Under The Radar: Donn McClean talks to Terence O'Brien

By Donn McCleanTerence O’Brien went to Naas on Saturday with two chances. Answer To Kayf had to face two Willie Mullins-trained rivals in the Connollys Red Mills Auction Novice Hurdle, but he was going there in good form, while Whiskeywealth looked well-in on his chase form in the Adare Manor Opportunity Handicap Hurdle.  “Whiskeywealth had the form,” says Terence now, reflecting on the day.  “He probably didn’t really have to improve.  He was disappointing in the Dan Moore Chase on his previous run, but he had been working well.  Answer To Kayf had to take on two Willie Mullins horses who both had strong form, but we were hopeful.”Answer To Kayf won, Whiskeywealth won: a double on the day for rider John Shinnick, a double on the day for trainer Terence O’Brien.“Answer To Kayf had run well at Limerick in the Grade 2 race there at Christmas on his previous run,” says Terence. “The race wasn’t run to suit him either.  They didn’t go a great pace, and I had told Johnny not to take it up too early.  It was a good run, but if the race had been run differently, it might have been even better. It was nice then that he was able to win again on Saturday.”The Kayf Tara gelding’s exploits now are a direct result of the patience that his trainer has exercised with him over the course of the last few years. It is almost five years since he saw him for the first time at the Derby Sale at Fairyhouse in 2019.“I remember seeing him then,” says his trainer. “His full-brother Prince Kayf was with Joe Ryan, and he had beaten Shishkin in a point-to-point the previous March. I just liked the horse. He didn’t have the best hocks in the world, but he had a nice pedigree and he was a good walker.”

A bid of €35,000 was enough to secure him, and that was before his pedigree started to take on an even better shape. Prince Kayf won two of his six hurdle races, reaching a rating of 128, and Shishkin did what Shishkin did in the meantime, he was only a point-to-point winner and a bumper winner then. Also, Answer To Kayf’s year-younger half-sister is You Wear It Well, a two-year-old then, who won the Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham last March.  It took a while though for Answer To Kayf to start to realise the potential that his trainer saw in him at that Derby Sale.“We really liked him as a four-year-old,” he says. “The plan was to try to win a point-to-point with him and move him on, but we couldn’t keep him sound.  His four-year-old year came and went, then his five-year-old year came and went.  We didn’t get him out until he was six, we ran him in a six-year-olds and older maiden, and he didn’t even win that!”Left off until the spring of 2023 after that, Answer To Kayf finished third in a point-to-point bumper at Cork, and he finished well down the field in a maiden hurdle at Killarney.“We were scratching our heads a bit with him. He came out of the maiden hurdle lame, so we just left him off during the summer. We said we’d throw him into a maiden hurdle at Limerick then in October.  His work had been very good at home, and we were expecting a decent run, but it looked like a competitive maiden hurdle. We were just hoping that he would run well.”He did run well. Allowed go off an unconsidered 25/1 shot, he won by almost four lengths, caught and passed What’s Up Darling on the run-in, the pair of them clear, and What’s Up Darling came out next time and won the Grade 3 For Auction Hurdle at Navan.  “It was great that he was able to put up a performance like that,” says his trainer.Next up for Answer To Kayf? He is in the Albert Bartlett Hurdle at Cheltenham, and he’ll probably be given an entry in the Martin Pipe Hurdle. A strongly-run two-and-a-half-miles should suit Denis O’Connor’s horse well, and John Shinnick obviously gets on really well with him. After Cheltenham, the Red Mills Final at Punchestown is on his trainer’s radar.And next up for Whiskeywealth?“He’ll probably go back over fences now for the Shamrock Handicap Chase over two miles at Gowran, just before Cheltenham. He’s probably better over fences than over hurdles, and sure, maybe when most people are looking at Cheltenham, we might just go up to Gowran, see how that goes.”

It has been going fairly well for Terence O’Brien of late.  As well as his double at Naas on Saturday, he sent Pitwood Road to Ayr on Tuesday, and she won the mares’ bumper.  And last Sunday, he won a five-year-olds’ maiden at his local point-to-point at Ballyvodock with Dream On Daddy. So his last four runners under all codes, under four different codes, have all won.“They seem to be running well lately all right.”He plays it down, but Terence O’Brien has long-since proven that he can train racehorses.  With family roots that run deep into National Hunt racing – his colours are the colours that were worn by his great-grandfather’s horses – he took out his licence to train in 1991.“It wasn’t that I always wanted to be a trainer,” he says thoughtfully.  “Not really. I was farming away, and I was playing hurling and football, and I rode in a few bumpers and in point-to-points, but that ended when I was 17, I was just too heavy.  My dad died when I was in my 20s, and I was just tipping away then with horses. I started to break a few. We had a farm here with a hill gallop, and I said that, if ever I was going to train, that it would be here. Then we started to build a few stables and a walker, and suddenly I was married to it!”There were high-class horses here too. Farrells Fancy beat subsequent Grade 1 winner Jetson when he won his beginners’ chase, and he went on to win the Leopardstown Chase. She’s Got Grit won the Foxrock Chase and Lakemilan won three valuable handicaps and Articulum finished third in an Arkle. Ballyadam Approach won valuable handicap chases at the Fairyhouse and Punchestown festivals of 2015, then finished a close-up third in the Irish Grand National the following year.“We’re busy all right,” says Terence.  “We have some nice young horses coming through too, a few point-to-pointers who probably won’t run until the autumn.”Magnor Glory will be back soon too. It could be an interesting spring ahead for the Terence O’Brien team.