“My daughter wants to do it now, after graduating from Trinity College. She just told her father she wanted to become a horse trainer and I went, ‘Oh Jesus, do you know what you’re letting yourself in for?’” – Eddie Lynam, The Irish Thoroughbred, Spring 2011

BACK in the 1980s, the Irish training ranks included acclaimed record producer Denny Cordell but it is doubtful if there have been many who study Shakespearean acting at RADA banging out the winners.

Sarah Lynam is operating at a stupendous strike rate in Dundalk at present, having saddled six winners from nine runners for the calendar year to bring her tally for the winter campaign to eight – two ahead of her father, Eddie.

They both work out of the same yard, Lynam Jnr with a line of stables at Garrettstown House for her 17 horses.

The interest in acting goes back a some years. When her parents insisted on her going to college, she studied Film and French. Barry Lyndon, Raging Bull, Funny Girl and of course, National Velvet are among her favourite films; Martin Scorsese, Peter O’Toole and Barbara Streisand the director, actor and actress she particularly admires.

No wonder she has been added to the Rásaí Beo team that begins a seven-weekend stretch of racing coverage at Leopardstown tomorrow. Lynam, who is a keen Gaeilgóir, will add a real a depth of knowledge to the analysis.

“I suppose I’ve a flair for the dramatics!” she jokes, in a nod too to the reputation she has earned for forthright comment – more of which anon.

“I do miss the cinema a bit now. It would be one of my main outlets away from horses. I think you do need other interests because in racing, you do end in a bubble.

“Sometimes I worry that I’m turning into a terribly boring person who just thinks about the programme all the time, 0-65s and that kind of thing. So I’m glad I went to college. It made me a tiny bit more rounded, though I do have a one-track mind now.

Great job

“It’s nice to have a chance to talk about racing on TV. It is my favourite subject. And if we can get more people interested, that’s great. TG4 do a great job. I know people that don’t speak Irish that love watching Rásaí Beo and it is important to have more racing on terrestrial TV because that’s how you get casual fans and new fans. The people who are already the hardcore fans pay for a subscription.

“Sometimes as well, if it’s on the terrestrial channels, they have more time to show horses in the parade ring, more interviews and more people, it gives more of a flavour perhaps, though that might be a bit more difficult in the current climate with masks and social distancing.

“I’m a little nervous about it but I’m looking forward to it.”

She is following in a long line of horse people, apart from her father. His uncles, Eamon and Jimmy O’Connell were trainers, winning a Troytown Chase and Rockingham Handicap among other prizes. His cousin, Frank Lyons trained a Breeders’ Cup Sprint victor, Desert Stormer. Interestingly, given the most recent development in Lynam’s life, Lyons is also a TV analyst.

And of course, her mother Aileen is a former jockey, who had been apprenticed to Charlie Nelson when answering an ad placed by Eddie in The Irish Field looking for staff.

“It’s nice to follow in the footsteps. I’m trying to keep that line going.

Shane Crosse and Sarah Lynam after Tyrconnell had won in Laytown .carolinenorris.ie

Encouraged

“Mam and Dad really didn’t want me to do it at all. I wasn’t even encouraged to ride out or anything. I had a pony but I suppose they know. It’s a hard industry. And it’s not even the hardship everyone else sees but there’s no time off and you’re out in all weathers. Maybe you wouldn’t wish it on your daughter.

“All I could think about in college was the horses. They couldn’t put me off and they’re great now with advice.”

She felt it necessary to spread her wings to continue her education, but also to let her hair down a bit after the studies in Dublin and London.

“I felt when I was working at home, I was wrapped up in cotton wool and mollycoddled a bit so I wanted to move outside the yard.”

Jim Bolger was a good starting point, with cotton wool never darkening the Glebe House door. It had been good enough for her father and countless others.

“It’s the best place to learn if you ask me. He’s an absolute master and what he’s built up is so impressive.”

After that came two seasons with Willie Mullins.

“That was amazing, as you can imagine. He’s a lovely man to work for but he’s also really competitive, with a lot of people working there that want to do well. So there’s quite an ambitious atmosphere around the place.”

And then, an Irish winter/Aussie summer in Australia with Gai Waterhouse.

“She gave me a lot of confidence by putting me up on good horses to ride. I was there when Fiorente won the Melbourne Cup and I used to ride him out a lot.

“I thought that was quite cool because he was an Irish-bred, born just down the road from home in Ballymacoll Stud. Then we both go half way around the world and I’m riding him out.”

There was also an “amazing” month at Ballydoyle thrown in and a daughter exchange that saw her spend another month with Johnny Murtagh, while Caroline Murtagh made the switch to Meath.

By the time she came home for good, she was sure that she wanted to train. In the next year or so helping out her father, she also bought future Grade 1 and Connacht Hotel/Guinness Handicap double winner Whiskey Sour from Eddie O’Leary’s Lynn Lodge Stud for £45,000. His career earnings are now close to €300,000. She clearly knows her stuff but how to explain the recent purple patch?

“I wish I knew, because I could keep it going the whole time but I’d say to be honest it’s a mix of luck and then opportunity.

“I’ll sound like I’m making excuses but last year they were all running really well in Dundalk but were getting desperate draws. I was tearing my hair out. At one stage, after a good few runners, my average draw was 12 and with the draw bias up there, you’re giving away too much ground at the start of the likes of the six-furlong races.

“After that, I had a lot of places. Even during the turf season – I didn’t have many runners – but I’d a fair few beaten a short-head. We just weren’t getting the luck.

“As well though, there was a conscious effort to put on extra races at the start of the winter season for the 0-65 horses, with so much racing missed out at the start of the year. I’d been banging on about this. You need to have opportunities.

“The way it worked before you might have one race a month suitable for your horse and if the ground wasn’t suitable or your horse got a stone bruise or missed the race for whatever reason, it could be two months between races. And then you could get a bad draw. Or the race might only be for claiming jockeys.

Sarah Lynam with Dundalk winner Tyrconnell \Healy Racing

Strangling

“I felt like it was strangling me. There’s no point in putting in all the work and having nowhere to run your horses. And then obviously, your horses can’t improve and they can’t learn, and you can’t try different things with your horses, different trips or whatever.

“I had horses in training and it was desperate. It was like being stuck on a subs’ bench the whole time.”

Tyrconnell is one of the prime beneficiaries. Rising from 58 to 70 in the ratings last year without winning – he was second four times – the seven-year-old has really flourished this term, securing his second triumph eight days ago off a career-high mark of 80.

“He’s been enjoying his racing. He was one with very bad draws all through the season and he kept getting put up chunks of weight, which I was giving out about but he has come on. Getting the chance to race helped him. I tried a new trip over a mile and he seemed to do well over it.

“I don’t know will his winning days be over now though because he put him 12lb and he’s rated 92. He won his first race off 45 so I don’t know where we go from here but he’s a credit to the yard. He’s like the yard mascot. Everybody loves him. He’s a real cheeky character. He’d always buck and throw plenty shapes on the gallop – I fell off him a couple of weeks ago actually! We’ll probably have to wait for the grass and try run him there.”

That might apply to another dual winner, Sabrina Fairchild, too. It’s frustrating for an ambitious person.

“I could be a bit of a dreamer in wanting to have Group 1 horses but even when I was looking after horses in other yards, you wanted them to be good horses that take you on a journey, that win big races.

“But at the minute, I’d probably like to start winning a better quality of race at the more principal tracks. I haven’t had a winner at the Curragh or Leopardstown yet.

“I’d just like to keep improving. That’s the main aim, to keep up the form of the yard. I’m proud of the way they’ve been able to hold their form and are running well from race to race because I think that is a big part of training.

Lynam describes her former mentors Bolger, Mullins and Waterhouse as “strong characters with their own opinions” and it could be a self-penned bio.

Outspoken

“I have been warned by some people that work in the industry that I need to stop being outspoken, that I won’t get owners, that I shouldn’t keep associating myself with low-grade racing. I get messages off people telling me I should just be quiet and do my job.

“But I’m never giving out for the sake of it. Sometimes, I give out about situations that just concern me but I feel very passionate about racing as a whole and about Irish racing, and I think people get too comfortable in Irish racing … I think sometimes we rest on our laurels in Ireland.

“We like to think we’re the nation of the horse, the head of racing in the world but we’re not the only horse racing nation and other countries will pass us by if we don’t pay attention.

“Some changes that have been made in Irish racing recently, and in Irish racecourses in terms of facilities for owners, staff and most importantly getting horses ready to run, weren’t improvements in my opinion … it seems no-one listens to the horse people.

“I’ve tried the traditional route of writing a letter or email but that doesn’t seem to bring about any results, so then you tweet. Then you find out a lot of other people are feeling the same way. That gathers momentum. I think that was part of the reason there were extra races put on. A lot of trainers and owners were complaining.

“So I think you have to speak up. I don’t have a lot of time for people who just want to have the life. If that’s going to turn owners off me, they’re probably not the type of owners I want to have. It’s the same as the staff in the yard. You want to work with like-minded people with the same ambitions.

“I’m not going to just shut up and put up.”

Owners could be treated better at our racecourses she maintains but it is the stable staff that get the rawest deal she argues.

“I do feel sorry for tracks at the minute, they’re struggling, but I feel a lot of them have been quite shoddy. For a country that’s meant to be at the upper echelons of horseracing, the amount of tracks that aren’t really up to standard, whether it’s stable yards, poor stable staff facilities – I think that’s a huge problem – or even the amount of tracks that have ridges, whether they’ve been over-watered or whatever reason. They’re not up to the standard that they should be.

“I think we really need to improve stable staff facilities. That infuriates me. I made a number of complaints last year about this and didn’t get very far with it.

“Food that isn’t good enough, people getting sick from what they had in stable staff canteens. And getting staff in this country is a problem. How do you encourage someone when they’re not treated well at the races?”

Lynam hopes that the increase in opportunities for the lower-handicapped horses will continue. Tyrconnell is an example of how they flourish for it, having made that progression from 45 to 92 by virtue of racing more.

“Everyone was voicing their frustration. It came to a head when there were hundreds of horses balloted out in Dundalk so it couldn’t be ignored anymore and to be fair, they did put on extra races. It just goes to show that once you start being able to run your horses and train them the way you want, you learn a bit, you grow in confidence in your own judgement.

“Some people said to me, ‘They’re just the bottom tier and you shouldn’t be catering for them’ but the IHRB did a study a while ago and it was about 41% of horses were rated below 60. So they have to be catered for. People own those horses.

“There are huge numbers of horses bred every year – probably too many to be honest – so you have to cater for them. It’s such a relief that they did provide more races and I hope that will continue.

“I think they need to see the bigger picture. We’re not Hong Kong. We’re not being selective about only one type of horses can run. It’s just the planning for racing is a little bit short-sighted.”

All these irritations don’t impact negatively on her joy walking into the yard though, particularly at the moment, where Kelly Rae and Natalie Brogan are invaluable helpers.

“I do feel they make a difference to the horses. They take a great interest in them and they always have them really well turned out. I’d like to build a bit of a bigger team. As well as having a nice bunch of horses, I’d like to have a good bunch of people in the yard, people to bounce ideas off but we’ve been fairly jolly all winter.

“The morale has been good in the yard and it’s a nice place to be. You look forward to going into the yard in the morning and I love seeing the girls get a kick.

“I’m aware that I haven’t really proven myself, and people want to see me do it on the turf. There’s such a good selection of trainers in Ireland doing great things. It’s highly competitive.

“But I’ll give it my best shot.”