IN ancient Greek literature, the Homeric Question centres on whether one individual, Homer, authored the epic poems Iliad and Odyssey, or they are the result of a collaborative effort.

“Who is Rajj?” may not be weighty enough for the academics but it was a headline in the Racing Post after I’m So Fancy accelerated to a facile success in the Silver Stakes at the Curragh in the second week of June.

The Jessica Harrington-trained filly has since added another listed success, and with Insayshable proving consistent in Hong Kong right now, after recording two wins from four runs in Ireland when trained by Ger Lyons. Including finishing just two lengths off Douglas Macarthur in a Derrinstown Stud Derby Trial Stakes (with Irish Derby and St Leger victor Capri in third). The bloodstock gurus are frantically rifling through their databases to figure out just where this previously unheralded 15-year-old stallion has come from.

“WHO IS HOMER SCOTT?”

Rajj’s story is a remarkable one. So too is that of the colourful individual who stands him at Lisheen Stud in Kilkea. “Who is Homer Scott?” would probably be the query of racing followers under 30.

“You’d want to get chatting quick because it’s 15 minutes and then it’s all over,” joked Scott when I first touched base with him to organise meeting up the following day at Kilkea Golf Course, where he once was captain.

He is playing down his period as a high-end trainer in applying the Andy Warhol-attributed quote to his career. It would be inaccurate to call his success fleeting. His two Cheltenham victories arrived seven years apart – Omerta in the National Hunt Chase in 1986 when Scott was only 29, and Rhythm Section in the second running of the Champion Bumper in 1993.

The Committee was unlucky not to add to his trainer’s tally, finishing placed three times – second to future Gold Cup victor Garrison Savannah in the Sun Alliance Chase in 1990. Then, after being off the track for nearly two years, placing third and second in the Kim Muir in 1993 and 1994. He was just a short-head off on the latter occasion.

Canute Express and Saraemma were just two other top-flight horses who claimed big pots on both sides of the water, while Scott finished second to Paddy Mullins in the trainers’ table with 50 winners in one season, at a time when there was considerably less racing and no trainer would even dream of housing 100 horses.

The success was real, and it was sustained. But it did end and it was a long time ago. Gordon Elliott was eight when Scott experienced that Cheltenham glow the first time. Joseph O’Brien was a couple of months away from being born when he registered the second. The landscape has changed completely and not many of his contemporaries have survived.

He turned 62 last Sunday and while he still trains three horses himself, most of what he or his family are involved in are trained by Harrington, Lyons and James Lambe.

“Sure Coolmore have the mammies, daddies, grannies and grandads and all the rest! They have some mares.

“It’s very hard to get staff and I couldn’t do it,” he explains as we sit down to lunch. “I have two people that ride out for me and I am very thankful to them. I could go out there and give it a kick again, and try and get myself 20 horses, but while I have Jessie and Ger doing it, why would I bother? Why would I argue that I’m better than them? And you’d have to think you’re better than anyone else or why would you do it?

“I’m calling out to Jessie’s tomorrow. Her son-in-law, Richie Galway, has started there now from Punchestown and when I asked him how he was going, he said he’d try turn things around! I thought it was a great answer after the incredible year or two they’ve had. Two weeks after he started they won the Guineas, so he hasn’t messed it up anyway!

“But they have a great team there. It’s a wonderful place, great facilities and a huge team of staff. And it’s the same with Ger. I’m much happier for them to be doing it.”

GRADUAL DECLINE

The decline happened gradually, but once his primary backers were no longer in a position to fund the purchase of stock, he was in trouble. From 20 winners and 171 runners in Ireland in the 1993-94 season, he hit just eight from 160 the following campaign. After that, it was one from 51. Two winners is the most he has managed since and he is zero for two for the current term. His focus lies elsewhere now.

Homer Scott with connections of I’m so Fancy (Rajj x Royal Jelly) following her Navan win in 2016

“I hadn’t the strength of horse to compete and to make it pay. But is breeding a few good horses good too? And to have the mummy and the daddy?”

He must be unique among small operators in that regard, if not the behemoths.

“Sure Coolmore have the mammies, daddies, grannies and grandads and all the rest! They have some mares,” he says, whistling his appreciation. He admires how Coolmore operate in a business sense, and likes how John Magnier promotes from within.

He is not into reminiscences or regrets. His days as one of the premier National Hunt trainers in the land are in the past. Indeed, it is interesting to hear him relate how he found it difficult to keep his head above water even when he was flying, in the context of the prevailing debate nowadays surrounding the squeeze on the middle tier of jumps trainers.

“Do I miss that? Certainly not. I never seemed to be able to make any money. You went to the Derby Sale and because you were an alcoholic for horses you bought two and after two years, you found out one of them was no good. So the other one had to be good to pay for the two.

“Paddy Mullins was a wonderful man. He was successful in a funny sort of a way. Willie has 250 or 300 horses at his disposal for the year. Paddy had 45 and they were all brought in to one night, and he campaigned them through the winter. He didn’t talk much but he always had a word for me. He was a gentleman.”

OPPONENTS

Elliott always says hello to him at the races now. Bloodstock agent, Bobby O’Ryan introduced him to Joseph O’Brien, who he describes as “a lovely boy”.

O’Brien the younger could well have an opponent as I’m So Fancy steps up in class in the Group 2 Kilboy Estate Stakes at HQ tomorrow week. His father most certainly will.

“When I’m in the parade ring and she’s been running for the last two years, I say to Jessie ‘How do you think she’ll run?’ ‘We’re surrounded by Galileos’ is the reply. So when you ask me how she’ll do, there’s a boy down in Tipperary who never goes racing without six Galileos with him. He’d leave you without your eyes to cry with! No, Aidan O’Brien is special and so is John Magnier.”

It is competitive on the track and it is competitive off it too. The standard of progeny is a reflection of the standard of stallion, not to mention those that look after them. But I’m So Fancy, and before her Insayshable, have given Scott a pep in his step because they are advertising the hitherto hidden talents of their sire.

“Rajj has proven that he upgrades mares. I’m So Fancy’s mother (Royal Jelly) bred four or five winners before I got her and this is by far the best. Imitation, the dam of Insayshable, bred six winners before I got her. In fairness, she did breed Ainippe, that won two Group 3 races for Ger Lyons and Qatar Racing, but she has bred a few good horses by Rajj now as well.”

Included among the Imitation offspring bred by Scott are My Mystique, a winner of a Dundalk two-year-old maiden last September, and My Laureate, who finished a half-length second on her racecourse debut last month. The winner of that race, Cava, finished a length third in the Group 3 Grangecon Stud Stakes at the beginning of July, so little wonder Scott is excited.

“I’ve done this for him and I’m telling you now. I know I’m being arrogant saying this but I ask for forgiveness. I am not covering any mare that can’t win a race or can’t breed a winner."

Both of those are trained by Lyons, while Harrington has an unraced full-sister to I’m So Fancy, named Fancy Feat, that he is optimistic about.

IN DEMAND

With three winners from nine runners to date, the percentage stands up to scrutiny but the sample size will increase now thanks initially to Insayshable and now I’m So Fancy. Having just covered mares belonging to family and friends, Rajj is now in more demand on the wider market.

“I’ve done this for him and I’m telling you now. I know I’m being arrogant saying this but I ask for forgiveness. I am not covering any mare that can’t win a race or can’t breed a winner. I don’t mean that arrogantly and I don’t want anyone to be annoyed by that, but there are loads of mares out there that if they were covered five times by Galileo they wouldn’t breed a winner so I won’t help Rajj by having him cover them.

“I have worked hard to only get mares that can breed a winner and there are going to be more horses on the ground as a result that will be good enough to win races.”

Just how Rajj ended up at Lisheen Stud, despite an eye-catching page, is a story in itself. It is interesting that Noel Furlong is involved, given that Furlong once owned a horse that had been trained by Scott and indeed was named after him (and misspelled) by his then owner Liam Marks – The Illiad!

“Rajj was unnamed when I got him so I named him after my two nephews, Robbie and Anthony, and my two sons, John and James. The four of them went around together and were best friends. So that’s where I got R-A-J-J. Everybody thinks there is some Arab or Indian influence, that he was named by someone else before I got him. But he is named after four young Irish boys.

“I got him from Noel Furlong with the intention to race but he got hurt behind. But he has such a wonderful pedigree, by Danehill out of a Sadler’s Wells mare, and I’m not sure if there is any other Danehill stallion out of a Sadler’s Wells mare now. Coolmore have six Danehill stallions and none of them are out of Sadler’s Wells mares.

“He is bred on the same lines opposite to Frankel. Frankel is by Galileo, who is by Sadler’s Wells, out of a Danehill mare (Kind).

“I just thought he was too well bred and had too much speed, he was showing me too much before he got injured, that I just said I wanted to do something with him.”

So a friend of his, Peter McCutcheon (owner of Group 1-winning sprinter Maarek) sent four mares. Perle O’Rourke supported him. John Kennedy provided Intimation (mother of Insayshable, My Mystique and My Laureate), while Stephanie and Mark Hanly of Grange Hill Stud sent him Royal Jelly, dam of I’m So Fancy and Fancy Feat.

“I was trying to survive. I wouldn’t be at this now only for them. They got me where I am and got Rajj started and I will be forever thankful for them. You can’t do it without good mares.”

Homer Scott trained Quarryfield Lass who won in Thurles in December 2009 under Conor Maxwell. Photo Healy Racing

Of all he has achieved in life, Scott is most proud of his three children and four grandchildren. John, a barrister, is the father of Harriet. Sarah, an accountant, has Jack and Tess. James, a lawyer, has a daughter named Robyn.

“I’m 62. I’m not going out there to take over the world. But I love Rajj. I’ll enjoy making Rajj a champion.

Rajj rivals them for his affections though, and is top of the equine tree.

“I’m here 41 years” Scott says of his time in Co Kildare, his Templepatrick, Co Antrim accent still strong despite the passing of time.

“My father bought Lisheen. We always had horses and I never did anything else and I don’t know anything else. My first job was with Mick O’Toole, who was the sharpest, smartest operator. But I have been involved in horses in some way all my life.

“I’m 62. I’m not going out there to take over the world. But I love Rajj. I’ll enjoy making Rajj a champion. I want Rajj to breed a classic winner.”

He pauses for dramatic effect and leans forward, his face creasing in a smile, his voice lowering but his finger tapping the table for emphasis

“It’s gonna happen.”

Now wouldn’t that be epic?