EXCELLENT PIECE IN RACING POST THIS WEEKEND ON OLLY. Credit to : Lewis Porteous It is a bracing but beautiful morning at Olly Murphy's Warren Chase Stables in Warwickshire and the man in charge has more reasons than most to be feeling the cold. Back in his natural habitat for the first time after a January break in Dubai, Murphy finds memories of the luxury of the Jumeirah Beach Hotel and temperatures nudging 30C fading fast as news of one frozen-off fixture after another reaches his hyperactive phone. This is no time to feel melancholy, however. With 126 horses to be marshalled and owners to greet, the show goes on here and there is definitely a glass-half-full mentality about the place. Given Murphy's beloved Aston Villa are riding high in the Premier League at the same time the 32-year-old has elbowed his way into the top ten in the trainers' championship, why shouldn't there be? Thanks to 60 winners earning more than £600,000 already this season, this is an exciting time for a trainer who has never lacked ambition but, with six seasons under his belt, has now come of age. "I feel like I've matured an awful lot, especially over the last 18 months or so," Murphy says in his polite tone. "I'm not saying it plateaued but I just thought it would all come at once and can now appreciate that it doesn't and you have to work hard for the big days. They don't just come to you because you're a nice guy and people send you the horses, you've got to work for it and the process takes time. "I've got a lot better at losing and getting home and getting over a bad day. I think having a long-term partner and having a life outside of training horses, which I didn't have before, has helped me a lot." Victory for Murphy's first runner, Dove Mountain in a Class 6 handicap on the Flat at Brighton in 2017, had set the tone for a training career that began in a hurry. Having started with just one 18-box barn at a stable yard that was once his father's stud, his string and facilities grew at an impressive rate and it did not take long for stable stalwart Itchy Feet to break through at the highest level when landing the Grade 1 Scilly Isles Novices' Chase in 2020. At just 28, Murphy was in danger of making training look easy and, to an extent, that is how it felt. Nearly four years on, only Fergal O'Brien, Paul Nicholls, Dan Skelton and Nicky Henderson have trained more winners this season as Murphy keeps pushing his operation forward. But Itchy Feet's Sandown success remains his only Grade 1 victory and he has yet to score at the Cheltenham Festival. Sat in his neat owners' room, with Sky Sports News blaring in the background, he has learned just how tough it is to compete at the top. "I probably took it a little bit for granted," he says, reflecting on that first Grade 1. "It was very early on in my career and I was training for Andrew and Kate Brooks at the time and had an awful lot of success for them in a short space of time. That was a fantastic day but it's hard. "People think winners at the Cheltenham Festival or Aintree grow on trees but at the moment I'd have very little for Cheltenham this season. I could run a dozen horses there, no bother, but it's no fun finishing down the field at the festival. I've not trained a festival winner and more than anyone in the world would love one, but I'm not going to force it because it's so hard, especially with the firepower coming over from Ireland and how strong Paul, Nicky and Dan are. "All my big owners want to taste that as much as I do but you've got to be realistic as well. I believe there are horses in the yard who are capable of winning at that level but haven't reached that part of their career yet. You've got to try to progress to that level and we're getting there." Murphy, who later this year will marry his long-term partner and racing manager Camilla Cotton, has started to look at a more patient approach to reaching racing's top tier. He is concentrating his and his owners' investment on unproven but well-bred youngsters and is prepared to give them the time they need to mature. The alternative would be to buy from the point-to-point field but market forces have made that a ferocious environment in which to trade. "We'll buy 15 three-year-olds between £50,0000 and £150,000 every year," he says. "I've got to try to give myself a chance by buying a nice store for a good budget rather than a winning point-to-pointer for £400,000. That's what they're making in the market at the moment, which is quite frightening. "Our process is working well but takes time. A prime example is Max McNeill's horse Butch. We bought him as a store and Max has had to be ever so patient but three years down the line he's getting the satisfaction and Butch is going to be a gorgeous chaser next year. "He's won twice at Cheltenham this season, is rated in the 140s and I don't think he's stopped progressing yet, but Max has had to wait for that." While the emphasis at Warren Chase is firmly on the future, the three horses who have arguably done most to put Murphy on the map over the past six years – Itchy Feet, Brewin'upastorm and Thomas Darby – are still winning races for the yard, at the age of 11 in the case of Brewin'upastorm and Thomas Darby. The fact all three remain fit and enthusiastic in the latter stages of their careers says as much about Murphy's skill as a trainer as any of his 533 career wins, but the biggest challenge he now faces is finding the horses who are going to replace those stars and take him to the next level. "It's just trying to get that next grade of horse," he concedes. "I think Little Miss Dante could be a very good filly, Indeevar Bleu bolted up in a bumper last year and could be the best young horse I've got and we have some lovely four-year-olds to start off, so there are plenty of horses coming through. "What you want is a horse who can run in four Grade 1s a year and is a 5-1 shot or below every time he runs and I believe one will come but it's like looking for a needle in a haystack. "Failure frightens the life out of me. Having a bad year or being way down on numbers are the things that frighten me and spur me on. We're trying to match the big boys and it does take a bit of time, but we want to get up to that next level. That's where I want this place to go." Teaming up with jockeys' championship leader Sean Bowen over the past couple of seasons has undoubtedly spurred on both trainer and jockey, and Murphy would take huge pleasure if Bowen could keep his nose in front until the end of the season. "I have a fantastic working relationship with Sean and his hunger to win has driven me on again," says the trainer. "He's trying to become champion and I've enjoyed being part of that. He's extremely talented and having him as your stable jockey is a big thing as far as owners are concerned. "He deserves everything he gets; he works hard and comes in here a lot. For a very quiet and unassuming person, you'd be very surprised with the quality of his input when he gets off a horse. That's what being a good stable jockey is about and he is genuinely an all-round good guy." Like Bowen, winning has always been in Murphy's blood but he got a real taste for it during four years as assistant trainer to Gordon Elliott in Ireland and his mentor's influence is everywhere you look at Warren Chase. From the rugs, bridles and feed to the circular Wexford-sand gallop and American barns with extra height to improve ventilation, he has taken all the things that he knows work so well at Elliott's Cullentra House yard in Meath and positioned them at his own base in the village of Wilmcote. "I didn't change a lot from Gordon's, very little in fact, and it's done me proud so far," says Murphy, who plans to install a state-of-the-art six-furlong gallop this summer to complete his jigsaw. "I still speak to him roughly once a week and he'd always ring me after I've had a good winner. The biggest thing I learned from Gordon was a winning mentality but there's a lot more to Gordon Elliott than meets the eye. Besides being a racehorse trainer he's a very good person and ever since I came back here he wanted to help me and still to this day wants to help. "I had an unbelievable four years over there. I learned how to run a business and train a racehorse and will forever be indebted for what he's done for me. He brought the winning mentality out of me." The fact he served his apprenticeship with Elliott and had a yard from which to start his own training career owned by his parents, former trainer Anabel and renowned bloodstock agent Aiden, inevitably led to some snooty comments being aimed in Murphy's direction when he first started training, but anyone wishing to see him fail has been disappointed. "When I started out people were desperate for me to fall flat on my face but that's life and I can't help that," he says. "I've never shied away from the fact I'm very lucky and appreciate everything I've got and have been given, but I can't just click my fingers and get something. I know I'm in a very privileged position but the whole thing has got to be successful to make it pay for itself. "I'm off Twitter [X] now and don't even have the app on my mobile but at 26, when I started training, of course you type your name in and see what people are saying about you. I used to do it all the time and that's the one thing that worries me now with young jockeys coming through. "It's so easy to look at negative things people have got to say about you. If someone says you're crap, or certain owners on Twitter voice that they don't think you're very good at your job, it does not make you feel very good. It's amazing the people who do it. I'd rather they'd say it to my face but you'd see them at the races and they'd say nothing, but that's life. "I have a lot of young riders coming through here and I'd love to educate them that social media isn't good. When you win you want to look at it and when you lose you want to look at it; it's not healthy. I believe you should be verified to have a social media account because if you spoke face-to-face to someone in the way some people speak via their keyboard you'd be arrested." For all that Murphy did have that initial leg-up when he started training, he still has to balance the books. And even though he is a jumps man through and through – he even spent 18 months with Alan King in his formative days in an attempt to become a jockey and then two years with Chris Bealby riding point-to-pointers – he feels it is inevitable that one day that will mean having to train on the Flat in some capacity. "Jump racing is my absolute pride and joy and I hope it turns a corner soon but I'm prepared that one day I will have to train Flat horses," he says. "Whether that's because there will be no more jump racing or it won't be sustainable to train jumps horses I don't know but I'm prepared to have to train Flat horses at some point and think anyone my age would be daft to think otherwise. I hope I'm wrong but things have got to improve. "Prize-money has got to improve and the cost of materials surely has to come down at some point because, if both keep going the way they are, it's not going to be sustainable for anyone. I do think there are going to be owners spending more money in Britain again but our prize-money is going to have to increase. "I think the problem with jump racing is it's not a global sport whereas Flat racing is and, to a point, you can make money and run Flat horses almost anywhere in the world now. I'm not bemoaning jump racing and I hope to God it turns a corner sooner rather than later and we'll all be fine but I think you'd be naive to think otherwise [about having to train on the Flat] if there isn't going to be a change or two [over jumps]." While he is humbled to train for some of the biggest owners in the sport, who no doubt enjoy his affable nature, Murphy, like everyone else, can see that the biggest money is being spent to help bolster the firepower of the powerhouse yards in Ireland rather than Britain at the moment. He is dead against restricting the number of runners Irish trainers can field in races in Britain and, rather than get frustrated when Elliott and Willie Mullins turn up at Cheltenham in March with more runners than many trainers have in their entire yard, he is keen to use their success to motivate himself. "One of the things Gordon taught me – and I've never let this go – is that if you win in the sales ring you'll win on the racetrack and it's so true," he says. "Those trainers who get to spend that [huge] budget get to spend it because they're training a lot of winners, they're successful and they get rewarded, so I'd never bemoan that. "Personally, that's what makes me get out of bed in the morning and makes me want to get better and better and be more competitive. You can't moan about and begrudge what Willie Mullins and Gordon Elliott are doing. You've got to take them on and it's our job as British trainers to change all that." Murphy may no longer be the new kid on the block but all the passion and desire from when he started training in 2017 clearly remains. A little older and a lot wiser, he still has his sights on the summit.

Posted by Gold and Green Craig at 2024-01-21 19:49:06 UTC