How did you get involved in racing, and when did you decide to become an owner?

Myself and the lads had been talking about ownership for years. Eight or nine years ago, we bought a pointer with Matty Flynn O’Connor for €3,000 and ran it in Aghabullogue. We gave him no chance and he finished second. The second day out, he ran in Nenagh, and he was beaten a head or a neck, and we sold him to England.

We bought another one with him then, The Whiskey Man, and he finished third to French Dynamite in Tralee first time out. The money wasn’t really around at the time so we got out of ownership after selling our last pointer.

Tell me about the ManAboutHorse Syndicate, and how it got going.

We’ve been talking about getting back involved since March, and at the Fleadh we got the buzz going again. There was no one really following up, so I grabbed the bull by the horns and rang Ian Donoghue on my way to work one morning to see if he’d be interested in finding us a horse. There are 10 shares in the horse, and we all put in €1,000 so that’s what we had to work with.

When I told the lads that Ian was going to find a horse for us, they couldn’t believe it!

There were 10 of us in the syndicate, and then we ended up with only eight. One of the lads was in the pub, and he got talking to people and ended up selling the last two shares. The two lads that bought into it didn’t have a clue what they had done, they’d sent the money on Revolut and didn’t realise until they woke up the next morning! It’s good that it went the way it did, if they’d have been sober they wouldn’t have bought it!

If you’re going into it to make money you’re in the wrong game. We’re only in it to hopefully have a couple of good days out.

If you’re hoping to make money out of it, you’re only codding yourself. If we pick up a bit of prize money here or there it makes it a bit cheaper again and keeps everyone happy.

The pointers are gone very, very expensive. If you went to the sales with €10,000 you’d get nothing. You only get a few chances as well. At least on the track you’ll come down in the weights if things aren’t working out, but it looks like we’ll be going up.

How did you decide to get into partnership with Ian Donoghue?

I heard him on the radio after Small Town Hero had won, and he said that he’d bought him for small money, so that pushed us on. If they can do it, we can do it!

He told us that Hitthehayson was coming up for sale and we told him to go ahead and buy him. The first time we met Ian was only three weeks ago. We’ve had a winner and haven’t even paid our first monthly fees!

Since the Sunday morning that we went up to meet Ian, he was very confident about the horse. Paul Carberry’s daughter, Kaceylou, rode Hitthehayson on the gallops, and he seems to give each individual horse all of the attention it needs.

He wanted to run him earlier but we couldn’t get an entry. Ian was mad to run him. He gave us the choice to pick between Sam Ewing or Conor Stone Walsh to ride him, but we left that decision up to Ian. He knows best.

I think the plan is to run next week as well. We’re hoping to go to Wexford this month, but we’ll let Ian pick the races. I couldn’t recommend him enough.

Did everyone in the syndicate have an interest in racing before getting involved?

No, not really. We’re all the same age more or less, and we’ve played hurling and football together. We’ve fallen out and fallen back in, it’s all part of life.

It’s a good group of lads. There’s four parishes involved in the syndicate, but we’re all in a 15-mile radius in Wexford. We’ve all known each other for years. It’s great to share the experience, and to take it back to the local. In the last week and a half, we could have sold 20 shares in him, but from the start we said there would only be 10 shares because it can get messy. We want to keep it as simple as possible.

Can you describe what it was like to win with your first horse together?

It’s fairytale stuff! To buy a horse, and win within three weeks is unbelievable. Some people have their horses in training for years and never have a winner.

Everyone was on cloud nine. Some of the lads stayed out until four or five o’clock after! It’s a shame that it wasn’t on the weekend and we couldn’t all go out, but you have to take the good with the bad!

What are you hoping to get from your ownership experience?

From the very outset we said we just wanted a few days out, and for everyone to enjoy it and have a bit of craic.

We got the bus to the races the other day so we could have a pint! I always like being early, and we got the bus at 10 to eight on Monday morning. We were in Roscommon at half eleven and we still missed the first race!