“It’s great to get a win. Jessie had no runner so we had a chance.” – Willie Mullins

It was a tongue-in-cheek comment in the wake of Vautour’s success at Punchestown but it illustrated perfectly the kind of golden run Jessica Harrington was enjoying at the season-ending festival.

Being reminded of the Mullins quip elicits a genuine, loud and prolonged bout of laughter from the trainer. She enjoys the irony of it, as much as anyone, given Mullins’ stranglehold on the jumps game, but there’s also the reminder of a thrilling, unprecedented week, tinged as it was with a touch of sadness.

Harrington has won countless Grade 1s, produced one of the best Champion Chasers ever and has overseen the rise of a precocious Champion Hurdler. However, consecutive trebles at Punchestown, including the feature Grade 1 on each day, just weeks after the deaths of both her husband and sister, will forever rank in the top tier of highlights.

It was almost like an athlete being in the fabled ‘zone’ - a feeling of invincibility where you know you won’t lose. That aura seemed to envelop the equine denizens of Commonstown last week but Davy Russell and Ted Walsh weren’t the only ones reckoning they had a guiding hand.

Johnny Harrington was always a major cog in the operation, with his eye for a horse one of the best around. There are many examples of his astute purchases, but the 17,000 guineas spent on an unbroken four-year-old son of Moscow Society at the Tattersalls Ireland Derby Sale in 1998 will go down as one of the shrewdest in the history of racing.

Moscow Flyer won 26 times, including a whopping 13 at Grade 1 level, and the twice Champion Chase victor accumulated just under €1,750,000 in prize money.

Jessie was destined for equine greatness. Her father, Bryan Fowler won a silver medal in polo for Britain at the famous Jessie Owens Olympics in 1936. She was a prodigious horsewoman, selected in Ireland’s eventing team for two Olympics herself (1980 and 1984). At the tender age of 20, she formed one part of the first brother-and-sister combination to compete in the 1967 European Championships. That was the first of many memorable Punchestown occasions.

The sibling in question, John Fowler, went on to be picked for the 1968 Olympics and became a top Cheltenham festival-winning amateur jockey and a trainer who won the 1989 Irish Grand National winner with Maid Of Money.

Harrington had taken over the training permit from her husband two years earlier, but they always worked in tandem. As the girls got older, Emma and Kate took on major roles too.

When cancer took its hold, Johnny refused to yield without a fight. He enjoyed the fact that he beat the morbid deadlines given to him by the doctors. He just wasn’t done.

On March 11th, a few friends came around, with Kate on hostess duties. Jezki had been passed over as a Champion Hurdle prospect by the majority of pundits but the Harringtons knew what they had. Barry Geraghty, a man and jockey tutored and moulded at Commonstown, and Jezki showed all the stubbornness of the man roaring them up the Cheltenham straight from his sitting room, to hold off My Tent Or Yours.

“That was brilliant,” smiles Harrington. “We had a few friends in for lunch, Kate looked after them all and they drank me out of house and home!

“It was great, unbelievable. I was at Cheltenham with Emma and (her husband, the Punchestown racecourse manager) Richie (Galway)… you don’t win races like that and not enjoy it. And it was great to know they would be enjoying it at home too.”

A month later, Johnny died at home. Cruelly, Harrington’s sister, Sarah, passed away four days after Johnny’s burial.

“We’ve had a lot of ups and downs in the last few weeks” is one of the understatements of the year but there’s not much more the Moone-based handler can add. She is renowned as a tough individual but she isn’t granite. The emotion is very evident. The feelings, still raw.

The thought of Johnny and company having one almighty party back home after Jezki conquered Cheltenham is a lovely one though. So too, is the way the extended National Hunt family rallied around.

“Racing is brilliant like that,” she agrees. “It was really fantastic and a great comfort. Everyone was so kind… incredibly kind.”

She is still trying to process what occurred at Punchestown.

“He was doing something, that’s for sure,” says Harrington of her late husband. “It was unbelievable. I had said going to the races on Thursday ‘we might be lucky to have a winner today but we could have a good day tomorrow; we could win three races’. But you were thinking about Jezki winning and having a few placed horses and you’d have been coming home very happy. Delighted.”

She would have given anything for Jezki to be out on Tuesday, just as Moscow Flyer used to be. Tension always envelops her on the big days but rarely has she felt as sick as she did in the build-up to the Hurricane Fly rematch on the second-last day of the festival.

“For Punchestown, we were bang up there. We managed to creep into Cheltenham. People didn’t expect him to win although I was hoping he would. In Punchestown, you’re the champion and you’re only there to be shot at. I also knew we would have to go out there to make the running which wasn’t ideal. I was very, very nervous.

“He always enjoyed going left-handed more and yet he has won four Grade 1s going right-handed. But he has never looked as comfortable even in doing that. He’s becoming more professional, more relaxed, he’s learning all the time.

“He’s won six Grade 1s at the age of six. If he adds three each year from now on, he’ll be getting along very well. You’d have to think there’s more improvement in him and more to come.”

Jezki’s half-brother, Jetson, downed another Mullins legend, Quevega, in the Ladbrokes World Series Hurdle 24 hours earlier. That came as a complete shock.

“It’s extraordinary that at the age of nine, he suddenly goes and wins a Grade 1 from being a handicapper. I’d say he was delighted with himself. He got into a race that he wasn’t being buffeted around in. He’s run in all those big handicaps where a lot of scrimmaging goes on. He got into a rhythm and just jumped brilliantly.

“I’d say A.P. and Ruby were looking at each other a bit and probably expecting me to come back. Neither of them wanted to show their hand first.

“He had nothing else to go for. He’s a good ground horse so you can’t ride him through the winter. We actually have a problem now. What are we going to do with him now? Right now, we have no idea. But we’ll come up with a plan.”

The La Noire progeny have served Harrington and their breeder, Gerard McGrath well. McGrath sold Jezki and his full-brother, the ill-fated Jenari to J.P. McManus but still owns Jetson.

“They’ve been very lucky for me and I’ve got Jet arriving shortly this summer, who’s by Flemensfirth. I hope to goodness she’s as good as the others.”

BONANZA OF WINNERS

MacNicholson kick-started the Punchestown bonanza on Thursday. Winning in Kilbeggan six days earlier seemed to boost his confidence and he relished the battle. Meanwhile, Harrington has always thought highly of Operating and Burn And Turn but they have both been waiting for better ground. The former is particularly exciting.

“I found an opportunity for him to win a beginners’ chase for amateur riders in Fairyhouse and he did it well. He was in front too long and he idles when he hits the front. So I was very confident stepping up in trip. His trip right now is two-mile five-furlong, two-mile six-furlong and he is the type that could turn into a Grand National horse. He’s only seven and I’d say he’s really only growing into his strength right now.”

Perhaps the one to take note of is High Stratos, the bumper winner on his first run for Harrington after less than three months in the yard.

“We only did two bits of work with him. I said to the owner that if he fancied having a runner at Punchestown it might be worth running him in the winners’ bumper. Robbie (McNamara) gave him a great ride. He put him to sleep. He didn’t come down the hill and he dropped back. Robbie said unless the horse stopped or something, he was always going to win, he gave him a good feel.

“He could be anything. He’s bred to be anything.”

The final flourish saw Harrington finish the campaign with 35 winners from just 233 runners – the lowest number of runners amongst the top seven trainers and her lowest representation since the 2000/2001 campaign.

“I managed to finish fourth (in terms of prize money) on the trainers’ table having only 51 horses run for me. When you look at it, I’ve had two handicap chasers in Burn And Turn and Operating. They’re the only two novice chasers as well, apart from The Engineer. I’ve very few handicap hurdlers. So I’ve just had to make do with what I’ve got.

“Four years ago when the s*** hit the fan I didn’t buy any horses. I’ve now got a good few young horses in the yard so they’ll start filtering through. And we’re more or less now 50-50 flat and jumping.

“That’s the way it went because people didn’t want to wait for jumpers. You could get them at three and wait three years before they fulfil their potential, are useless or get injured. It’s a very high-risk business. You’re racing more quickly with a flat horse.”

Harrington has proven her ability to handle the elite on the level in recent seasons, with Pathfork and Laughing Lashes giving her prized Group 1 successes, and Dragon Pulse also a group-winning performer. There might not be anything of that calibre in the yard this summer but Harrington is looking forward to another fruitful season.

“I think I have some nice young horses and some nice handicappers. We haven’t really got going at all yet. I’ve had a few runners and no winner but we’re beginning to knock on the door. It will come, as they’re running well. It’s a long season and they’re probably just coming to themselves.

“I think I have a couple of nice two-year-olds in Jeanne Girl and Jack Naylor. Of the handicappers, Polished Rock and Tri Na Ceile will run in all the good handicaps. I don’t think I have any group horses this year but it will depend what we develop the two-year-olds into. I haven’t any three-year-olds in that status but sometimes the two-year-olds can surprise you.”

And apart from those, there are the dual-purpose horses representing the dual-purpose yard. Cailin Annamh, Steps To Freedom, Fresh By Nature and Gambling Girl will relish the good, summer ground and will be campaigned regularly over jumps and on the flat.

The show will go on…