“Some kids dream of being footballers, singers and superheroes – this is my dream. To be living it is very surreal so quickly in my career. Myself and Sarah are so grateful to our families, our owners, our staff.”

AT 6:20pm on June 16th at Ascot racecourse, Dave Loughnane was in his own crafted dreamland. A long and winding road which began among stone walls and green grass in Co Galway, continued among the bush and bustling city training centres in Australia, before moving on to Britain, had culminated with a win on perhaps the biggest stage in flat racing.

Not only that, he had sent out a one-two in the newly inaugurated Kensington Palace Stakes, his Lola Showgirl led home stablemate Ffion. History in the making.

“It was huge,” Loughnane reflects this week. “Royal Ascot is the mecca. I and Sarah (wife) spent time in Australia, I’ve been to America, and everywhere you go in the world, trainers want to target races in Royal Ascot because it’s the cream of the crop, where the best of the best compete.

“It’s hard to have a winner in Royal Ascot so to have the first and second home was very emotional, very special. It was something we’ve dreamt of since we started off and something I’ve dreamt of since I was a young lad. It’s magical, absolutely magical.”

Loughane fancied both of his fillies heading into Ascot but if there was one horse he was most looking forward to, it was Go Bears Go in the Norfolk Stakes the following day.

He is a horse that just beats what’s in front of him. That’s taking nothing away from Richard Fahey’s horse who was a good winner on the day.

So just over 20 hours later, he stood in the Ascot parade ring again, still basking in the glory from the evening before but confident of another huge result. He watched Go Bears Go lead the far side group of seven from his stall seven position. He watched him fend off Cadamosto comfortably, but at the same time, he watched the near side group, which looked a more cohesive peloton and out of that pack emerged Perfect Power, and, at the line, with the width of Ascot between them, it was impossible to tell who’d won.

“The camera zoomed in on us and they say the camera person never gets it wrong,” Loughnane recalls. “Just for a few seconds, we thought we were going to have this massive high again but it wasn’t to be. We were just drawn on the wrong side. He is a horse that just beats what’s in front of him. That’s taking nothing away from Richard Fahey’s horse who was a good winner on the day.

“Do I think we’d have beaten them if we were drawn the same side as them? 100%. I’ve not hidden that fact. I’d full faith in the horse going in and coming out of the race that we were the best horse on the day.”

Belief in Bears

It was at the Tattersalls September Yearling Sale that Loughnane’s unwavering belief in the son of Kodi Bear was initiated.

“It was the way he walked,” the trainer explains. “Just the fluency of it all. He just floats. It’s like when he walks, he doesn’t touch the ground. He never breaks a rhythm, everything just moves in sync. It’s the same when he canters at home, he just floats. It’s like you’re on a cloud when you’re riding him, he doesn’t touch the ground.”

Breeze-up vendor Robson Aguiar recently accounted the same thing, telling the Racing Post: “When he passed by, I saw him walk, saw his body, didn’t even see his pedigree. Just on the way he walked, I went to buy him.”

It was the Brazilian native who beat off bids from Loughnane and others to acquire the colt but as fate would have it, Go Bears Go ended up in Loughnane’s Shropshire base, the Galway native having caught the eye of Kia Joorabchian, whose flourishing Amo Racing operation bought the colt off Aguiar.

“I’ve known Rossa Ryan (first jockey to Amo) since he was a kid, my first job in racing was for Rossa’s dad David,” Loughnane explains when asked about how he got connected to Joorabchian. “Rossa rode a lot for us through the winter when probably Amo didn’t have a lot of runners, and we just had a fantastic time on the all-weather, we had a lot of winners that Rossa rode for us. I suppose that sparked our name up even more for them.

“Last year was our best season ever. Kia’s job as a football agent is to spot talent and he said he just noticed us having a good year and he’d kept an eye on us and he felt the time was right to give us a chance. We’ve grabbed hold of that opportunity with both hands.”

It was Kia’s son Max, “racing mad” at only 11 years of age, that first mooted the Railway Stakes as a possible next target for Go Bears Go. It wasn’t an obvious race for the colt, just nine days after the Norfolk and it required a supplementary fee of €10,000, but Loughnane, Kia and Peter Waney (other part-owner) decided that they had time to see how the horse came out of Ascot, and could decide on the Monday, before supplementary stage on Tuesday.

“Ger O’Neill, who rides him pretty much every day, rode him on the Monday morning and came back smiling from ear to ear and said he felt better than he did going into Ascot. I sat on him on Tuesday morning and I rang Kia back straight away and said to supplement him.

“I think it was only Rossa’s second ride at the Curragh and I think it was only our second runner. To go then and win was unbelievable but we went with the same confidence that we had going into Ascot. We thought he’d win. But for so many people to turn around afterwards and describe it as a vintage Railway Stakes, the best in a very long time, it made it even sweeter.”

It was a vintage Railway Stakes, the biggest field in over 30 years. And now Go Bears Go will take the well-worn path on to the Phoenix Stakes, the first juvenile Group 1 of the European season, back over the same course and distance next Sunday.

“I wouldn’t swap him,” Loughnane asserts. “If he turns up the same horse or slightly better, I just can’t have anything in the race to beat him. I know that’s probably being a bit optimistic given it’s a Group 1, but we’ll always back our own judgement, we’re not going there to make up the numbers.

“We feel we have the best horse going into the race and we’ve got the form. He just hit the line so strong the last day, we did it the hard way from the front, we were there to be shot at, everyone had their chance and they just couldn’t get past him.”

Confidence

Loughnane speaks with conviction about his horses. He says he’s confident, not cocky, but more than willing to back his own judgement. He is one of the current new breed of trainers coming through, the millennial type of trainer as such, having had no direct background to horses – his grandfather did train a point-to-pointer – compelling him to plot his own course.

His undergrad features a wealth of knowledge in both Australia and Britain and after just five and a half seasons training at the latter, he already has over 175 winners.

“I think I always wanted to be a trainer,” he recalls. “It’s the idea of preparing a horse, figuring out the puzzle of a horse, trying to make out what makes them tick.

“’I’d probably be a fairly stubborn person when I set my mind to it. The more people tell me it’s not realistic and you can’t do it, the more I think I can do it. It’s probably when I went to Australia when I really learned a lot.

Loughnane embraces jockey Laura Pearson afte the pair combined with Lola Showgirl for success in the Kensington Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot \ Healy Racing

“If I learned one thing in Australia, it was how to ride, and I think it just helped me become a better horseman. I was lucky enough, I worked with some very good riders and I worked with very good trainers. You obviously ride for times over there so naturally you get a clock in your head and it all plays into your assessment of a horse.

“I initially thought I was going to start training in Australia until I met Sarah, and we both decided we should come back to Britain. I needed to do three years as head lad or assistant trainer with someone to get my licence in Britain so from the minute we landed it was always about working towards getting my licence as quickly as possible.

“I did three years where I spent one season each with Mark Loughnane (no relation), John Quinn and Tom Dascombe. Then we scraped the money together to get the licence and it kind of took off from there.

“But I always knew deep down it was what I wanted to do, and I always knew deep down that I’d get there. I’m not a cocky person but I’m a very confident person and I’ll back my own judgement in whatever I do. If I’m wrong I’ll hold my hands up and say I’m wrong.

“I think the biggest thing for me is that I’m not afraid to make mistakes. I always learn from other people, what to do and what not to do.

“I was always willing to back myself. It’s probably why it works so well between me and Sarah, she’s always the one who says well what if it doesn’t work, and I’m the one who says, what if it does, and it kind of balances out.

“We wouldn’t be where we are today without Sarah. She’s my soundboard, she runs the business, does the accounts, she’s the nerve centre of it. We just work so well together.”

Quality over quantity

Loughnane’s operation mirrors his ideology; he wants to train no more than 70 horses so in order to give each horse in his yard the time he needs to maximise their chance of success.

“When you’ve got 100 horses, it has to be more of a production line of training because you don’t have time to sit down and work out each horse as an individual,” he explains. “You need more staff and you end up having to take on staff that you wouldn’t normally hire because you basically just need staff.

“We’ve been very lucky, we’ve got a brilliant team from top to bottom, with farriers, vets, physios, head lass and very good riders. Our staff are like our family. We trust them with the horses and trust them that they’ll do the job to 100%.”

Perhaps this is the best strategy to survive for a British-based trainer, a high pressured racing jurisdiction, with prize money at chronically low levels in some places, which has led other trainers to move elsewhere.

“From our point of view it is, but that’s not to say we’re right and someone else is wrong,” Loughnane replies. “It’s what works for you as an individual and for you as a yard and this is what we feel works in a sense of how we can try and help our owners make this sustainable.

“At the end of the day, we don’t want to be a flash-in-the-pan. We want longevity. For us to do that, we need to have our owners making as much money as they can make so they can keep reinvesting and enjoying themselves in the sport.”

With that in mind, Loughnane has expressed dissatisfaction, along with plenty of other trainers, with the newly formed Racing League, which got underway on Thursday at Newcastle. The competition, which has the backing of £1.8 million in prize money, has been restricted to 42 trainers supplying horses for 12 teams.

Yorkshire trainer Grant Tuer led the criticism of the establishment of the Racing League when labelling it “an all boys club” on an interview on Racing TV.

“We were never asked anything about it,” Loughnane asserts. “I fully support everything Grant said, I think he’s absolutely spot on. The whole thing of racing is about fairness and inclusiveness, the dream that anyone can compete at that top level.

“Well, starting a racing league and putting certain top yards into that, you’re making it an exclusive club again which takes away that dream for some owners, especially the way the prize money is.

“There’s a massive issue with prize money in this country, we’re all well aware of that. To make an exclusive league for people to compete in, it doesn’t help the rest of us in the sport in any way. I just don’t see a benefit to it in any way.”

Perspective

Frustrating as that is, Loughnane finds perspective by referencing the situation breeze-up vendor Johnny Hasset is in.

“I met Johnny through a friend of mine around four years ago at the breeze-ups and he’s always been someone to talk to every time I meet him at the sales. We bought a Ulyssees colt off him this year and he kept in a leg in it so he’s an owner in our yard.

“He’s an absolute gentleman of the highest order, and a very well respected member of our industry.

“It’s great to see so much money being raised for him in these difficult times and it puts an awful lot into perspective. We can complain about racing leagues, Sunday racing and bad prize money but at the end of the day it’s all completely irrelevant when you look at the situation Johnny is in.”

In the meantime, Loughnane’s focus is on Ireland. He had hoped to get Lola Showgirl into tomorrow’s Ahonoora Handicap at Galway, back to where it all began for him, but unfortunately she didn’t make the cut so it’s all systems go for the Curragh next week.

The dream is well truly alive and rest assured, Loughnane is confident of what would be a remarkable success.