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My Racing Story

My Racing Story

Donnchadh Doyle

Donnchadh Doyle Donnchadh Doyle
© Photo Healy Racing

Going to the Tattersalls Sales in Cheltenham last Thursday I thought we were going over with a nice horse, Dlauro, and I was expecting him to sell well but I probably didn't think he’d make £410,000 as a five-year-old.

It’s an great feeling to be standing in the sales ring and the bids just keep coming, but you’d always like it to be happening a bit more often! That’s the game we are in.

My brother Sean and I would run a separate operation but the horses would run under the Monbeg Syndicate with the hope to buy store horses as three-year-olds at the sales and then sell them after running and hopefully winning their point-to-points.

There is a great market out there at the moment for Irish point-to-point horses and long may it continue, but once they keep going to the track and winning the big owners will keep coming back to buy them.

There was a very strong market for four-year-olds in November/December time, as there has been for a while, so I suppose it was naturally going to continue on with the early five-year-olds this year, hence Dlauro being so popular last week, but I suppose it was pretty extraordinary money for a five-year-old.

When we buy the horses like Dlauro as three-year-olds you just get him into the system here and like all the horses we have you just try to keep them all fit and well and healthy and get them to the point-to-point in good form.

When I go to the sales to buy these horses you are looking at a bit of pedigree of course but you have to buy the horse first with a bit of size and a good looking horse that can move well. You’d love to buy one by a nice sire too if you can get them but most importantly it’s about how the horse looks. In England they love a big fine horse so you need to be buying one with a bit of size and one that is nice and correct.

I started off working with half-breds and working with Colin Bowe and we all get on fairly well together but the point-to-point boys are all going to the sales looking for the same type of horse so there’s plenty of lads going after the one horse all of the time and that naturally makes it more expensive to get him but you’ve got to keep going with the bids if you really want him, the same as anything else. That in itself brings its own pressures.

Dlauro won at Belharbour at the beginning of the month so there wasn’t a lot of time between his actual race and the sales but he came out of the race very well and there wasn't a bother on him that way. He looked great and we he went over to Cheltenham he handled it all very straightforward and there was plenty of interest in him from before the sale so that is always a good sign.

You’d always have a good idea the evening before the sale and on the Wednesday evening I knew we were going well as he was after ticking everybody’s box and he was doing the whole thing right. They all loved him.

When we sell these horses though it’s more important that they go on and win races for the next man. That is the game we are in. I was delighted to see Monbeg Notorious go and win at Navan on Sunday. He started with us and now he’s won a Thyestes and a Grade Two for Gordon Elliott and Gigginstown and that is what we want them to do when they leave here. That’s what keeps the wheel turning.

Thankfully a few of them after going on good there now, Top Of The Game won a Grade 3 for Paul Nicholls earlier this month, Claimantakinforgan is a nice horse with Nicky Henderson, Invincible Cave won his bumper for Gordon too so we look out for them all and hope to see them go right to the top.

When you get the likes of Dlauro you just get a great oul kick from it but there’s plenty of headaches too. It’s a great game when it is going well but you can’t plan too far ahead because there’ll always be some little thing that will go wrong along the way with young horses.

We’d a good weekend with another four-year-old winner at Punchestown called Madiba Passion and I’d say he’ll go to Cheltenham now for the Tattersalls Sale at the Festival and Diger Daudaie was a five-year-old that won at Duhallow and he might end up there as well but they’re all for sale.

We’d have about 55 horses in at the moment and eight staff working hard so it’s good and busy here at the moment but that is the way we want it and hopefully there’s a few more horses like Dlauro among them.

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