Willie Austin

This year will mark the 25th anniversary of Danoli winning the Sun Alliance Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham and it was a day to remember for us as his breeders. You’d love to have a winner there as a trainer but that meant a lot and his name still comes up regularly at this time of year.

It is a long time ago now but we’re still going, breeding and training. This year hasn’t been a great year with the weather. There were a lot of bugs and we had a quiet spell that actually started the year but they’ve been running well again lately and it was great when All The Chimneys won at Clonmel in December. That ended a 14-month barren patch and he has won twice more since.

The problem for us right now is we can’t get 102 or 95 handicaps for the mares over two and a half miles. There’s an awful lot at two miles and I can’t understand why they don’t open them up a small bit. And we’d have an awful lot of fillies here. When they’re running well, you want to get them out and with the flat racing season starting soon, there’ll be even less opportunities.

We breed here and try and sell the geldings as yearlings and foals. It’s grand to have the fillies that might join your broodmare band later but the fact is you just can’t sell them. They have improved the racing programme for mares but they could widen it and I don’t see a whole lot improving for the breeder.

You see a certain amount of foals and yearlings making a good price but isn’t there 70 per cent of them being sold under €3,000 as three-year-olds?

If you don’t win a Grade 1, you get nothing for breeding a winner. Maybe you should get some sort of dividend for having bred a winner. I can see a lot of breeders going out of business over the next few years. It’s all gone very dear and I don’t know if young lads will keep a band of broodmares. It’s all lads my age and we’re not getting a shilling. If you got something for breeding a winner it would be a help.

We were training before we were breeding but we decided to breed out of the first mare we trained, Blaze Gold and she produced four winners. The best known of those was Danoli, who won 17 races, five of them Grade 1s.

Dan O’Neill bought Danoli from us and we were delighted to see him go on and do what he did. We got a few nice prices for some of his half-brothers as a result of that. He was a very strong foal, big powerful foal. It was a pity he hurt his leg, he would have been a brilliant chaser and he did fairly well as it was.

It takes a great horse to win three bumpers on the trot and he was always special. And it was great when he won at Cheltenham.

We bred Blazing Tempo too, who won 10 races including a Galway Plate. I was training her myself when she won a big bumper at the Punchestown festival in 2009 and she won a mares’ handicap hurdle at Leopardstown the following February. Willie Mullins bought her then for Rich Ricci and she was very good for them.

On the track, Conem won two big handicap chases for us, Blacklough won a big handicap hurdle a few years ago and Mossey Joe won a Grade 3 hurdle. It’s nice to have those types of winners as a trainer.

When the slump came in, we had a good few fillies and they still produce some winners. I have a few nice fillies here at the moment that had a few little things wrong but they’re ready to run now and I just can’t find a race for them.

We were balloted out of a 109 last time with a mare, Crack On Corrie, and she is in again on Saturday but she’s going to be balloted out again because they won’t divide them unless they have two fields of 20. And still, you could run a big Grade 1 chase with only four or five in it and not a word about it. You’d have a full field here but they won’t give them races.

We’re keeping a lot of jockeys in business, the horses all have to be ridden out but we’re not going to keep those mares much longer. There’s no point if you can’t run them. And in the future, we won’t be having them.

It’s a pity. We have two or three that didn’t scope great the last time they ran but we have all of that cleared up. They’ll run in the next couple of weeks. Brindabella and Krickett are two nice fillies and Krickett especially would love that extra half mile.

All The Chimneys has been a great servant for us. He’s won seven times now and was very good winning by five lengths in Thurles in February. He’s 10 now but the horse he beat the last day, Seskin Flyer won this week. He’s in good form he’ll run well again and he’s been very good for us.

We’ve had some great days and hopefully we’ll have them again. We have 12 horses and that’s enough for us. In the meantime, we’ll have mares foaling and you’re always hoping. We sold two yearlings out of two different mares the last few years for €30,000 and €40,000 to pinhookers who will be selling them on as three-year-olds. One of them is by Fame And Glory, the other by Sholokhov and they are nice horses. The mares are fine, big strong mares and they’re breeding lovely horses. That’s what’s in demand now.

Speaking of mares, it will be interesting to see how Apple’s Jade does at Cheltenham in the Champion Hurdle. She’s making a lot more money on the track than she would as a broodmare that’s for sure! Although if she wins this, there will be some demand for her foals. I suppose there will be anyway, she’s been a brilliant race mare.

But we’ll keep plugging on here anyway and hopefully breeding some nice horses, selling some good foals and yearlings, and training a few winners.