EDDIE Harty is impatient by self-profession but he sure knows how to put his nature to one side for the better of his horses. Time and again, he has had the nous to take a wider view of things with regards to the equine residents of his custom-built Mulgrave Lodge, and been rewarded for it.

Captain Cee Bee was the prime example and Harty’s handling of the brilliant but sometimes brittle bay put him on the map. The Captain attracted J.P. McManus to the yard, having been purchased by the multiple champion owner prior to lowering the colours of his more highly-rated Binocular in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle in 2008. While Harty still considered himself a flat trainer then, the process of transition was under way.

STRONG SUPPORT

Impressed with the trainer, McManus cemented his patronage by sending some good young horses to the Curragh. That support has been repaid in spades, with the three Leopardstown festival winners at Christmas all in the famed green and gold livery of the South Liberties GAA club.

One should not overstress the McManus effect of course, important though it is. When Minella Foru won the Paddy Power Chase, he was Harty’s fifth winner in eight runners. Coney Island and Copy That completed the Leopardstown tally but the Fairyhouse double a fortnight earlier with Moon Over Germany and Queens Wild came for long-time supporters, Philip Reynolds and Bobby Guiry. Liam Quinn, Noel O’Flaherty, Stanley Watson, Robert Sinclair and Andy Sharkey are just a few others who have provided staunch backing over the years.

Anyway, he’s a jumps trainer now, though if someone offered him 20 well-bred yearlings, he wouldn’t turn them down.

The restraint shown with Captain Cee Bee paid handsome dividends in that the gelding was able to win a Grade 2 hurdle as a 12-year-old and at 13, finished two and three-quarter lengths behind Hurricane Fly in the Irish Champion Hurdle. Repeating his pace-making duties to perfection for Jezki at Cheltenham a little more than five weeks later, he still finished fifth. It was as good a way as any to bow out.

When Harty goes down to Martinstown to see his old friend, he marvels about how well he looks and the thought occurs to bring him back to Kildare. The methods clearly work. Minella Foru is another testament to giving horses time. Joshua Lane has had to be treated with kid gloves too and while some have lost faith in the Cheltenham Bumper third, the trainer certainly hasn’t.

Harty clearly recognises the needs of each individual. Captain Cee Bee came early in his career, but while his job prior to that had been in the financial market, trading initially in stocks and then currencies, he was bred for this game.

His family’s racing roots stretch back over five generations and more than 150 years. Leading jockeys and trainers litter the ancestry, as do Olympic riders and coaches. Of the current generation, brother Eoin has barns on the east and west coast of America. He is a key member of the Godolphin operation and trained Tempera to win the Breeders’ Cup Fillies’ race for Sheikh Mohammed in 2001. Closer to home, first cousin Sabrina has also trained a Grade 1 winner in National Hunt and has had three Group successes on the flat as well.

His father Eddie was an Olympic three-day eventer at the Rome Games in 1960. Eddie Snr’s brother John would emulate him four years later, as part of an Irish team that finished an agonising fourth, before also going on to be a successful jockey. While one of John’s most famous successes arrived in the 1980 Irish Grand National on board Daletta, trained by his brother-in-law Guy Williams, Eddie had cemented himself in racing folklore when guiding Highland Wedding to a rousing victory in the Aintree centrepiece 11 years earlier. Later on, he would train many winners and oversaw the development of the likes of future Mackeson Gold Cup winners, Half Free and Fifty Dollars More for his former guv’nor, Fred Winter.

Yet it was the Derby that floated Eddie Jnr’s boat. He rode for his father and harboured dreams but needed to make a living so parked misty-eyed ambition and moved to London. Having established himself in a cutthroat world, he returned to Dublin and continued to excel. With the children nearing the end of their time in primary school, and with the added incentive of wanting them to know the joys of growing up around a racing stable, he felt ready to take the plunge. That plunge was taken in 2004 and Patrick (via a stint assisting Nicky Henderson) and Carolyn are now key cogs of the operation.

CAPTAIN FANTASTIC

The homebred Misty Mountain got him off the mark very early on, while over the next few years, Tovaria, Itsonlywoody, Eight Up and Baron De’L all provided memorable days. But the Captain came and it all changed. He was special and no matter what transpires in the future, will be tops.

“The horse was bought as a foal by my father and he always had great faith in him, to the extent that he named him after his own father (Captain Cyril B Harty). You couldn’t have had an easier horse to train starting off because he was a good horse and he let you know from the word go he was a good horse. So once you had the respect for that, not to rush him and try to go for everything early on, and let him come at his own time…”

He pauses.

“Even though I was starting off (as a trainer), I’d been in the game a long time, you’d like to think that inherently, you would know things like that and luckily we did. He had well documented problems after that but as soon as you put a saddle on him at the races, 95% of the time you knew this horse was gonna run a good race.

“He was a supreme athlete. He had flat speed. We brought him back for a premier handicap at the Curragh during the Derby meeting and he won it well. He got 15lbs, put up to listed class, at age 11. So that’s how quick the horse was.”

Harty realised quickly that with McManus in his corner, he was going to have a quality of horse over jumps that he was a long way away from getting on the level. So he made a conscious decision to change tack because in either code, he maintains, you need serious backing to be competitive.

There are some who think the dominance of Willie Mullins is bad for Irish racing. Harty is completely dismissive of the notion.

“Whenever Willie wins, I never begrudge him one cent of it because he’s built it up from nothing. He’s an articulate, intelligent man. He’s a very good trainer. He’s steeped in racing. He’s not some fella who talked his way into something and is chancing his arm. He’s a consummate professional that leaves no stone unturned.

“I would be an envious person by nature but not where Willie Mullins is concerned. I’d love to be Willie but whatever success he has, for me, that’s not bad for the game. They said the same years ago about Vincent (O’Brien) on the flat.

“It’s a bit like the GAA. On a Sunday in Croke Park you’ll have 50,000 people roaring and shouting for a Kildare player and on the following Wednesday at a club match, they’ll want their team to go out and kick the head out off the county fella.

‘Show him what the game’s about!’

“It’s the same in racing, people giving out about the odds-on winners and then come March it’s ‘Come on Willie!’ It’s not bad for the game. Be it in the ownership, trainership or jockeyship side of it, you must have people that set the bar for others to aim at. If you don’t have that progression in any sphere, it drops. You have Willie, you have Aidan (O’Brien), and you had Vincent before him. You had Tom Dreaper years ago. These people set the standard for others to attain. Martin Pipe in England changed the way of doing things and other people had to adapt. It’s evolution. You adapt or you become extinct.”

best yet

Right now, Harty is on course for a best season ever in terms of winners and prize money, despite having had no summer horses to kick things off. The patient route will be deployed once again though. Some surprise has been expressed that Copy That, one of his Leopardstown victors, won’t be lining up for the Coral.ie Hurdle. It’s simple.

“He’s only a baby and quite inexperienced. He’d proven he was effective on a good surface. We deliberated whether to keep him for that and decided as the horse was that well, to give him his run (at Leopardstown) and see if he handled the ground. It came off (but) I think he’s a spring horse.”

Coney Island was only winning his maiden hurdle but could not have done it in more eye-catching style, coming home nine lengths clear of a 17-runner field.

“His first two runs were nice runs in competitive maidens and as a result, when he came to Leopardstown, that bit of experience stood in his stead and he was able to go on and do to others what had been done to him. We’ll probably step him up now and see where he stands in the pecking order and where we’re gonna go for the rest of the season with him. But I’d say chasing is where his big future lies.”

Minella Foru was the undoubted Christmas highlight however, particularly as it had been the plan for a while. The King’s Theatre gelding has always been marked for great things. A rare disappointing effort in the Royal Bond followed and the lesson was learned. That race had come just a bit too quickly.

After a brilliant third over an insufficient two miles in the County Hurdle, he spent his novice chasing season looking up the backsides of Sizing Granite, Vautour and Un De Sceaux. He has developed physically this term though and having won his beginners’ chase in May, finished second in a Fairyhouse handicap in November before garnering the big pot, despite the heavy going. The Irish Grand National could well be on his horizon.

“He handled the ground and he won very well and galloped all the way to the line in it. I still think if he was getting a bit of help from the ground he’d prefer it.

“We might just give him a bit of a break now and look towards a spring campaign. That was a gruelling race. They’re in good form, they recover well but that doesn’t mean that it hasn’t taken a lot out of them. And you won’t know until you go racing. If you keep going to the well, you’ll find that it’s dry soon enough. Whereas if you’re sparing enough, you’ll get more longevity from them.”

Once more, the Captain looms as a primary example. Mention of which, Moon Over Germany is closely related to the former stable star.

“He wouldn’t have the physique of Captain Cee Bee but he has an engine like him. He ran a lovely race first run over hurdles, built on that in Navan and we’ll move him up a step now and see where he lies in the greater scheme of things.

“I’m hoping he’s a really good horse because Philip Reynolds came to me a couple of years ago and has built his team up with me. It hasn’t been straightforward the whole way but he keeps the faith and he’s become a good pal at this stage, so I’d love him to have a couple of good days with his horses.”

Queens Wild gave Harty a real thrill when sticking her neck out to bag a Grade 3 contest, as he used to ride for her owner Bobby Guiry, who bred the aforementioned Fifty Dollars More, amongst others. “I know Bobby since I was 15, wearing his colours around the likes of Limerick and Listowel. To be able to repay some of that years later means an awful lot.”

Noel O’Flaherty has two unraced four-year-olds that Harty is looking forward to. Both Kalawar and Dasaateer jump well and the latter will make his debut shortly.

ATTENTION TO DETAIL

“For an impatient man I’m very patient when it comes to horses. My usual expression is ‘If I wanted it tomorrow, I would have ordered it tomorrow’ but for some inexplicable reason when it comes to horses I’ve endless patience.”

Attention to detail is a key plank of the success too. He knows that there are less expensive trainers out there but doesn’t want to cut corners by getting rid of staff. The discovery of a fungal issue from feedstuff earlier in the season, and the ability to get on top of it within two days, vindicates that approach, he believes.

“You often think you could do with less staff – because I wouldn’t be the cheapest out there – but I tried doing it cheap and you can’t. People say I’ve too many staff but if you didn’t, you wouldn’t get on top of those things.

“You’d be beat riding them out and you’d have other environmental problems in the yard that you’d never be on top of because you’d be too busy trying to do it on a shoestring. So I gave up on that. I’m not the cheapest but I’m not gonna try and compete at that level. I’ll try to do the job right.”

So the horses, food and barns are tested regularly, the boxes mucked out conscientiously and the yard disinfected twice a week or three times a fortnight. You need a team you can rely on to attend to all that and with David O’Brien in charge, Harty is happy he possesses that.

Having Patrick and Carolyn involved adds to the enjoyment of it all, while wife, Marie, is also a key cog, particularly given that she is one of the country’s foremost equine surgeons and a partner of Anglesey Lodge Equine Hospital, a few hundred yards from Mulgrave.

The next big prize being lined up is the Coral.ie Handicap Chase next week. Dressedtothenines has been posted as favourite and Harty admits “we’re delighted with her.” There is no guarantee that she will get in however, and a number of horses will have to fall by the wayside for her to do so.

If things keep going as they are, the ambition of building the armoury from 33 to 50 is certainly achievable. That is the magic figure he reckons, for enabling the operation to become a viable business entity in its own right, without needing prize money or sales. Thereafter, he’ll consider whether shooting for the stars is an option.

After all, it’s a long-term game.