Under The Radar: Peter Lawlor's "unreal" moment plus a horse with a "big target"

Peter Lawlor had been trying to get his mare, Mary’s The Boss, in foal for four years. 

A point-to-point winner, the Flemensfirth mare is out of a half-sister to Alexander Banquet, winner of the Champion Bumper at Cheltenham, and the Royal Bond Hurdle, the Deloitte Hurdle, the Drinmore Chase, and is from the family of another Willie Mullins-trained Champion Bumper winner in Whither Or Which.  

He brought his mare to Peter Maher of Blackrath Stud, and she came back in foal to Eliot, a winner over a mile and a half and third in the Group One Preis von Europa in Cologne, two and a half lengths behind the Irish St Leger dead-heater Jukebox Jury.  

Jukebox Jury is sire of Il Etait Temps, Farclas and Honesty Policy.  Eliot is not as prolific, although he is sire of Ballysax Hank, winner of the Summer Plate at Market Rasen last July plus a narrow second behind Zanahiyr in the American Grand National at Far Hills last October.

“I think that our mare was the only mare that he got that year,” says Peter.

The resultant foal, Murat, didn’t race until he was five. They were patient with him, and gave him all the time that he needed.  

“He’s my own, so I was able to take my time with him,” says his trainer, and breeder and owner.  “But we always liked him.  Anyone who rode him work, all the jockeys - Rory Cleary, Finny Maguire - they all liked him.  We were looking forward to seeing how he would go.”

They decided on a bumper at Killarney in August 2024 for his racecourse debut.  The bookmakers were entitled to put him in at a big price – a newcomer from a yard that had had just one winner that year so far, Numidia (more of whom anon) in the second division of a 47-65 handicap at Fairyhouse two and a half months earlier – and they did.  They backed him though, all the way down to 11/2, and he won easily.  He was keen early on, but he travelled well to the top of the home straight, and he found lots when Finny Maguire asked him to go and win his race, coming five and a half lengths clear of his closest pursuer by the time he got to the winning line.

Murat didn’t race again after that for almost 12 months.  There’s that patience again.

“He’s a big horse,” says Peter.  “He’s almost 18hh.  There was no point in rushing him.  Then last year, he was getting there.  Finny was saying, go to Galway.  I wasn’t sure.  Taking on two Willie Mullins-trained horses.”

By the time Murat lined up at the Galway Festival in August last year, all the other races in the 2025 Galway Festival had been run.  He was in the traditional finale, the Fr Breen Memorial bumper, the eighth race on the seventh day.

Five days earlier, on the Tuesday, the second day of the Festival, Murat’s stable companion Summer Snow had won a seven-furlong handicap.  She was Peter Lawlor’s first runner of the week, Murat was his second.  

Murat won as well.  Made every yard.  Set off in front, led by three lengths up the hill and around the home turn, and stayed on well enough for Finny Maguire to hold on by almost two lengths from one of the Willie Mullins horses, Al Arrivee, with the other Willie Mullins horse, subsequent Grade 1 winner Doctor Steinberg, back in fifth place. 

Two runners, one quarter of his entire string, two winners, on one of the most competitive weeks in the Irish racing calendar.

“It was unbelievable,” says Peter now.  “Galway last year.  It was just unreal.  To run two horses at Galway and for both of them to win.  It will never be repeated.  As long as I am in racing.  When I got back afterwards, the neighbours were all here with champagne.”

Murat made his hurdling debut at Naas last November, finished second in a maiden hurdle, and then went to Leopardstown at Christmas and won his maiden hurdle after El Cairos had departed at the final flight.

He had his first run on the flat at Down Royal last month, and he showed the benefit of that run when he went to Leopardstown on Thursday and won a qualified riders’ race under Harry Swan.

“He was slowly out of the stalls at Down Royal, but he ran well and we knew that that would bring him on fitness-wise.  He was better at the stalls at Leopardstown.  He got away okay.  The plan was, if he broke okay, to try to poach a lead.”

Murat was in front when they passed the winning post with a circuit to go, and he never saw a rival after that.  He stretched on down the back straight, utilised his raking stride.  His rivals closed up as they raced to the home turn but, when Harry Swan got lower in the saddle, he picked up again and put a race-winning distance between himself and his rivals.  Delta closed to three parts of a length, but it never looked likely that he would get to him.

“He was always comfortable.  He flew around on that ground.  He’s a safe-ground horse.  Harry gave him a super ride.  He could go to Galway again now, and then onto the Irish Cesarewitch.”

A week earlier, Numidia had sprung a 25-1 shock in an apprentices’ handicap at Bellewstown, providing Mel Sheridan with his second winner as a jockey.

“You wouldn’t know what Numidia would do!” says his trainer.  “He’s a horse who doesn't like being told what to do, and Mel was very good on him.  He got an 8lb hike for it, which was harsh enough, but he’s still in the 0-60 bracket, so we’ll look for another 0-60 for him now, or he could go back over hurdles at Downpatrick next Tuesday.”

Numidia could go to Galway too, along with Murat, and Summer Snow could go back there again, if she can spark back into form in the interim.  The yard is in form anyway.  Two runners this month so far, two winners. It’s a common refrain.

"We were delighted with his win at Leopardstown on Thursday.  His big target now is the Irish Cesarewitch.  That’s a race that could really suit him.  He’ll probably have to run again now in order to go up enough to be guaranteed a place in the race, so he could go back to Galway again.  He proved last year that he likes the track."