Andy Slattery

I'm from Cooldine, Killenaule and have been here all my life. My father was a jockey and he used to keep a few point-to-pointers. We had six stables at home. When I was young, he used to ride out for Adrian Maxwell and I used to go down with him and ride out at lunchtime when I was 11, 12 and 13. Then I did one season pony racing, I used to stay with John Egan up in Ballinasloe and rode about eight winners.

From there, I left school quite early at 14 and went to work for Edward O'Grady. It took me two years to get my first ride. There were very good jockeys there - Philip Fenton started about a year before me. Tommy Ryan was more or less stable jockey there at that time. I was an apprentice on the Flat, but I actually had my first ride over hurdles in Clonmel on a horse called Woodlane for Arthur Shaw. My father used to ride a few for him. I signed on as an apprentice to Edward and had a good few rides, but I was always a bit heavy. I got my first winner over fences in Tramore. I went there with no ride and there used to be a five-winner race there and Andrew McNamara had the top weight in the race. Whatever happened the jockey that was supposed to ride Kemwell, I was in the right place at the right time.

It took off from there over jumps. I rode about 25 winners in all, but they all kind of flowed from that time - one on the Flat and the rest National Hunt. I was starting to get going and I left Edward O'Grady's for Tony Keane who had a lot of bumper winners at the time. I was supposed to go first jockey but, as it turned out that year, the horses had a virus and hardly any of them ran. I had a few winners for Joe Crowley and Pat Flynn.

Then I got married and realised I had no money! We had six stables home and my brother and I bought a few breeze-up horses. We bought two breeze-up horses for 1200 quid and they turned into 22 grand. We bought a few more from that and built from there. I think we had six bumper winners when we started off. We sold a lot of them. The training was a natural progression. I got a few syndicates together and a few small horses. We bought a couple of horses at the Sales - one was Hennessy Feeds who won six races and Bachelors Bar who won two races, but was placed a lot more times. He was a grand, consistent little horse. I bought them for syndicates.

Then we moved into point-to-pointers. We were getting a few nice breeze-up horses, we had Cooldine a subsequent Grade 1 winner and we had Faugheen (Cheltenham Champion Hurdle winner and multiple Grade 1 winner) before he went to Willie Mullins. We saw the talent in Faugheen. He was running over everything at home, but there was actually one horse he wasn't able to beat - a horse by Beneficial that I thought was going to be a very good horse and only a matter of three weeks later he got injured and never got to fulfil his potential, a horse called Organization. I had two real good horses at the time and I thought Organization was the better of the two.

In about 2010, the Flat took off with a horse called An Saighdiur who went on to win a Listed Cork sprint (in April 2014). He went down to a rating of 65 and came back to 107. He was the first good horse I had on the Flat. It all started with a couple of nice horses that we brought to the breeze ups and we weren't able to get what we thought they were worth. We brought them back and got success selling them on to Hong Kong.

Creggs Pipes winning a Group 2 at the Curragh (May 2017) would have been one of the best days training, but actually the day she won the mile in Galway (July 2016) I got more of a kick out of. The atmosphere was there and all the owners and their families were there. Planchart won at Listed level the same week in Galway. She was a nice filly, but she had trouble with her knees. Sunchart ran on a lot of big days (eighth in Irish Derby June 2020) and he's actually a very good horse but has only won one race. He's a hard horse to get right. He had a good run the last day in Naas (runner-up in Listed race last month). He might not be over yet because we brought him to the Curragh to school over hurdles and he is electric over them. He could be anything over hurdles. Flame Of Eire has gone to 98 now. She'll be entered in the Lincoln and any Listed races around that distance. She has just come back from her break. It was a fair effort to win four handicaps in a row. She is just a filly that got better and better every month and I hope she transfers it onto this season. If she does, she is probably a Group horse. She'll go on fast ground and soft ground. We had Solene Lilyette last year for Team Valor and I think she went from a rating of 73 up to 101 and won a Listed race for us (in Gowran Park August 2021). The fillies have been good to us.

We'd have about 15 point-to-pointers that we would go on and sell. I'd have only a small team of National Hunt horses. We have Cian Quirke here who is a claiming professional and Adam Ryan who is a claiming amateur. When they get to ride one here, they usually get to ride a nice horse.

We have room for 75 horses and I kind of don't want to build more stables. I have a few lads that do pre-training for me when they come. We have breeze-ups and point-to-pointers. We are always busy, myself and my two brothers are hard workers. We've a great bunch of owners - we don't go out looking for owners, but are always open to talking to potential owners.

It is going great for my son Andrew (jockey). He never sat on a horse until he was 13. He just started to follow Ben (Coen, cousin) a bit, himself and Ben would have grown up together. They would be like brothers more than anything. I bought a pony off Darragh O'Keeffe's father and he actually gave him his first winner. He took off from there. My daughter Anna rides out and is in college and does a bit of work with HRI.

Dundalk is not a long journey for us, but you just don't know what is going to happen on the M50. Dundalk is really only two and a half hours, but you'd want to be giving yourself three and a half hours. Tipperary (proposed new all-weather track) would be a big help to us down this side of the country. It would be right on our doorstep - 20 miles across the road.

You need a good horse to compete in this country and lucky enough I have a few decent horses. The main aim would be to train a Group One winner. We are all looking for the good horse. I wouldn't have owners with massive budgets, we are trying to source horses on a budget. I have some owners would give a few quid for a horse, but our few quid would be nothing to the money that is going around.