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Just posted the same, how the hell did he manage to lose that race.
Good of Paddy to let the other one catch up after being gifted 30 lengths.
Good of Paddy to let the other one catch up after being gifted 30 lengths.
why did brennan dip at the finish ??
has he been watching the athletics ....
has he been watching the athletics ....
The head on from the last is embarrassing from him. He should have retired two years ago. You wonder why the O'Brien owners put up with this. Then again it's probably obvious why.
Not his greatest ride.
Think he would have won if he looked more forward instead of constantly looking over both shoulders.
Not sure what that lunge was at the end?
Think he would have won if he looked more forward instead of constantly looking over both shoulders.
Not sure what that lunge was at the end?
mentioned the paddy head bob last yr on here,he now thinks its his head crossing the line 1st and not the horses that counts 
a ride of monumental incompetence. Betokens a retirement tbh but I doubt FO'B has the guts to tell him.
Stopped backing him on short ones many years ago. One of my better punting decisions.
Imagine being the owner waiting for them to come back, I'd go bloody mental at him.
to quote the great sid waddell...I do not believe goggling bins
Imagine the seething in the "Premiership" 1/3 of them!!! LOL
Slippy as I mentioned the owners are obviously been well compensated in other ways to put up with this. He's been bad a long time now and O'Brien still uses him. Owners obviously been given the nod on other owners horses and vice versa to keep them sweet.
Just watched a replay and cannot believe he didnt kick on between the last 2 fences.....tries to win on the bridle....crazy stuff.
Anyonenon here notice over the years Paddy moves his head down in a driving finish close to the line? Granted some of them he wins on... However surely he gets unbalanced at times..? It's bizzare!
I haven't explained it properly, but I know what I mean
he has done the dip again!!! The chap has gone quite mad I think
That ride was pathetic, how far would a decent jockey have won ?? Need investigating, must be an unhappy owner and trainer..
That ride was pathetic, how far would a decent jockey have won ?? Need investigating, must be an unhappy owner and trainer..
Conditions of the race stated jockeys must be the worse riding to qualify. You had three of them there.
Due his critics, but that wasn't really his fault.
At least he got it over the line and didn't panic, like some may have done.
At least he got it over the line and didn't panic, like some may have done.
I was in a dark place - I thought about it every single day for two years. I blamed myself'
Paddy Brennan tells Stuart Riley about his lowest moment as a jockey and desperation for one more big Cheltenham moment
author image
Stuart Riley
Reporter
Paddy Brennan at his home in Badsey near Evesham
Paddy Brennan at his home near Evesham
Credit: Edward Whitaker
If you want to get to know Paddy Brennan, all you need to do is visit his downstairs loo.
Hung above the cistern, between pictures of his mud-splattered face and a stylish black and white photo of him suited and booted in the Fontwell weighing room with several of his colleagues you'd have to assume double as close friends, is a framed print titled "Paddy loves . . ."
Some of it needs no explanation. His wife Lindsey tops the list, the only entry more important than "winning races" – naturally. "Horses", his Ryanair and Gold Cup winner Imperial Commander gets a namecheck, as does his home county of Galway. "Friends and family" and "farm" are unsurprising entries, while "his iPad" raises a chuckle.
But several entries tell you more about the man, for all they require an explanation to the stewards: "Maureen’s lamb" (his mum, he says, cooks the best lamb roast in Ireland); "Lindsey’s uniform" (the one that makes him a little sheepish, given she is a nurse); and it seems he is just a boy who loves "tractors" (he’s the proud owner of three). The rider’s explanations were duly noted.
Not listed is the famous racecourse 18 miles south-west of the sleepy village of Willersey in which he has lived for 12 years, but you cannot talk to Brennan for long without the C word dominating the conversation, because no course means as much to him as Cheltenham.
Last month he rode his 1,500th winner in Britain at Catterick aboard Boodles hope Teorie. Another win on Mistral Nell on his very next ride moved him into tenth on the all-time jump jockeys' list alongside legends of the saddle Tony McCoy, Richard Johnson, Ruby Walsh, Barry Geraghty, Richard Dunwoody, Brian Hughes, Peter Scudamore, Paul Carberry and Davy Russell. That’s some company.
Ask him about it, though, and it is amazing how quickly the conversation turns to Cheltenham. It’s almost as if he’s never not thinking about it.
“It’s obviously nice, but it’s more of a byproduct I suppose. I've always been so focused on trying to raise the quality [of my rides] and on the Cheltenham Festival. People say it's not the be-all and end-all; well, once you've experienced it, it pretty much is,” says the six-time festival-winning jockey.
He adds: “That feeling of riding a festival winner – and we're going back some time now to when I had my last – is always on my mind. It’s the crowd, the people. They've made that place – the stands, the area where the people are – so special. You probably don't get that anywhere else in the world.”
Brennan’s last Cheltenham Festival winner came in 2010. Two hours after his career-defining Gold Cup success, when Imperial Commander gallivanted away with what was meant to be the ‘next goal wins’ decider to answer the Kauto Star or Denman question once and for all, he added the Grand Annual on plucky little Pigeon Island, who went on to live out a blissful retirement among the 40 or so horses on Brennan’s farm.
At 42, and riding for just one trainer these days, he knows he is unlikely to have too many more chances to soak in the wild emotion that comes with a winner on the sport’s biggest stage. One chance may be all he needs, however, with Dysart Enos.
Dysart Enos and Paddy Brennan on their way to victory at Cheltenham on Friday
Dysart Enos and Paddy Brennan on their way to victory at Cheltenham
Credit: Alan Crowhurst
This is a horse big on talent whose whole season has revolved around the Ryanair Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle, for which she is 4-1 second favourite. She has her prep at Doncaster on Sunday, and Brennan views her as comfortably his best opportunity to drink in one last time the fanfare the festival reserves only for its winners.
“If you want to put it in golf terms, I can definitely see the clubhouse,” he says. “I'm realistic enough to know that's not far away, whether it's this season or next. I’d love one more Cheltenham Festival winner, the chance to look to that crowd and say thanks. I’m not saying I’d retire there and then, but that's the one thing I'd love to do.
“Dysart Enos is maybe the one we've been waiting for. She just takes you places in a race, which is what all good horses do. Wherever you want to be, when you want to be there. She's very straightforward and that's what makes the really good ones different. She's getting better and better, she's really exciting.”
You can hear the excitement in his voice. “Even though she won the bumper at Aintree by nine lengths, you think, ‘Maybe the rest didn't run to form.’ But the form’s really been backed up. She seems to do everything with real ease. She's not flash at home, but when she turns up on the racetrack she really does feel like a very good mare. I'm really looking forward to her.”
Brennan is looking forward to it even more since he realised Willie Mullins’ recent Moscow Flyer winner, the offspring of superstars Galileo and Annie Power, would not be in opposition.
“I watched one win the other Sunday over in Ireland, Mystical Power out of Annie Power, and I was never as glad in my life to figure out that horse was a man. When they went by the line, Ruby was commenting and when he said ‘he’, I thought ‘Thank God for that!’”
Brennan knows it will be tough, but he has proved many times he can deliver on the biggest stage when given the ammunition. By his front door sit several of his treasured trophies, including the most precious prize of all for winning the Gold Cup. “There should be two of those,” he jokes, making light of what he still describes as the lowest point of his career.
In the 2016 Gold Cup, won by Don Cossack, Brennan was travelling like a dream on Cue Card when the horse fell at the third-last. He still hasn’t fully forgiven himself. The Betfair bonus they were chasing gave him a million reasons to blame himself – and he’s used every last one.
Indeed, while a beautiful painting of Brennan celebrating on Imperial Commander in 2010 hangs in his kitchen, he still is not quite ready to look daily at the horse who provided five of his 18 Grade 1 victories, including a famous King George win over Vautour.
Paddy Brennan with a painting of his Cheltenham Gold Cup victory on Imperial Commander
Paddy Brennan with a painting of his Cheltenham Gold Cup victory on Imperial Commander
Credit: Edward Whitaker
“I don't look back with too many regrets, but the only one I ever felt got away was Cue Card,” he says, revisiting the pain which greets him like an old friend. “People have always questioned would he or wouldn't he [have won], but I was the man on top and I know how he sees it out. You won’t convince me he wouldn’t have won that day.
“Maybe I was in a dark enough place around that time. I sometimes blame Cue Card, but I had a few years not winning the big races, not competing at the very top. This was after Imperial Commander and I’d had to rebuild my career after splitting with Nigel [Twiston-Davies] when Sam [the trainer’s son] came through and it was my big chance, my one shot, and I knew that.
“There was so much build-up with the bonus and when he fell I literally lay there and thought, ‘I want to die’. That was the hardest fall I ever had. I've had a lot worse falls, it was probably the easiest fall I've ever had in terms of hitting the ground, but the hardest to get up from.
“I thought about it every single day for two years, just regret. I blamed myself. When I think of Cue Card I probably forget that I actually won the race. That's probably how it feels a lot of the time. I still think about it occasionally, definitely more than I think about Imperial Commander anyway.”
It is an experience from which Brennan has had to proactively heal.
“As time has gone on I've taken more positives out of it. I think about winning the King George to make the million-pound bonus possible, rather than losing it when he fell,” he says.
“I do want to get something [for the wall] of his King George win, we won by a nose and that was my one chance to win it. Winning the Gold Cup was my best day, but winning that King George is probably my proudest achievement. I don't want to sound cocky, but I don't know how many would have got him up that day. But then on the flipside you go to Cheltenham for a million-pound bonus and you end up on the ground. That's racing in a nutshell.”
Happier times for Paddy Brennan and Cue Card after the 2015 King George
Happier times for Paddy Brennan and Cue Card after the 2015 King George
Credit: Mark Cranham
Brennan doesn’t just want one more Cheltenham winner to right all that heartache and add one final flourish to a stellar riding career. He also wants to help start something for his great friend and boss Fergal O’Brien, who wants a first festival winner as badly as Brennan wants a last one.
“It’d be absolutely mental," he says. "It’d be amazing. That’d be a dream come true.
“It’s been a long road. He started at the bottom and has built something incredible. I rode his first winner and it’d be magical to give him his first at the festival.”
In O’Brien, Brennan has found a boss who understands and values him – and in return he has shown unwavering loyalty. A hot head got more than one mention early in his career as he moved from Paul Nicholls to Philip Hobbs, Howard Johnson and Twiston-Davies, never quite finding the permanent home he has with O’Brien. Yet by the rider’s own admission, he’s not got much better at biting his tongue.
“They say when you live in Rome you don't argue with the Pope, but if that was the case I wouldn't be here anymore because we argue a lot,” he says, laughing.
Nothing has caused as much of an argument between the pair this season as O’Brien’s decision to give Johnny Burke the call-up when he decided to replace Connor Brace on stable star Crambo in Ascot’s Long Walk Hurdle.
“That stung, massively,” says Brennan. “Fergal had a massive decision to make and he didn't choose me. I have to respect his decision, but I want to be competing at the very top in the biggest races, and on that day I was on the subs' bench.
“It was two days before Christmas, so it put a bit of a dampener on things. But that's my competitive edge. I'd love to say, ‘I don't give a f**k, let whoever you want ride him’, but 100 per cent I want to be on horses like that. So no, it didn’t go down well.
“I’m probably running out of time a little bit and I probably frustrate the hell out of Fergal because I'm in such a hurry to get on these horses and win Grade 1s, whereas he's got the next 25 years, so he'll be alright.”
You get the feeling a younger Brennan would have taken it a lot harder, but he is working hard on living by a mantra that helps quieten his less helpful thoughts, and he is simply trying to “live in the moment”.
It helps that the bond between Brennan and O’Brien is thicker than pitch and could withstand anything. It stretches back to their time together winning a Gold Cup at Twiston-Davies’s yard and runs so deep that O’Brien is the only trainer Brennan will ride for this season.
Fergal O'Brien and Paddy Brennan: teamed up to win with Dysart Enos
Paddy Brennan with his great friend and boss Fergal O'Brien
Credit: Edward Whitaker
“I made the decision if I was going to end up in the back of the ambulance again, it had to be for Fergal,” he says in that way only a jockey can casually acknowledge and accept that very real working condition. “As a jump jockey you're going to get injured, that's not something you can ever control, but if I get a fall or an injury, and it was for him, I’d feel a lot better about it. Not that I want it or anything.
“I used to mull it over all the time, but I can't control that. So crack on and if it happens I’ll think about it then.”
Of course Brennan would rather go out on his own terms and, just as he gives great thought to all things racing, you won’t be surprised to learn he has invested just as much brain power into what comes next.
His is a bright and perceptive mind with a deep understanding of the sport’s various problems – and he wants to be part of the solution.
“We’re struggling over here and the wheel needs to be made to turn a little bit quicker because I see a lot of trainers with numbers down. Unless things start moving slightly quicker, it could get worse before it gets better,” he warns.
“Less competition might feel good at the time, but in the long term it's a big worry. As much as a two-runner race is brilliant for me because I've got a much better chance of winning, if you're thinking that's a positive, that's maybe got to change.
“I'm not going to comment on less racing or more racing, because that's out of my hands, but if trainers keep going down on horse numbers and they keep the same amount of racing in Britain then walkovers are going to become a lot more regular, and that's scary.”
British racing has any number of solutions to its many problems, but as Brennan sees it they are largely attempts to go the long way round when the simple fact is Britain needs to do a better job of recruiting the best horses – otherwise owners will continue leaving Britain for Ireland.
“There are brilliant trainers here, but you need the ingredients,” he says. “If you don't have horses with that ability, it doesn't matter how good a trainer you are, and that’s where I see a bit of an opportunity in the bloodstock world. I think it all boils down to the buying policy, and in Ireland they're ahead of the game.
Paddy Brennan with Highland Hunter at his home
Paddy Brennan with Highland Hunter at his home
Credit: Edward Whitaker
“I think a good way of explaining it is Constitution Hill. If he’d won his point-to-point by ten lengths he would never have come to England. Nicky managed to get him because he finished second and went to the Doncaster sales.
“I think the buying policy of the big yards in Ireland is so far ahead, and they’ve such a good relationship now with the point-to-point yards as they’ve built that trust. Willie [Mullins] probably has all the right people ringing him saying you have to buy this horse, and he has his judges at all the meetings. He has all the right people in his ear and that’s how he's ahead of the game.”
Perhaps by the time his next career is all said and done, Brennan will have sourced more Cheltenham Festival winners than he rode, but for now he is focused on making that just a little bit harder by adding to his tally. He finishes our chat with a cheer of “C’mon, Dysart”. If she does win in March, there might just be a new love for the downstairs loo.
Paddy Brennan tells Stuart Riley about his lowest moment as a jockey and desperation for one more big Cheltenham moment
author image
Stuart Riley
Reporter
Paddy Brennan at his home in Badsey near Evesham
Paddy Brennan at his home near Evesham
Credit: Edward Whitaker
If you want to get to know Paddy Brennan, all you need to do is visit his downstairs loo.
Hung above the cistern, between pictures of his mud-splattered face and a stylish black and white photo of him suited and booted in the Fontwell weighing room with several of his colleagues you'd have to assume double as close friends, is a framed print titled "Paddy loves . . ."
Some of it needs no explanation. His wife Lindsey tops the list, the only entry more important than "winning races" – naturally. "Horses", his Ryanair and Gold Cup winner Imperial Commander gets a namecheck, as does his home county of Galway. "Friends and family" and "farm" are unsurprising entries, while "his iPad" raises a chuckle.
But several entries tell you more about the man, for all they require an explanation to the stewards: "Maureen’s lamb" (his mum, he says, cooks the best lamb roast in Ireland); "Lindsey’s uniform" (the one that makes him a little sheepish, given she is a nurse); and it seems he is just a boy who loves "tractors" (he’s the proud owner of three). The rider’s explanations were duly noted.
Not listed is the famous racecourse 18 miles south-west of the sleepy village of Willersey in which he has lived for 12 years, but you cannot talk to Brennan for long without the C word dominating the conversation, because no course means as much to him as Cheltenham.
Last month he rode his 1,500th winner in Britain at Catterick aboard Boodles hope Teorie. Another win on Mistral Nell on his very next ride moved him into tenth on the all-time jump jockeys' list alongside legends of the saddle Tony McCoy, Richard Johnson, Ruby Walsh, Barry Geraghty, Richard Dunwoody, Brian Hughes, Peter Scudamore, Paul Carberry and Davy Russell. That’s some company.
Ask him about it, though, and it is amazing how quickly the conversation turns to Cheltenham. It’s almost as if he’s never not thinking about it.
“It’s obviously nice, but it’s more of a byproduct I suppose. I've always been so focused on trying to raise the quality [of my rides] and on the Cheltenham Festival. People say it's not the be-all and end-all; well, once you've experienced it, it pretty much is,” says the six-time festival-winning jockey.
He adds: “That feeling of riding a festival winner – and we're going back some time now to when I had my last – is always on my mind. It’s the crowd, the people. They've made that place – the stands, the area where the people are – so special. You probably don't get that anywhere else in the world.”
Brennan’s last Cheltenham Festival winner came in 2010. Two hours after his career-defining Gold Cup success, when Imperial Commander gallivanted away with what was meant to be the ‘next goal wins’ decider to answer the Kauto Star or Denman question once and for all, he added the Grand Annual on plucky little Pigeon Island, who went on to live out a blissful retirement among the 40 or so horses on Brennan’s farm.
At 42, and riding for just one trainer these days, he knows he is unlikely to have too many more chances to soak in the wild emotion that comes with a winner on the sport’s biggest stage. One chance may be all he needs, however, with Dysart Enos.
Dysart Enos and Paddy Brennan on their way to victory at Cheltenham on Friday
Dysart Enos and Paddy Brennan on their way to victory at Cheltenham
Credit: Alan Crowhurst
This is a horse big on talent whose whole season has revolved around the Ryanair Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle, for which she is 4-1 second favourite. She has her prep at Doncaster on Sunday, and Brennan views her as comfortably his best opportunity to drink in one last time the fanfare the festival reserves only for its winners.
“If you want to put it in golf terms, I can definitely see the clubhouse,” he says. “I'm realistic enough to know that's not far away, whether it's this season or next. I’d love one more Cheltenham Festival winner, the chance to look to that crowd and say thanks. I’m not saying I’d retire there and then, but that's the one thing I'd love to do.
“Dysart Enos is maybe the one we've been waiting for. She just takes you places in a race, which is what all good horses do. Wherever you want to be, when you want to be there. She's very straightforward and that's what makes the really good ones different. She's getting better and better, she's really exciting.”
You can hear the excitement in his voice. “Even though she won the bumper at Aintree by nine lengths, you think, ‘Maybe the rest didn't run to form.’ But the form’s really been backed up. She seems to do everything with real ease. She's not flash at home, but when she turns up on the racetrack she really does feel like a very good mare. I'm really looking forward to her.”
Brennan is looking forward to it even more since he realised Willie Mullins’ recent Moscow Flyer winner, the offspring of superstars Galileo and Annie Power, would not be in opposition.
“I watched one win the other Sunday over in Ireland, Mystical Power out of Annie Power, and I was never as glad in my life to figure out that horse was a man. When they went by the line, Ruby was commenting and when he said ‘he’, I thought ‘Thank God for that!’”
Brennan knows it will be tough, but he has proved many times he can deliver on the biggest stage when given the ammunition. By his front door sit several of his treasured trophies, including the most precious prize of all for winning the Gold Cup. “There should be two of those,” he jokes, making light of what he still describes as the lowest point of his career.
In the 2016 Gold Cup, won by Don Cossack, Brennan was travelling like a dream on Cue Card when the horse fell at the third-last. He still hasn’t fully forgiven himself. The Betfair bonus they were chasing gave him a million reasons to blame himself – and he’s used every last one.
Indeed, while a beautiful painting of Brennan celebrating on Imperial Commander in 2010 hangs in his kitchen, he still is not quite ready to look daily at the horse who provided five of his 18 Grade 1 victories, including a famous King George win over Vautour.
Paddy Brennan with a painting of his Cheltenham Gold Cup victory on Imperial Commander
Paddy Brennan with a painting of his Cheltenham Gold Cup victory on Imperial Commander
Credit: Edward Whitaker
“I don't look back with too many regrets, but the only one I ever felt got away was Cue Card,” he says, revisiting the pain which greets him like an old friend. “People have always questioned would he or wouldn't he [have won], but I was the man on top and I know how he sees it out. You won’t convince me he wouldn’t have won that day.
“Maybe I was in a dark enough place around that time. I sometimes blame Cue Card, but I had a few years not winning the big races, not competing at the very top. This was after Imperial Commander and I’d had to rebuild my career after splitting with Nigel [Twiston-Davies] when Sam [the trainer’s son] came through and it was my big chance, my one shot, and I knew that.
“There was so much build-up with the bonus and when he fell I literally lay there and thought, ‘I want to die’. That was the hardest fall I ever had. I've had a lot worse falls, it was probably the easiest fall I've ever had in terms of hitting the ground, but the hardest to get up from.
“I thought about it every single day for two years, just regret. I blamed myself. When I think of Cue Card I probably forget that I actually won the race. That's probably how it feels a lot of the time. I still think about it occasionally, definitely more than I think about Imperial Commander anyway.”
It is an experience from which Brennan has had to proactively heal.
“As time has gone on I've taken more positives out of it. I think about winning the King George to make the million-pound bonus possible, rather than losing it when he fell,” he says.
“I do want to get something [for the wall] of his King George win, we won by a nose and that was my one chance to win it. Winning the Gold Cup was my best day, but winning that King George is probably my proudest achievement. I don't want to sound cocky, but I don't know how many would have got him up that day. But then on the flipside you go to Cheltenham for a million-pound bonus and you end up on the ground. That's racing in a nutshell.”
Happier times for Paddy Brennan and Cue Card after the 2015 King George
Happier times for Paddy Brennan and Cue Card after the 2015 King George
Credit: Mark Cranham
Brennan doesn’t just want one more Cheltenham winner to right all that heartache and add one final flourish to a stellar riding career. He also wants to help start something for his great friend and boss Fergal O’Brien, who wants a first festival winner as badly as Brennan wants a last one.
“It’d be absolutely mental," he says. "It’d be amazing. That’d be a dream come true.
“It’s been a long road. He started at the bottom and has built something incredible. I rode his first winner and it’d be magical to give him his first at the festival.”
In O’Brien, Brennan has found a boss who understands and values him – and in return he has shown unwavering loyalty. A hot head got more than one mention early in his career as he moved from Paul Nicholls to Philip Hobbs, Howard Johnson and Twiston-Davies, never quite finding the permanent home he has with O’Brien. Yet by the rider’s own admission, he’s not got much better at biting his tongue.
“They say when you live in Rome you don't argue with the Pope, but if that was the case I wouldn't be here anymore because we argue a lot,” he says, laughing.
Nothing has caused as much of an argument between the pair this season as O’Brien’s decision to give Johnny Burke the call-up when he decided to replace Connor Brace on stable star Crambo in Ascot’s Long Walk Hurdle.
“That stung, massively,” says Brennan. “Fergal had a massive decision to make and he didn't choose me. I have to respect his decision, but I want to be competing at the very top in the biggest races, and on that day I was on the subs' bench.
“It was two days before Christmas, so it put a bit of a dampener on things. But that's my competitive edge. I'd love to say, ‘I don't give a f**k, let whoever you want ride him’, but 100 per cent I want to be on horses like that. So no, it didn’t go down well.
“I’m probably running out of time a little bit and I probably frustrate the hell out of Fergal because I'm in such a hurry to get on these horses and win Grade 1s, whereas he's got the next 25 years, so he'll be alright.”
You get the feeling a younger Brennan would have taken it a lot harder, but he is working hard on living by a mantra that helps quieten his less helpful thoughts, and he is simply trying to “live in the moment”.
It helps that the bond between Brennan and O’Brien is thicker than pitch and could withstand anything. It stretches back to their time together winning a Gold Cup at Twiston-Davies’s yard and runs so deep that O’Brien is the only trainer Brennan will ride for this season.
Fergal O'Brien and Paddy Brennan: teamed up to win with Dysart Enos
Paddy Brennan with his great friend and boss Fergal O'Brien
Credit: Edward Whitaker
“I made the decision if I was going to end up in the back of the ambulance again, it had to be for Fergal,” he says in that way only a jockey can casually acknowledge and accept that very real working condition. “As a jump jockey you're going to get injured, that's not something you can ever control, but if I get a fall or an injury, and it was for him, I’d feel a lot better about it. Not that I want it or anything.
“I used to mull it over all the time, but I can't control that. So crack on and if it happens I’ll think about it then.”
Of course Brennan would rather go out on his own terms and, just as he gives great thought to all things racing, you won’t be surprised to learn he has invested just as much brain power into what comes next.
His is a bright and perceptive mind with a deep understanding of the sport’s various problems – and he wants to be part of the solution.
“We’re struggling over here and the wheel needs to be made to turn a little bit quicker because I see a lot of trainers with numbers down. Unless things start moving slightly quicker, it could get worse before it gets better,” he warns.
“Less competition might feel good at the time, but in the long term it's a big worry. As much as a two-runner race is brilliant for me because I've got a much better chance of winning, if you're thinking that's a positive, that's maybe got to change.
“I'm not going to comment on less racing or more racing, because that's out of my hands, but if trainers keep going down on horse numbers and they keep the same amount of racing in Britain then walkovers are going to become a lot more regular, and that's scary.”
British racing has any number of solutions to its many problems, but as Brennan sees it they are largely attempts to go the long way round when the simple fact is Britain needs to do a better job of recruiting the best horses – otherwise owners will continue leaving Britain for Ireland.
“There are brilliant trainers here, but you need the ingredients,” he says. “If you don't have horses with that ability, it doesn't matter how good a trainer you are, and that’s where I see a bit of an opportunity in the bloodstock world. I think it all boils down to the buying policy, and in Ireland they're ahead of the game.
Paddy Brennan with Highland Hunter at his home
Paddy Brennan with Highland Hunter at his home
Credit: Edward Whitaker
“I think a good way of explaining it is Constitution Hill. If he’d won his point-to-point by ten lengths he would never have come to England. Nicky managed to get him because he finished second and went to the Doncaster sales.
“I think the buying policy of the big yards in Ireland is so far ahead, and they’ve such a good relationship now with the point-to-point yards as they’ve built that trust. Willie [Mullins] probably has all the right people ringing him saying you have to buy this horse, and he has his judges at all the meetings. He has all the right people in his ear and that’s how he's ahead of the game.”
Perhaps by the time his next career is all said and done, Brennan will have sourced more Cheltenham Festival winners than he rode, but for now he is focused on making that just a little bit harder by adding to his tally. He finishes our chat with a cheer of “C’mon, Dysart”. If she does win in March, there might just be a new love for the downstairs loo.
Race 8 - 3:50pm
THE SBK NOVICES' LIMITED HANDICAP STEEPLE CHASE (CLASS 3) (GBB RACE)
Paddy Brennan the rider of YOUNG BUSTER (IRE), placed third, had appeared to drop his hands and stop riding shortly before the winning post. The Veterinary Officer was interviewed and stated that she had nothing to report after examining the gelding post-race. After being interviewed and shown recordings of the incident, Brennan was suspended for 10 days for failing to take all reasonable and permissible measures to obtain the best possible placing on a horse that would have finished second.
THE SBK NOVICES' LIMITED HANDICAP STEEPLE CHASE (CLASS 3) (GBB RACE)
Paddy Brennan the rider of YOUNG BUSTER (IRE), placed third, had appeared to drop his hands and stop riding shortly before the winning post. The Veterinary Officer was interviewed and stated that she had nothing to report after examining the gelding post-race. After being interviewed and shown recordings of the incident, Brennan was suspended for 10 days for failing to take all reasonable and permissible measures to obtain the best possible placing on a horse that would have finished second.
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