He burst onto the Flat stage by training nine winners in his first season, then 11 in 2018, but Richard O’Brien described selling three bumper winners pricey and the winners awaited over the past 12 months are “critically important” in its efforts to balance the books.
It all started with Impulsive Dancer (Ire) (Dragon Pulse {Ire}). A horse that was almost retrained into a riding horse after finishing a piece in Curragh, Impulsive Dancer showed his true colors on the test field, which he showed. when he won the opening four-year champion of the year at naas in 2022.
The impulsive dancer was snapped up by Anthony Bromley on behalf of Simon Munir and Isaac Souede shortly after Naas’ win and his new relationships didn’t take long to wait to see a return on his investment. them when he won a buffer listed in Limerick.
Sadly, that huge potential won’t be realized as he suffered a heart attack while galloping at Closutton recently and O’Brien has explained he will be forever indebted to the horse that opened the door. lucrative deal, the scorer for Naas that Sunday. Wire Cut (Fr) (star sea {Ire}) is a graduate student of.
O’Brien said, “Paul [Nolan, trainer of Cut The Rope] bought the Impulsive Dancer before he ran. To make a long story short, the deal fell through and I ended up running the Impulse Dancer myself. Apparently, the horse did what it did and was eventually sold to Willie Mullins.
“I think James [Nolan, Paul’s brother] said as much after Cut The Rope won on Sunday, that they wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
He added, “But it was because of that experience with Paul, in which I suppose I guided them in the right direction last year with Impulsive Dancer, that I phoned him for about six or eight weeks. before after working on Cut The Rope at Dromahane. I told him I thought I had another one for him. He just said, ‘no problem, get him down to Monksgrange and we’ll work on him. If we’re happy with what we see, we’ll buy him.’
“It’s all very simple. Now, the work he did at Monksgrange was unbelievable. It’s basically a school pad and he’s completed some remarkable horsebacks in serious form on the track.
It’s such an ability that Cut The Rope demonstrated in his work at home for O’Brien late last year that the trainer contemplated running gelding in a backstage girl in Dundalk. But through his experience with the Impulsive Dancer, O’Brien decided to wait and maximize the horse’s value as a bountiful prospect, a decision that paid off.
He recalls, “It was only really last summer when Cut The Rope started refocusing. He keeps a soft, childish form throughout the summer and it’s only towards the end of summer when he starts to have the lean, toned look you want to see in these horses.
“I could say he probably did enough work during the fall to tempt us to Dundalk for a maiden, but having experienced Impulsive Dancers, we just thought we I will make more money for him as a bumper horse. win an all-weather maiden behind the scenes.
He added, “There’s a character that he’s going to run after my name and we’re going to roll the dice on a bumper with him. However, once the offer is there, it makes sense to sell. We cannot risk denying that money.”
If Cut The Rope had been operating at a high level at the base of O’Brien’s County Limerick, the same could not have been for the Impulsive Dancer, who showed almost nothing for most of his career with coaching. trainer.
O’Brien explains, “It was extraordinary. Colm [assistant trainer] I warned him against letting him go because his partner Deirdre wanted him as a mount. We worked with Impulsive Dancers on the last Wednesday of October 2021 and it was absolutely horrible. He was beaten for a long time in a work. We decided there wasn’t much to lose at that stage and took him to a bumper competition at school on Saturday and he ended up winning it—just three days after falling off the machine. Filmed in a production in Curragh! Putting him on the pitch definitely made the difference – he’s not very big but has a lot of power.”
He added, “The impulsive dancer made a huge difference to our pitch because we sold him and it was clear that Anthony Bromley bought him in place of Simon Munir and Isaac Souede. They are extraordinary people to deal with. When he won a listed case for Willie Mullins, he presented himself as a horse for the future and as an act of goodwill, Simon and Isaac decided to send a few horses that They’re trying to reorient their careers.
“It works with Surac (Ire) (Frankel {GB}), who has been a great addition. The Impulsive Dancer taught me the bumper route, helped build the bond between me, Anthony, Simon, and Isaac, and certainly earned Shanbally Kid (Ire) owner (Presentation {GB) }) confidence to send him to us. Now we have a few more National Hunt horses around and the whole idea with Cut The Rope comes from the Impulsive Dancer. All summer we just told ourselves that, if we were patient, we could get a very valuable bumper horse.”
O’Brien currently has two horses on the books for Munir and Souede’s green pair, including a two-year-old Cotai Glory (GB).
“They bought a Cotai Glory coveted Tally-Ho at Tattersalls Ireland last year. He’s a big, solid and outspoken two-year-old who could get his chance in the first six weeks of the new season.”
O’Brien added, “Now we also have Surac and a few others for them. Surac can be interesting. He’s had a period of rest and some of his form is picking up reasonably well. We’re watching the Scots Triumph for him and he might even sneak into the Boodles in Cheltenham but we’re not going there to make up the numbers. I think there is unfinished business with him.”
The Shanbally Kid, as O’Brien mentioned, is another bumper horse that the trainer sold to the Irish dominant National Hunt trainer. for big money. Bred by the Limerick brothers John and Daniel Hayes, the Shanbally Kid was not disgraced in his lone debut for Philip Fenton but took a huge step forward by scoring against Clonmel on his debut for O’Brien last year.
He was bought for £190,000 at the Tattersalls Cheltenham Sale in April on behalf of Gigginstown House Stud, for whom he was the favorite in the Limerick maiden hurdle over Christmas, but O ‘Brien insists the best is yet to come from Shanbally the Child.
He said, “I don’t have as many National Hunt horses with gears as he does. He is an unbelievably fast horse. Obviously he ran after Willie but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was another horse with unfinished business since his gear can be lethal. You get some very funny results at Limerick and it can upset horses like him with a cog.
When asked if he would now describe himself as a versatile trainer, O’Brien said, “I don’t know. I mean, the Pandemic Princess (Ire) (Mehmas {Ire}) was one of our ultimate winners on the Apartment. She was a fat little kid and then, soon after, we trained Sparkling Stars (Fr) (Turgeon) through jumps to win a few races, and he was one giant. I can safely say that the Twinkle Star is three times the size of the Pandemic Princess. I just like people who win in coaching, whatever they are.”
He added, “Selling Cut The Rope gave me the opportunity to step back a bit and re-evaluate what I’ve been doing. We need to figure out what the corners are going forward. I don’t want to just plow, keep training and hope for the best. We need to have a little more planning in place.
“You look at someone like Ellmarie Holden, who has completely transformed herself. I’m not suggesting that we definitely do something like that but I need to do something that makes sense and won’t put us down. I absolutely love training, don’t get me wrong, but it’s hard to make money. If we could combine trading and training a little more, we would, and we would certainly consider the Flat pedigree a bit more when selling.”
Despite the success of bumper films, O’Brien admits that buying horses on the current market is still a headache and explains how to sell big with Impulsive Dancer, Shanbally Kid and now Cut The Rope, whom he bought for just €20,000 before selling for several times that initial outlay, which is a must for the business.
“Our biggest problem was buying horses. I have orders for horses but I can’t buy them. I can buy things for my owners, but I can’t buy them the horses I want. Very rarely do you ask a question about a horse and you get a response from someone on this planet. We asked about an eight-year-old girl who followed all the rules and the owner wanted 50,000 dollars. It’s crazy right now.”
He added, “One thing I have learned is how to value and sell a horse. Really value them. You judge them for yourself and there is no nonsense in this Dutch auction. Stick a valuation on them and stick to it. I mean, we sold Evenwood Sonofagun (Ire) (The Gurkha {Ire}) to you. Sometimes you think to yourself, ‘Oh my God, I could have had more,’ but it’s a bit like Cut The Rope. Having a realistic valuation gives the next person a chance when he bribes you. It allows you to get a realistic price for your horse and it’s fair to everyone.
“Even when the Shanbally Kid won a lot, we all sat down and chatted about how much the horse needed to make in order for us to sell it privately. We decided to choose €220,000 as the number. He was sold for €226,000 at Cheltenham so I am very pleased it makes you feel that you are on the planet.
“I love training and in the future we have to be realistic that wages need to be paid and we need to find a way to make this pitch sustainable. It will involve the sale of horses. But the most important thing is that I have as many irons in the fire as I can and as I said before I will focus on the Medium range Flats and keep the pedigree. There are two-year-olds for sale at the Goffs February Sale next month and we’ll be looking at them on that basis.”
