AIDAN Fitzgerald describes his Cobajay Stables as “a primary school for horses”. If he was educating children, parents would be clamouring to be accepted, given the impressive amount of talent produced by his yard outside Borris in County Carlow.

60 horses are currently in exercise there, including 20 in pre-training for the master of Closutton, Willie Mullins. Some of the most successful people attribute their achievements to hiring the best, and the same could be said of Mullins, be it a bloodstock agent, jockey, or pre-trainer.

Cobajay graduates who went on to excel for Mullins include Al Boum Photo, Ashroe Diamond, Black Hercules, Gaelic Warrior and Kemboy. If I was in Fitzgerald’s shoes, I could imagine myself being tempted to train under rules, but not he.

“I always loved the breakers side of things - I had no interest in going training, none. I love this stage, making up the young horses; breaking them and seeing them come along. That’s what I’m into.”

Having not touched a horse until he was 13 or 14, Fitzgerald proved a natural when carving a successful career as an amateur jockey. It began at Michael Hourigan’s, where he also looked after Doran’s Pride, and brought him to Carlow. “I got a job off Seán Treacy, met Ashling, fell in love and never left,” he says with a grin.

His wife Ashling, with whom he has three young daughters, is a key cog in the wheel at Cobajay now, he adds: “She does all the office work, manages all the staff, and all that. We wouldn’t be able to manage without her. Sure, I wouldn’t be able to turn on a computer, so she deals with all that side.”

Head girl Jen is another important member of the team: “What I don’t see, she sees, so I’m lucky to have her as well.” It’s one of many occasions that the trainer acknowledges his team and, as the string canters by, he points out stable jockey Troy Walsh: “He’s very good, he’s after maturing a lot over the last year and I can trust him - he knows what I want. I don’t even have to tell him any more.”

“It’s important that you have good lads as well, for making good horses. We’re lucky at the minute, there’s five people here with licences. They’ve all ridden in point-to-points and they’ve all ridden a winner. We give them all rides.”

Winning isn’t everything

While pre-training “balances the books”, as Fitzgerald puts it, a large portion of Cobajay’s honour roll is dedicated to young horses he himself trained and traded on. Some of the most notable names are Ben Pauling’s exciting Grade 2 winner Diva Luna, Grade 1 performer Queens Brook, this year’s Ebor winner Magical Zoe, Troytown Chase victor The Big Dog and Challow Novices’ Hurdle runner-up West Balboa.

Three of those didn’t win on the first attempt, but that has never bothered Fitzgerald. “We get them ready, we get them fit, but there’s always room for improvement. It’s important - you want the next fella to do well and come back to you. We don’t mind getting beat at all - the repeat business is more important than the business on the day.”

Fitzgerald tells me he gets a better thrill watching Cobajay graduates “go on to do something”, than he did during his riding career, which featured a Grade 1 bumper win for Nicky Henderson, a Cheltenham Festival second and two wins in the GPT amateur race at Galway.

It therefore makes sense that he would think of the long game, and his horses have justified his patient approach. “The Big Dog is a prime example - if he was pushed as a four-year-old, he wouldn’t have lasted. If you do an inch too much, any day, that’s it; it’s gone.”

When asked if the market for point-to-point graduates is tightening, he replies: “It is and an awful lot of it now is repeat business. You have to sell to people you trust and they know you. Once the trainers know you and know you’re straight with them, they’ll always come back to you.”

Customers return regularly to Cobajay, including for unraced horses, based purely on Fitzgerald’s assessment of their potential. “Dan Skelton buys one nearly every Christmas without running on our recommendation, Lynne and Aongus [MacLennan] would buy one. Tom Malone and Willie [Mullins] would buy the odd one. They nearly all work out.”

Diva Luna’s owner Lynne MacLennan has gone one step further and this year employed Fitzgerald’s assistance when purchasing at the Goffs Arkle Sale. Those purchases are now being pre-trained at Cobajay Stables, with their final destinations yet to be decided. She’s one of a growing number of owners, who now recognise how the point-to-point field is the perfect starting point, in order to realise a horse’s abilities.

“It’s a good way of doing it too,” Fitzgerald says. “She’s after buying good horses off us through the point-to-points and she thinks they come through better this way, because they’re not being rushed. She knows that we don’t rush them. Like, Diva Luna - we could have had her tuned up a bit more, but... Once they’re not overdone, that’s the main thing.”

Bargain hunter

Of course, end users pay a premium for horses who have displayed promise in point-to-points and Fitzgerald has proven his eye for a horse, with some shrewd buys at the store sales. Daylight Katie was bought for €10,000 and resold for £110,000 after winning her second start at Lisronagh, before going on to win a Grade 3 and place in two others for Gordon Elliott. €25,000 buy Queens Brook was another who won her second start, later selling to Elliott and Aidan O’Ryan for £160,000 and repaid connections by never finishing out of the first three. Her record included a Grade 3 and Listed win, along with three Grade 1 placings.

But Magical Zoe was perhaps his best buy at just €9,000. A debut winner of a mares’ bumper for his brother Barry, she resold to Alex Elliott for £140,000 and the Henry de Bromhead-trained mare has since amassed earnings of over £400,000, largely helped by her comprehensive success in the Ebor Handicap.

The dual-purpose mare has also won hurdles at Listed and Grade 3 level, as well as finishing third in the Grade 2 mares’ novices’ hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival. So, why did she cost so little at the store sales?

“She was a bit small at the sales, but… It’s a stupid little story, but a rug fell off the door as she was coming out and three-year-olds would normally shy away, bang their hips. She walked straight out. She was always brave and had a great walk, but we were never going to go point-to-pointing with her, because she was too small. So, we did loads with her and then my brother Barry took her and ran her in a bumper. She won for Sioned [Whittle], who was working here at the time. She was a dream come true, that one.”

At the very same sale, the 2021 Goffs Land Rover (now Arkle) Sale, Fitzgerald sourced Diva Luna for €50,000. Initially pricier than her former stablemate, she looks just as exciting, after winning a Listed mares’ bumper and the Grade 2 mares’ bumper at Aintree on her sole starts for Ben Pauling and Lynne MacLennan.

She sold to current connections after her debut second at Tattersalls for Fitzgerald, who confidently says: “She’s going to go straight to the top.” Recent reports are encouraging, he adds: “She’s back in, she’s flying. Ben Pauling sent me a video of her schooling the other day and she was brilliant. When the rain comes, she’ll run.”

I ask Fitzgerald of his ideal scenario - his perfect horse and where to run them. “I love Shirocco fillies, out of a good dam, and then I love Dromahane. I love going to Dromahane with a good one, because I think it’s the best track of them all. When they straighten up at the bottom there, the best one comes along. Honeysuckle won there, Queens Brook won there, Queens Cave. West Balboa was second there. We go there every year with our best one.”

So, why fillies? “I prefer training fillies because you don’t have to be as hard on them,” he explains. “If you have a filly three-quarters fit and she’s in good form, she knows her job and she’s happy, she’ll do every bit as much as a gelding.”

The exploits of talented mares, an improved programme, and the ITBA bonus, means Fitzgerald isn’t the only one keen on them now, though. Does he find it harder to nab a bargain then? “Oh, impossible. At one time, nobody wanted the fillies and we got loads of bargains. It is harder now, you’re giving the same price for fillies as you are for geldings, but I’d still buy fillies. We bought 14 fillies this year, and we bought one gelding.

“It’s very hard to come across a real good one, though you don’t have to give big money. Ceira Callanan, who works at Leopardstown, comes to the sales with us and goes on ahead pulling the horses out. I’d see every single filly at every single sale. If we were doing it on our own, we might not get time to pull them all out, but Ceira goes on ahead of us and hurries the whole thing along. Then we’d come home that evening and go through the pedigrees. I like to have good movement, a bit of a model and a bit of pedigree - a bit of everything. Pedigrees always come through - it’s massive.”

The French system

Tattersalls Ireland will offer two-year-olds as part of their Derby Sale next year, in order to cater for three-year-old races, which have been lauded as a key factor in the success of French-bred national hunt horses. For Fitzgerald, more changes are needed in order to mirror the French model.

“What they do in France is they break them as yearlings and, by doing that, they can run them as three-year-olds. So, we have to start doing the same, but then our whole system needs to change. France is full of pre-training yards, but there aren’t as many in Ireland. A trainer can’t have a yearling, they can’t have a two-year-old.”

If three-year-old races are to become the best start for national hunt horses, you would imagine that point-to-point handlers will want to be involved, but as Fitzgerald points out, it’s not that simple. “I’m all for starting horses earlier,” he says. “I don’t buy into that starting them young is bad for them. Little bits - six weeks on and six weeks off - I think would be ideal. But, if we were going to do it, it would become a three-year system and we’d need a bigger yard. Another thing is, we’re amateur trainers - how are we meant to start running against Willie Mullins in a three-year-old hurdle. We’ve no chance, have we?”

Not that what Fitzgerald is currently doing could be considered easy, either. “The point-to-points are very competitive and there’s a savage level of trainers in the point-to-points. It might be an amateur sport, but it’s nowhere near amateur. From the minute we buy them at the sales, to when they run in March. You buy them, you break them, you throw them out, then they’re in the 1st of September. Then you have six or seven months to make a chaser out of a horse.”

It’s early days to assess the abilities of this year’s buys, so I ask Fitzgerald for some horses to look out for in the coming months. He nominates debut third Broomfield Aderra, Tattersalls third Queens Abbey, Dromahane fourth Queens Sky and debut fourth Trustfall.

Of those who have been sold on, he highlights Dan Skelton’s five-year-old mare Let It Rain, who Fitzgerald bought for £16,000. “She won a couple of bumpers last year, but I think she got hurt. She was favourite for the Cheltenham bumper this year, but she didn’t run. Hopefully she’s okay, but she was one I thought was going to be very, very good.”

And with his track record, the odds are he’s right.