Under The Radar: O’Meara back to winning ways with Plunkett Street

Michael O’Meara went to Navan last Saturday in positive mode.  You wouldn’t call it confidence, but he knew that he had Plunkett Street in good form, and he was hopeful that his horse would give a good account of himself.  He knew that there wasn’t much between him and Keilah, based on their running at Clonmel two weeks earlier, and they had put Keilah in as the odds-on favourite.

O’Meara had put cheekpieces on Plunkett Street for the first time at Clonmel, and the Territories gelding went well in them, stayingon takingly on the far side to finish fourth, so the headgear remained in place.

If it ain’t broke.  

Plunkett Street finished just a half a length behind Keilah at Clonmel and, while she had won in the interim, he was meeting Willie McCreery’s filly on 12lb better terms compared to the terms on which they met at Clonmel.  His trainer thought that that gave him a big chance of reversing places.

Michael O’Meara’s horse broke smartly too in the ten-furlong handicap at Navan on Saturday, and he was quickly going forward for Leigh Roche.  That was the plan, get up there prominent and make your way from there.  He sat about a neck behind the leader L’Immortale for the first three-quarters of the race, up on the outside, and he travelled well into the home straight.  When his rider asked him to pick up at the three-furlong marker, the response wasn’t immediate, it took him almost two furlongs to master the long-time leader.  And once in front, he was immediately challenged by his old rival Keilah, who had made smooth headway from the rear up on the outside of the field.

It looked like she would swoop past too, trading at a low of 1.23 in-running on Betfair, but Plunkett Street dug deeply for Leigh Roche.  He stayed on strongly up the hill, repelled the challenge of his old rival and stretched his head out to win by a neck.

“That was great,” says O’Meara.  “We got a really good kick out of it.  I knew that he was going there in good form, I thought that he had come forward from this Clonmel run, so it was great to get that win on the board.”

It was a first win of the year for the trainer.

“We were a little bit worried about the ground,” he says.  “We thought that it might have been quicker than ideal for him, but he got away with it all right.  He should be even better on easier ground.”

Then an unnamed foal by Territories, out of the Dansili mare Aditi, Plunkett Street was bought at Tattersalls in December 2018 by William Kennedy of Stanley Lodge, who, with his wife Emma, is a big supporter of O’Meara’s.  Unfortunately, the foal got injured just before the yearling sales, so he couldn’t go there.  O’Mearasaid that he would hold onto him, as he saw something in him.

“We gave him a year,” says the trainer.  “We just forgot about him for a year.  Then we brought him back and did six months of road work.  He was just a big, raw backward sort who needed time, and we were very happy to give him that time.”

He made his racecourse debut in a bumper at Thurles in March 2023 and, while he didn’t win last year, he finished placed in two nine-and-a-half-furlong handicaps last autumn, shaping on both as if he would appreciate a step up in trip.  We now know that a strongly-run ten furlongs suits him well.  He proved that at Navan on Saturday.  His breeding tells you that he doesn't need to go any further than ten furlongs, but his racing style tells you that he could.

O’Meara’s breeding was all about horses and racing. 

“My dad had horses with Billy Harney and Stephen Quirke,” he says.  “Monanore and Bob Tisdall were two of the best.  There were always horses around.”

O'Meara went to America to work with horses. The intention was that he would go for 18 months, but he stayed for ten years.  He worked with some of the breeze-up lads, he worked for Jerry Bailey, he worked for John Gunther, who would later breed American Triple Crown hero Justify, now obviously also sire of City Of Troy and Opera Singer, and he rode in jumps races.

He came home when his father became ill. He worked for Charles O’Brien and for Liam McAteer before, in 2019, he decided that he would go out on his own.  In July 2020, right at the start of the Covid restrictions, he had his first winner when Noble Music won a fillies’ maiden at Roscommon.

“That was just the oddest thing,” he says.  “My first winner, in the winner’s enclosure and everything, and nobody there.  They were strange times.”

Ethical Diamond was bred by William Kennedy, and the Awtaad gelding was owned by Emma Kennedy when  O’Meara trained him to win a maiden at Limerick in June last year, in which he beat this month’s Oyster Stakes winner Beechwood by an easy two lengths.

“That was a very exciting time,” he recalls.  “We got a wild card into the Tattersalls July Sale after that, and he sold well.  I was delighted to see him going to a good home in Willie Mullins’.”

On a macro level, the goal is to continue to unearth untapped talent and hone it.  On a micro level, Plunkett Street may be six years old, but he is a lightly-raced six-year-old who is still progressing.

“There’s a race back at Navan on 9th October,” says O'Meara.  “He might go for that. The ground will probably be softer than it was on Saturday, so that should suit him.  It’s over the same course and distance as Saturday’s race, so that should obviously suit him too.”

If it ain’t broke.