WHEN the Gordon Elliott-trained Outlander won the Grade 1 JNwine.com Champion Chase at Down Royal last Saturday in the colours of Gigginstown House Stud, jockey Jack Kennedy credited Emily MacMahon for her part in the horse’s victory.

The nine-year-old Stowaway gelding holds a special place in the heart of Kennedy as the young rider had recorded his first Grade 1 success on the bay when they landed the Lexus Chase at Leopardstown last Christmas, beating stable-companion Don Poli in the process.

Outlander disappointed connections in two subsequent runs last season, at Cheltenham and Punchestown and, over the summer, was operated on for kissing spines. He failed to fire on his return to action in the Grade 3 Irish Daily Star Chase at the Co Kildare track last month and that is when MacMahon entered the pictured.

Daughter of the late Lieutenant Ronnie MacMahon, Emily works at Elliott’s ever-expanding Cullentra House Stables in Longwood, Co Meath, each morning and in the last two seasons, hunted both the above-mentioned Don Poli and the enigmatic Labaik before they too went on to Grade 1 glory.

“Gordon did a lot of hunting himself with the Ward Union and recognises its benefits in sweetening up a horse,” reports Emily. “When Outlander ran so poorly at Punchestown last month, I suggested to Gordon that it would do the horse a lot of good to go out hunting for a few days and he agreed.

“I take the horses home to Lambertstown and school them around the Derby arena that was used for the Future Event Horse League. Once they are jumping the banks and ditches there confidently, I take them next door to Swainstown (home of her uncle Punch Preston and his wife Caroline) as there are some lovely ditches there and, after that, they are fit for a day’s hunting.”

MacMahon usually does all this schooling on her own but, when it came to Outlander, she was assisted by Lt Col Brian MacSweeney, former Officer Commanding of the Army Equitation School. Since his retirement last year, Brian has been riding out in the mornings for Tara trainer Anthony Curran and was more than happy to give Emily a hand in the afternoons.

“I told Brian about the kissing spines so he had me doing a lot of grid work with Outlander, getting him to look at what he was doing and shortening and lengthening. Brian was brilliant and the horse’s jumping improved enormously.

“I usually take the horses hunting on their own but we decided that Outlander needed a companion for the Meaths’ opening meet so my mother (Judy) came with us on her cob. I like to keep things simple and treat the racehorses like any hunter. I use a plain snaffle and a martingale and boot them up in front. Mostly I use a cavesson noseband but the odd one would wear a grackle. I pick and choose my meets and usually stay local.”

Outlander will probably do another few days hunting this season if he follows the path of Don Poli and Labaik. While some hunts are not that keen to see racehorses out these days (long gone is the condition that point-to-pointers have to be hunted), not so the Meaths whose Mastership includes former jockey and now leading sales pinhooker Norman Williamson.

“When I hunted Labaik last season – he did seven days and some show jumping – I told them all that he would win the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham. As the horse had a bit of reputation for being a complete rogue, Norman wasn’t that convinced but I know some of the hunt staff backed him. When Outlander won at Down Royal on Saturday, Pat Dillon (another of the joint-Masters) rang me to say that he’d had a small bet on him. Pat has a big interest in racing and has a horse with Gordon.”

Emily saw the race on television. “I couldn’t go to Down Royal as I was at home pushing a wheelbarrow,” she half-jokes. Trying to build up her own pre-training and schooling yard at Lambertstown, means long days for MacMahon and little opportunity for R&R.

“I get everything here fed, mucked-out and turned-out before I head over to Gordon’s for a 7.30am start. I get back here at lunchtime and then start riding my own.

“It’s good to have that companionship in the mornings as, otherwise, I’d be on my own all day. The time I finish varies with the number of horses I have in. Last year, I had 20 living out and 15 in but, at the moment, I have a lot less. It could change at any time.”

Emily rode about 30 winners during the 12 years she lived in Britain, two of those successes coming on the track, the rest in point-to-points. There, at that time, the pointers did a lot of hunting and she was out regularly with the Berks and Bucks Draghounds, the Old Berkshire and the Portman.

Any riding she does in Britain these days is as a judge in racehorse to riding horse classes. “I was very fortunate to ride some lovely horses this year at many of the big County shows and at Aintree and Hickstead. Here, I judge racehorse and side-saddle classes but had to turn down a lot of requests as I was too busy at home.

“While I am mainly involved in breaking and producing thoroughbreds, I would love to have two or three top quality show horses to produce if anyone would like to send me some! I recently broke an OBOS Quality two-year-old for a client and it was produced the same way as the horses I broke for Jim Dreaper over the summer.”

This coming week, Gordon Elliott will find himself a rider short in the mornings as Emily tends to the “wooly warriors”, three colt foals she is consigning from Lambertstown Stud to the November National Hunt Sale at Tattersalls where they come up as Lots 1091 to 1093 on Thursday.