, won his four-year-old maiden at Largy in April 2018, before Highflyer Bloodstock went to €320,000 to secure him in the Punchestown parade ring one week later.

My Whirlwind was a €42,000 store purchase before she progressed under the care of Turley to obliterate a field at Belclare, clocking an excellent time in her unopposed 14-length win. She then near multiplied her initial price tag by 10 when she made £400,000 in the Cheltenham parade ring, sold to Nicky Henderson for a record price paid for a National Hunt filly or mare.

“Obviously that was huge for us, to be able to get going but as it worked out, they haven’t worked out for their next owners which is disappointing but that’s the game. It goes without saying, it’s invaluable to us that the horses that pass through here go on and succeed for their buyers. You’re only as good as the last horse you sold.

“We sold Belfast Banter for £30,000 (bought initially for €28,000). He was second in his point and he was probably well beaten on the day but we always liked him. He wasn’t a big, good looking horse, so he probably wasn’t a sales horse, and our game is to buy and sell them so that’s what we did and we got what we gave for him.

“He went to Peter Fahey and he did a great job with him to go and win at Cheltenham and then the Grade 1 at Aintree. And you look at what he is doing now in America. That is invaluable to us. We’d take huge pride in that.

“Luckily we’re having a great time this year. All the pointers that have run for us and we’ve sold on, have all went and won. The Hero Next Door is another good horse we had who is in America - he has run four times and won three. That’s a great help. Shecouldbeanything is another who has done really well for us, winning four times for Gordon.

“The few breezers we’ve had have gone well also. We sold a Ten Sovereigns filly called Thanksbutnothanks to Amo Racing and she won before finishing 11th in the Albany.”

Off the back of some solid results, Turley’s ambition continues to go higher and that equated to his biggest investment yet into the summer store sales. Among his 17 purchases are an Order Of St George for €52,000, a Doctor Dino gelding for €50,000, a Jukebox Jury gelding for €50,000 and Flemensfirth gelding half brother to Lifetime Ambition for €58,000.

Fierce

The battle to secure such talent is fierce in the sales ring and only intensifies around the flags but Turley laughs off any suggestion of apprehension that might creep into his psyche come the business end at the beginning of next year.

“Maybe you’d be nervous but it’s exciting so it is,” he says. “The money has to be paid back to the sales companies eventually but you need the talent to do that and we back ourselves. People say what we’re doing is brave and it probably is, there are probably easier ways to make money but I don’t think people get the same buzz out of making money the way we do.

“It does get a bit tense when you’re running these horses in their four-year-old maidens and you know you’re competing against guys who are in the exact same boat and you know that they’re very good at it.

“Everyone’s year revolves around a couple of horses. All 17 horses that I bought won’t place or win. There will only be a couple of winners out of them, so those need to pay for everything. I guess it’s a way of life and when you get in this deep, you have to keep going.

“We love what we do and we’re always trying to upgrade what we have and learn as we go. We feel pretty confident in the facilities that we have now to bring the horses along.

“I try to stick to quality more than quantity. We do buy cheaper horses too but you need quality. It’s fine selling bumper and maiden hurdle winners but really everyone wants a Cheltenham horse, a horse that can win graded races.”

With 30 horses under his care now, you’d back the Downpatrick man to carve out and develop that very horse. The dream is to succeed on the highest stage at Cheltenham and beyond, but Kairyu has provided the Turleys with a breakthrough on the ultra competitive flat scene. The sky is the limit.

“That’s what it’s all about - we want to see the horses we’ve bought and brought along compete at the highest level they can.

“That’s the whole reason we do what we do.”