WHERE to start with Eddie Lynam’s season? The norm is to go with the beginning, isn’t it?
“When I was standing at the parade ring on Guineas day at Newmarket I was a bit taken aback. He walked into the parade ring and he got applauded” - Sole Power earned more plaudits when he won a second consecutive King's Stand Stakes, this time under Richard Hughes (Photos by Caroline Norris)
Convention doesn’t seem the way to go though, when the quick-witted Dubliner is the topic. So, taking the lead from a man who owns half of the horses in his Dunshaughlin yard by choice, we’re going to buck the trends.
So let’s start with today and Anthem Alexander in the Cheveley Park Stakes at Newmarket. The exciting juvenile filly resumes rivalry with Tiggy Wiggy, having beaten Richard Hannon’s inmate in the five-furlong Queen Mary Stakes at Royal Ascot, but been relegated to third behind her over six in the Lowther at York.
Anthem Alexander travelled by ferry on Thursday and Lynam is happy with her. He is happy too that champion jockey-elect Pat Smullen retains his partnership. He thinks she has come on since the Lowther but is quite open about the fact that she will have to.
“In York, Tiggy Wiggy looked pretty unbeatable” said Lynam between lots on Tuesday morning. “We carried a penalty. We’ll be on levels this time but we’ll need to improve. Level weights won’t be enough. We need to step forward a bit more. Pat (Smullen) and I think the world of her and she has every chance.”
You get the feeling there won’t be much in it but regardless of the conclusion, it has been a highly-promising campaign for Anthem Alexander. She is entered in the Prix de l’Abbaye – as is Tiggy Wiggy, and Sole Power for that matter– but Lynam is inclined to think that an eight-day turnaround isn’t sufficient.
Longer term, he is delighted that a new three-year-old fillies’ sprint in Ascot has been added to the programme. Like all of Lynam’s stars, we are unlikely to see much of her in Ireland and that disappoints him. He would love to be celebrating Group 1 success on home soil but the races aren’t there. It is moving in the right direction though.
“The way the programme is in Ireland, there’s a will to improve and hopefully it does improve. Agnes Stewart went over to England to win her Group race over a mile. There was no Group race for two-year-old fillies over a mile in Ireland, which in this day and age is a bit strange.
“In my opinion we’ve the best horses in Europe and probably as good as anywhere else in the world. But I suppose we’re a small country and fine-tuning the programme to suit everyone’s needs is difficult.
“In fairness, (HRI CEO and chairman of the European pattern committee) Brian Kavanagh has got the ball rolling with the sprint programme now and let’s hope it keeps rolling.”
Like a radio DJ – and he has the patter to do the job, no doubt – Lynam provides a handy link to the next topic. Agnes Stewart. The Lawman two-year-old was brilliant in taking the May Hill across the water 15 days ago. She was entered for the Beresford Stakes at the Curragh this weekend but that was just too soon.
The Marcel Boussac is a possibility tomorrow week. That’s a 50-50 call and if she doesn’t take up that engagement, she will be supplemented for the Fillies’ Mile at Newmarket a fortnight later. That seems the likelier option right now.
“The thought process with Paris would be threefold. One, is how she’s coming along – it’s quite soon. Two, would be the ground. Paris is notorious for having soft ground so we’ll have to watch that. Three, would be the travelling. It’s a double-whammy. You’ve to travel to England and then travel to France, barring you want to fly them.
“The Fillies’ Mile, that bit later on, is a straight mile up Newmarket. You’d probably get better ground. It dries well there. And four of the last seven May Hill winners have won that race. So history would tell you it’s a good stepping stone.”
There are a few things about Agnes Stewart. For one, she’s not a sprinter. He has always railed against being pigeon-holed as the sprint king, because it implied he couldn’t do anything else.
“A few years ago I was the all-weather king so at least we’re going in the right direction! Like any other trainer, you’re only as good as the horses you’re given.”
She’s good. And she is owned by Clipper Logistics, an increasingly big player in the industry. He has Pearl of Africa for Pearl Bloodstock too.
“Horses are only as good as the people who own them. You need them to support you and let you take your time and be patient. A good horse with the wrong owner won’t fulfil what it should. A bad horse, it doesn’t matter who owns that one, but a good horse needs a good owner to back the trainer and let them do what’s right for the horse.”
Here’s something else that strikes you when you think about Agnes Stewart, and all Lynam’s other charges. They could be ridden by anyone but once you’re on and it works, the ride is yours.
“We’re not big enough to retain any of the real top guys but we have a number of top jockeys in Ireland... there’s loads of them. We just try and source the best jockey available on the day for a horse and if the horse is particularly good and they gel, the jockey usually makes himself available to ride in the future so it works out very well.”
He is thinking Agnes Stewart could be a Classic contender, be it a Guineas, a French Oaks (which would be fitting for a grand-daughter of Dalakhani); something along those lines. After 31 years as a licence-holder, it is an exciting prospect.
“I’ve had to wait a long time for good horses but they’re a bit like buses at the moment.
“You just enjoy it the best you can. Someone asked a football manager what the stress was like at the top and he said ‘I’d rather it than the stress at the bottom.’ When you’re training moderate horses and trying to win the 0-65 in Dundalk, you stress yourself to a point. When you’ve the good horses it’s a different kind of stress. I suppose at the end of a season you can look back with pride at what they’ve done but you just try keep doing as well as you can.”
“He’s movie material, isn’t he? He’s different. I think sometimes the sprinting division is looked down upon by the purists but I think a horse like him gets people out of their seats. He gives them a right buzz”
He has had 15 winners in England in the last five seasons but is seven winners from 11 this term. It’s a remarkable strike rate, with the three from four at Royal Ascot – including two Group 1s – the undoubted highlight.
“And we bred the last one (Slade Power), which was special. We bought Sole Power, who was winning back-to-back King’s Stands for €32,000. Nothing against giving €300,000 for a yearling but it’s great that you can give €32,000 for one and have a big chance. Agnes Stewart was €23,000.
“People have this thing looking from the outside in, that the flat is all about money but some of these very good horses have been bought for what is reasonable money in this day and age.”
After 10 wins and five places from 18 runs, Slade Power left Lynam’s yard for the last time on Wednesday. He will represent Sabena Power and the trainer in the VRC Sprint in Melbourne on November 8 before starting a new life as a Darley stallion at Kildangan Stud.
“It looks like he’s going to be champion European sprinter, but it’d be great if an Irish horse, Irish-bred as well, could go and beat the best Australian sprinters in Australia.
“Then from the point of view of the fact he’s going to be standing somewhere as prestigious as Darley Stud. There’s a certain amount of pride in that. We hope he does as well in his second career as he did in his first.
“It will be strange (not having him here) but look, it’s where you’re striving to get to with these horses.”
Lynam is at his most loquacious when we get to Sole Power though. Denny Crane used to be the stable pet but there are no prizes for guessing who’s the favourite now. The one that put the stable on the map, that is still struggling for credit since springing a 100/1 shock in his first Nunthorpe victory.
“The crowd in England love him. When I was standing at the parade ring on Guineas day at Newmarket I was a bit taken aback. He walked into the parade ring and he got applauded. I think racing people in general love him.
“He’s not very highly rated. The handicappers have never taken the view that he’s particularly good. If you look at the ratings, he’s only four or five pounds ahead of horses I would call average. There’s nothing me or Sole Power can do about that.
“What they can’t take away from him is that he’s won the guts of €2m in prize-money, he’s turned up everywhere, he’s won back-to-back King’s Stands, which hasn’t been done in 80 years (Gold Bridge 1933-34). He’s won back-to-back Palace Houses, which was never done. He won two Nunthorpes. He’s the best ever European finisher in a Hong Kong sprint (second to Lord Kanaloa).
“He’s a horse we’re very proud of. As long as he enjoys it and keeps performing the way he is, we’ll keep going with him. When he tells me that life is getting a bit difficult for him, we’ll leave him alone.”
No signs of that at the moment.
“I don’t think he’s ever been any better than he is now. He’s on top of the world. He’s going to Paris Sunday week for the Abbaye. It’s a race he was an unlucky loser in the only time he got good ground (in 2011). He was about 10th a furlong out and was beaten (a short neck and a nose). Then he goes to Hong Kong for the Sprint.”
The manner in which he claimed his second Nunthorpe this year was spectacular. It summed up his appeal.
“He’s movie material, isn’t he? He’s different. I think sometimes the sprinting division is looked down upon by the purists but I think a horse like him gets people out of their seats. He gives them a right buzz.
“Funny enough, when you know him as well as we do, you always believe he’s capable of doing it. At the furlong pole in Ascot, I turned away and started walking back to the winner’s enclosure. I knew he’d do it.”
At York, there was no such certainty. Two days before the race, Lynam revealed that the horse had been held up by a skin ailment for the previous two weeks. He could have said it earlier but explains that he was genuinely trying to do the right thing, and asserts that managing the flow of information is always a balancing act.
“I just wanted to be fair to everybody. Sometimes in racing, the betting public think they should be told everything, and maybe they should, but sometimes knowing everything is more a hindrance than a help.
“Slade Power got it very, very bad. Sole Power got it bad. He hadn’t a saddle on him for the best part of two of the last three weeks going into the Nunthorpe. All we could do is hand-walk him. His diet had to be changed.
“There was a big question mark about a week before, whether or not he’d even run. He was quite listless and lifeless in himself. Every day in the last week he got better and better and on the day, as it showed, he had come to himself.
“When Anthem Alexander went to Tipperary, we thought she’d win, and when we got down there to saddle her she was in season and I had to ring (owner) Noel (O’Callaghan) and tell him. But I was keen to give her a chance to show off her ability to go to Royal Ascot. So we ran her. If you told somebody she was in season, the way she won that day, they’d think you were lying about it.
“So what I’m trying to say is too much information can actually put you off one rather than what it’s meant to do.”
He was at the sales during the week, looking to pick up more bargains.
“People forget because we won so much this year, but last year we won over €2m in prize-money. The difference last year was that we were second in the Hong Kong Sprint, we were second in the Golden Shaheen, we won the Champion Sprint but it was only a Group 2. We did win the King’s Stand. But we won over €2m last year and got one new owner.
“And this year we have the same amount of orders as we had last year, which is none.
“But that doesn’t really bother me. I go to the sales, and I look for what I like. And generally I own half of everything in the yard anyway. So if I buy a horse I’m not waiting on someone to pay for it. If someone is happy to come in with me, great, but if not, so be it.
“I like a balanced horse. It must be well balanced. I like a horse with a nice head and I like a horse who’s athletic. And a little bit of pedigree. Obviously that determines the price so I can’t be too hard on them that way, but a little bit.”
You would think that owning so many of the horses would just add to the burden but then you consider Lynam’s earlier comments about the importance of patient owners and you realise that it means less conversations.
After a horrific fall last year that left her with broken bones in her back and neck, wife, Aileen is no longer allowed to ride out by order – “the trainer won’t let her” – but she remains a vital cog. Just on terra firma.
Of the daughters, Sarah has her sights set on being a trainer and is involved too, riding work, making suggestions. The work experience with Willie Mullins and Aidan O’Brien has done no harm in that respect.
Amy is spreading the gospel with Irish Thoroughbred Marketing, while Emily, is training to be a chef.
“She’s gonna feed us all. So we’ll be okay.”
No doubting that.
A version of this article was commissioned by and appeared in The Irish Field in September 2014.
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