Tony Martin puts a hat on Heartbreak City© Photo Healy Racing
Whatever else can be said about Tony Martin — and it seems many like to say plenty - no one can deny he has stood the test of time. Neither has there ever been doubt about Martin’s resilience or capacity to produce winners. However after a tumultuous year Heartbreak City’s Ebor success might just represent the most satisfying moment of his career. It was certainly timely and in the circumstances Martin could have been forgiven for giving two-fingers to his detractors.
That he didn’t is reflective of someone with both a healthy disregard for what others think of him and an unwavering sense of priority. I once asked Martin in an interview what he reckoned of the popular perception of him — the whole ‘wily,’ ‘shrewd,’ ‘handicap king’ bit - and he convincingly claimed not to give a damn, arguing his job is to do the best with the material he’s got for the owners who employ him. And in that he was only stating the obvious.
Just as obvious is if you haven’t got a yard full of Graded horses then doing the best for your owner means fishing in handicap waters, which by its very nature is a convoluted game of ‘peek-a-boo’ with the handicapper. That’s the reality for the vast bulk of trainers and owners, even those who affect a rather more pious public face when it comes to the thorny topic of getting horses handicapped.
It’s the central quandary to so much of what goes on in racing; how to square doing a proper job for the person paying you through a programme that is basically a systemic invitation to play your cards very close to your chest. There can hardly be a trainer alive who hasn’t played that hand at some time or another.
Only the naive or the ultra-privileged can pretend otherwise and plenty of the latter still exploit the system like virtuosos when it suits. In fact it was pointed out recently how Martin’s somewhat sulphurous reputation is due to a very public history of brushes with officialdom - the implication being that the real devils don’t get nabbed!
All of which yet again underlines how vital the role of a meaningful integrity system, and its capacity to make penalties stick, actually is, both in a practical and theoretical sense.
Pondering such big picture theoretical stuff is something Martin, not unreasonably, might argue is a luxury compared to doing his job which is to try and do the best for his owners within the system that applies.
In a year when he has experienced a dip in winners, lost the patronage of Gigginstown Stud, endured a virus in the yard, not to mention the Pyromaniac saga which technically isn’t finished yet, a first and third in the Ebor must have been a huge boost, and not just in terms of prizemoney.
Rare is the owner after all who doesn’t appreciate being the most important person in the equation on the basis that they usually are. Martin realises that better than most. It will be a surprise if an Ebor victory doesn’t mean more owners keen to go fishing with him in future.
Since long-term planning has always been a notable feature of Martin’s career so it’s safe to assume that he along with everyone else has already had a look around to see if they’ve a suitable candidate for what will be Ireland’s most valuable jumps race next Easter, the newly boosted €500,000 Boylesports Irish Grand National.
For a race which regularly feels the squeeze of festival competition from Cheltenham, Aintree and Punchestown, the hope is that a major prizemoney injection will redirect horses to Fairyhouse. It’s a logical step and the timing of Easter in mid-April of next year looks to play ball. Perhaps the real test will only come when the liturgical calendar isn’t quite so facilitating and a choice arises between money and the lure of festival glory elsewhere.
Kudos to trainer Darren Bunyan for his Group 3 Curragh success with the 50-1 shot Hit The Bid on Saturday and kudos too for announcing the horse had had a wind op’ since his last run — before the race.
Such information often comes to light afterwards, usually accompanied by knowing expressions. But Bunyan went to the stewards beforehand and the news was announced on-course. Most took a look at Hit The Bid’s price and probably ignored it to their cost. But they only have themselves to blame, which is usually the case anyway, but even more so when the information is actually put out there for a change.
It’s remarkable to examine how even with just a single three year old colt up to winning a Group 1 this season, Aidan O’Brien could still be on course for as good a top-flight campaign as he’s ever had. He is currently on 13 Group 1’s for the flat season.
His 2001 tally of 24 Group 1 winners was just one short of Bobby Frankel’s tally of 25. That year he saddled 11 Group 1 winners from now until the end of the year. So with a sparkling crop of two year olds, a vintage bunch of three year old fillies topped by Minding, not to mention international prospects topped by Highland Reel, the potential is there for a very lucrative autumn indeed.
Should the Frankel record become a realistic target again though it will be interesting to see if Ivanovich Gorbatov’s Triumph Hurdle victory gets thrown into the Group/Grade 1 mix. The horse was after all technically trained by O’Brien even though the world and his mother knows that Joseph O’Brien was in charge of the horse. It might also be interesting to see if some flat prejudices about the jumps game crop up too!
And finally, jockeys really are a fickle bunch. Less than a year after proclaiming the Triple Crown hero American Pharoah to the skies, Victor Espinoza declared after California Chrome’s Pacific Classic victory over the weekend that he’s the best he’s ever ridden. Maybe it’s sincere but maybe it might have something to do with how American Pharoah already being at stud and how California Chrome’s stallion fee is presumably yet to be decided!
