PESHKOVA, gave me my third success as a licensed trainer and biggest to date when winning a valuable fillies’ handicap at Cork last Saturday. Carrying the silks of Ballygallon Stud, she improved on her recent stable debut, where she was a shade unlucky in running. Having been involved in the racing industry all my life, I am really enjoying the opportunity to train such nice horses.

Peshkova and Andrew Slattery won the Matchbook Irish EBF Fillies Handicap in Cork, giving Ray Cody his third win \ Healy Racing

I hail from a farming background, so the love of animals had been instilled in me from a young age. During my final year in school [Inter Cert], I spent two days a week on work experience – one with a local electrician, the second with trainer Joe Crowley. I then went full-time with Joe [Crowley] after leaving school, initially going in as a stable lad.

The boss gave me the chance to learn to ride and later helped me obtain an amateur licence. I rode three bumper winners for the yard, as well as getting many rides in point-to-points. Unfortunately, I had a bad fall in a point which led to my early retirement from race-riding. Having spent close to 10 years with Joe Crowley, I then joined Sean O’Brien down in Cork. We had worked together on the hill, so when he asked if I would be interested in coming down to him, I jumped at the chance.

After a year in Cork, I returned home to Kilkenny, to take up a position as assistant trainer to Seamus O’Farrell. The latter had had horses in the UK with Martin Pipe but obtained his own licence and was looking for staff. We enjoyed come memorable days together, the highlight being a Galway Hurdle win with Perugino Diamond.

My next role was also as an assistant trainer, this time to Eoin Doyle in Mooncoin. The Fonze was the stable star during those years, winning multiple times. Again, I spent the best part of a decade with Eoin [Doyle] before moving on to fill a similar role for Ellemarie Holden. Her dad Paul [Holden] had always had horses in training with Eoin Doyle so when the latter started to wind down a bit, Paul [Holden] put in his own gallops and Ellemarie returned from Australia to train. I was with the Holdens for two years, before taking out my own trainer’s licence towards the end of last year.

Razoul provided me with my first winner when taking a Kilbeggan maiden hurdle last month. Since then, Lady Olenna won at our local track Gowran Park and Peshkova added to my tally at Cork last weekend. All three horses are owned by Ballygallon Stud, who are big supporters of the yard. I can’t thank them enough for putting their faith in me and giving me the opportunity to show what I can do. As the owners are locally based, they wanted the chance to see more of their horses and fortunately they chose to put them in training with me.

Team effort

My wife Gillian is a qualified vet who does a lot of work for the stud, so that undoubtedly helped my case. Although she works full-time for Jerry O’Sullivan at Clinic na gCapall, Gillian rides out a lot before work every morning. Both herself and my nephew Ray [Cody] are important members of the team – Ray schools the young horses and rides out. Rachel Blackmore comes in to ride work whenever we need her and she is fantastic to have around. We have a yard leased from Richard O’Gorman and thankfully all 12 boxes are full at the present time. Having said that, I would never turn away a nice horse!

Gillian and myself breed a lot of our own horses and have five broodmares. We are mainly in the business of selling on young horses, although the plan is to race anything that we don’t sell. For that very reason, I may not be very active at the sales as we will always have a couple of home-breds coming through. The dream would be to produce a blacktype horse at some stage, as most of our broodmare band are flat-bred. With regards to training, my main aim is to get the best out of every horse in the yard. If I can achieve that then I have done a good job.

Ray Cody was in conversation with John O’Riordan