8 Tuesday March 15 2022
the timesCHELTENHAM
2022a few runners at the Festival. Imperial
Alcazar will be among the favourites for
the Plate Handicap Chase on Thursday
after his ten-length triumph on trials day
in January, while Alaphilippe has a
decent chance in the Pertemps Network
Final Handicap Hurdle. Unbeaten Poetic
Music runs in the Weatherbys
Champion Bumper tomorrow, while
Gumball may complete his quartet in the
Grand Annual on the same day.
The trainer does know what it feels
like to win big at the Festival. In 2010, he
was assistant to Nigel Twiston-Davies
when Imperial Commander won the
Gold Cup. “That year was all about
Kauto Star and Denman, so we went
under the radar, but were alwaysTrainer O’Brien, top,
watches over his string
while his hopefuls are also
exercised away from the
gallops in the horse
walker, above left, and get
a good washing down for
their efforts, above right.
The horses are always
busy at the crack of dawn,
above centrePhotographs by
Marc Aspland
T
he photograph on Fergal
O’Brien’s office wall is telling.
The picture shows his
daughter, Fern, winning a race
in Carlisle last July. “She turned
16 on the Friday and won on the
Monday,” he says. If only it was always
that easy, but this is racing. It’s in the
blood, the family and that picture frame.
Winning is the thrill, but the reason he
gets here as the first slivers of sunlight
crack the morning clouds goes deeper.
“Some of the big players in Flat racing
do it because it’s business,” he says, with
his Limerick lilt. “Jump racing is a hobby.
People coming into this will soon find
that out, but it’s also like farming in that
it’s a way of life. It’s what we do.”
Fern is taking her first steps. Sally
Randell, his partner, is his assistant
trainer. It is hard, exhausting and fun,
with the last bit being the point.
Down in the stables at Ravenswell
Farm, near Withington in
Gloucestershire, and the pub which
claims to have invented chicken in a
basket, Joanna Hewitt is expanding on
this theme. She is only 21, but the
travelling head girl has been in racing for
seven years. At one point she needed to
get out and drove a lorry round Europe
for an Olympic showjumper. She was on
better pay, but lasted only four months.
“It’s like a drug,” she says. “Once
you’re in, you can’t get out. I’ve got
friends who are at uni and they hate it.People say, where will you be in five
years, but so many people struggle to
find happiness in their lives. If you’re
happy now, I just think, ‘Take it’.”
John Benfield, the farrier, is shoeing a
horse. He grew up around horses and
breeds a few of his own. He comes in
three mornings a week and might work
on 15 horses a day. Wall, white line and
sole, you have to be careful where inch-
and-three-quarter nails go.
“I think of it as a racing car,”
he says. “You need to keep
on top of the feet because
without traction they
will slip up and hurt
themselves. It was the
first job I had as
work experience. It’s
24/7. If they need us
at five in the
morning, we’re here.
If they need us last
thing at night, we’re
here, too.”
Charlotte Parkins, the
secretary, is sorting the
declarations. She gets in
around 6.30am. The first lot is out
on the half-mile gallops soon afterwards.
The track rises 185 feet from the bottom
near Kim Bailey’s yard. Sometimes the
trainers share a lorry.
It sounds old school, with the farrier‘We do this for a hobby, it’s not
insisting his job is one that will never be
replaced by a robot, and a room of
expectant owners surrounding a table
bulging with home-made cakes in the
Cotswolds. O’Brien’s friend, Simon “Doc”
Gilson, once put out a message that you
could see the horses if you brought a
cake. It has become a tradition.
However, modern racing comes with
pitfalls past generations could never
have imagined. One is social media.
Bailey says punters have threatened to
break his legs, his horses’ legs and burn
down his stables. Sometimes, if he can
find their numbers, he rings them back.
O’Brien, 49, says he has had the same.
“I’ve had people say horrendous things
about what they are going to do to my
kids,” he says. “It’s horrible.”
It is modern-day living, but the highs
outweigh the lows. Hence, he is happy
for Fern to give free rein to her ambition,
and to help her overcome the mental
and physical obstacles ahead.
“I get asked if I worry about her
hurting herself, but I see other people’s
kids get hurt playing rugby,” he says. “All
I can do is give her the best opportunity.
She’s doing her A-levels, but lives and
breathes racing. She has a long way to
go. If she’s not good enough people will
not put her on a horse just because she’s
my daughter — maybe once or twice —
but she’ll have to prove herself.”
It can be a worrying life. His
neighbour, Bailey, once saw his all-
weather gallops washed away and had
the nadir of three wins in a season before
his revival. O’Brien says the aim is
consistency and survival. When one of
the young staff members was having a
tough time she got in touch with Rachael
Blackmore, the winner of six
Cheltenham Festival races last year as
well as the Grand National.
“I don’t know Rachael, but she
Facetimed her back,” O’Brien says. “I
think that shows she’s a good person. I
hate people tagging her as a female
jockey, she’s just a jockey. Like Hollie
Doyle, who did ride a winner for us on
the Flat, a powerhouse. I’m biased
because my daughter is starting out.”
There are 86 horses on the site that
O’Brien moved to in 2019, around 50 on
another. There are close to 40 full-time
staff and around the same part-time.
Everyday is different, but has a familiar
rhythm. The horses are fed at 5am.
Mucking out takes an hour. The staff
have breakfast at 7am. The first lot goes
out at 7.30am, the fourth at 9.45am.
Feed, wash, repeat.
Hewitt says O’Brien is a relaxed boss
and that filters down through the team.
“Everyone gets on,” she says. “When you
are in the lorry and there are two of you
going to Bangor, you get to know people.
You have to speak and so it can
be like a counselling session.”
Traffic jams cause
stress, although they try
to get everywhere two
hours early. Horses
are saddled 35
minutes before they
run. Videos are
taken before and
after. Post-race, the
horses are given a
bath and left for an
hour.
“It gives them time to
wind down and reflect on
what’s happened,” Hewitt
says. She completed the full set of
British racecourses when she made it to
Hexham on her birthday. “In Flat racing,
people can be miserable and if you forget
something you’re screwed, but everyone
helps each other in jumps.”
O’Brien says 60,000 miles a year was
common pre-pandemic. He is having his
best year as a trainer, but will only haveRick Broadbent meets
the unsung heroes
helping Fergal O’Brien’s
stable to take on the
battalions at Cheltenham
1
Number of grade one
victories for the
Gloucestershire handler so
far, with Poetic Rhythm
winning the 2017
Challow Hurdle at
Newbury112
Winners over jumps this
season saddled by O’Brien,
his best tally since first
taking out a trainers’
licence in the 1999-
2000 season“
It’s like a drug. Once you’re
in, you can’t get out.
I’ve got friends who are at
uni and they hate it
Parkins takes off her riding boots before
getting on with her secretarial dutiesTOP FESTIVAL TRAINERSWillie Mullins ..................................................... 78
Nicky Henderson............................................70
Paul Nicholls......................................................46
Gordon Elliott....................................................32
Jonjo O’Neill.......................................................27
Philip Hobbs......................................................20
Edward O’Grady ............................................... 18
Nigel Twiston-Davies ....................................... 7
Henry de Bromhead.......................................15
Alan King..............................................................15
David Pipe............................................................15
Jessica Harrington...........................................11Yo u have to s
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