DES McDonogh says his phone has been flooded with calls and texts since he announced his retirement from training this week.

Based near Kells in Co Meath, McDonogh (79) has held a licence for 54 years and is best known as the trainer of dual Champion Hurdle winner Monksfield.

“Everyone and anyone has been in touch,” he told The Irish Field. “Some nice things have been said and written about me and it’s good to be still around to hear and read them!”

McDonogh made his decision last week though it had been on his mind since training what was his final winner at Down Royal last month, Verbal Sparring. “I found it quite stressful driving the jeep and trailer in very heavy rain on a busy motorway. There were huge lorries passing me out on either side and I could barely see through the windscreen.

“My daughter Shona has always been here to help me and we had another good young woman for the past 11 months. Last week she told us she wasn’t coming back and gave no notice. I decided then that it was time to finish.”

McDonogh, who lost his wife Helen (Bryce-Smith) in 2023, said he will continue to go racing in Navan when he can and will enjoy following the career of his son Declan, a former champion jockey attached to the Joseph O’Brien yard.

“I’ll miss the excitement you feel when you see potential in a horse at home, and when you see that potential realised on the track,” he said. “I’ve had some fantastic support over all the years. One of the owners involved in Verbal Sparring has had a horse with me every year since 1980, the year Declan was born.

“I was lucky too to receive support from J.P. McManus, which was a great thrill as I am originally from Limerick.” McDonogh trained Hearts Are Trumps to win five races for McManus in recent years, including a Grade A handicap hurdle at the Fairyhouse Easter Festival. The horse finished second in the 2020 Galway Hurdle.

“Jim Bolger also sent me some really good horses and he was the first person I called to say I was retiring.”

Monksfield’s Champion Hurdle victories in 1978 and ‘79 were the obvious highlights of McDonogh’s career. It was generally considered a golden era for two-mile hurdlers, with Sea Pigeon, Night Nurse and Monksfield each winning two Champion Hurdles in that period.

Monksfield, bought by his trainer for only 740gns, had a battling attitude and it served him exceptionally well, especially at Cheltenham where his form figures were 2-2-1-1-2.

McDonogh also enjoyed Cheltenham success with Stranfield in the 1979 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle. In 1986 he won the Irish Champion Hurdle with Herbert United, who finished runner-up to Kesslin but was awarded the race by the stewards.

Brevet, Assigh Lady and Royal South were smart types he trained on the flat.

“Royal South won six handicaps in one season, including three in a week,” he said. “Brevet was my only Royal Ascot runner. He was in front a furlong out when he cracked a fetlock. He actually recovered from that injury and won again afterwards.”

“Assigh Lady was owned by the Keatings and won the Rockingham in 2003.”