Under The Radar: Paddy Magee nominates three to follow

It was on the Tuesday, four days before the Saturday – you know, that Saturday – on his way back after working the horses that Paddy Magee started thinking about the weekend.  The horses were well, the work had gone well, and he started thinking: he should run well, she should run well, he has a chance, she’s in great form.

“I’d be like that generally anyway,” he says now.  “You’d always be thinking that you had a chance.  If you weren’t thinking that you had a chance, why would you be going to the races?”

It started with Shesthedevil in the opening maiden at Navan, the 1.48.  Four runners at Navan, one at Limerick.  Shesthedevil broke smartly from stall one and went to her left.  Well, she didn’t really go to her left, she just went straight and bagged the far rail.  None of her rivals went over there with her, a two-year-old filly who had a better chance than her odds of 22-1 suggested.  

It was hard to line them up, half the width of the racecourse between her and all her rivals, but it looked like she was clear.  Then Chris Hayes got into drive position and she stretched out on the run up the hill.  They were closing all right, but the rate by which they were gaining was way lower than the rate by which Paddy Magee’s filly was closing on the winning line and, when she hit it, she still had over two lengths in hand.

“We’ve always liked her,” says Paddy.  “She ran really well on her racecourse debut at Listowel when she fell out of the stalls, and everything went wrong next time at Down Royal.  Soft ground, seven furlongs, wide draw.  She was much happier back over six furlongs and on better ground.”

Shesthedevil holds an entry in the Listed Marwell Stakes at Naas on Wednesday.  Why not?  She has raced just three times, she has bags of potential for further progression, and she’s in great form, the yard is in great form. She deserves a shot at it.

Paddy Magee didn’t start off in pony racing, he didn’t start in pony camp.  He didn’t even get riding lessons.  His parents bought him a pony for Christmas when he was 10 or 11, he thinks.

He was self-taught, just riding his pony at home on the farm in Shercock.  When he was 16, he got a summer job with the late and greatly lamented Oliver Brady.  

Shercock is in County Cavan, Oliver Brady was Monaghan, everybody knows that, but Castletubber is just across the border, so it was an easy commute.

Admiral Will Brown lined up in the 10-furlong handicap at 4.40, all set for his first run for his new trainer.  By then, The Cosy Corner had been beaten in the six-furlong handicap.  Sent off at 33/1, showed up well for a long way, faded to finish 10th.  One winner from two runners, still a good day, but you couldn’t have known that the day was going to morph into the day that it became.  Into one of those where-were-you-when days.

Admiral Will Brown won.  He burst clear on the run to the two-furlong marker under Wesley Joyce and he had enough in hand to get home by three parts of a length.

“We like him,” says Paddy.  “His work had been good.  Danny (McLoughlin) had done a really good job with him, he always liked him too.  We were lucky to get him, the way things worked out.  He could have a future.”

He did his Leaving Cert and spent six months full-time with Oliver Brady and his head lad Val Donoghue.  He took out his amateur licence and rode in point-to-points.  He rode Never A Secret for High Finegan to win a bumper at Roscommon in August 2008, his first and only winner on the track.  

He started buying a few horses himself and keeping them on the farm.  He bought Captain Cj, who won three point-to-points before selling him on.  The Westerner gelding went on to be a top-class chaser for Dermot McLoughlin, winning the Grade 2 Ten Up Chase and finishing third in the Porterstown Chase.

He started off training jumpers, because that’s what he knew.  He trained Cornakill Rose for the Black Steel Square Syndicate – owners of Shesadevil, owners of Arch Enemy – to win a mares’ maiden hurdle at Bellewstown in July 2020 and he kicked on.  He started to turn his attention to the flat, with its shorter time lags.  He bought four yearlings, paid less than €15,000 for the four of them.  Two of them won, one of them should have won, and he was on his way.

Arch Enemy lined up a 5.15, less than a half an hour after Admiral Will Brown has left Navan’s winner’s enclosure.  She hadn’t run since she had finished sixth in a handicap at The Curragh in March, but her trainer thought that she was going into the race with a real chance.

“We gave her a little break after The Curragh,” he says.  “Fergal took her home and sweetened her up, changed a few little things with her.”

He watched on the big screen at Navan, from where he had watched Shesadevil, from where he had watched Admiral Will Brown.  He’s not really superstitious but, well, if it ain’t broke.

You could pick Arch Enemy out from a long way out.  Looks like she’s getting greyer.  Into the 0-60 grade and on the outside and travelling, Sam Coen still motionless as the two-furlong marker flashed past.  

“I’d never seen her travelling like that before,” says her trainer.

She found everything that it looked like she would find too.  Got up on the outside of Copper Craft and went on to win by three parts of a length, the pair of them clear.  

(She won again at Killarney on Wednesday.)

A treble on the day at Navan.  

“It was unbelievable really,” says Paddy.  “I was delighted for everyone.  The owners, the whole team at home.  They do a great job.”

They went into the bar at Navan to watch the 6.30 from Limerick, the six-and-a-half-furlong handicap, the race for which Glen Breeze was 5-2 favourite.  It didn’t matter, the match was on, and there was no screen available for the 0-60 handicap from Limerick.  So they watched on their phones as Glen Breeze hit the front under treble-seeking Joey Sheridan and went on to win by over a length.  Four winners on the day from five runners.

Some day.

She won well at Navan, we’ve always liked her and she continues to improve.  We might let her take her chance in the listed race at Naas on Wednesday.  We still don’t know how good she could be.

We like him, Danny (McLoughlin) did a great job with him and he won nicely on Saturday.  We’re looking forward to him now.

She ran well at Killarney, she kept on to finish third and she should come on for the run.  She finished second in a one-mile-six-furlong handicap at Galway last year, and she could go back there for that this year.