TO paraphrase a well-worn, if frequently misattributed, quote, often it’s not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent - it is instead those who are most adaptable to change.

Stripped back into racing terms, a willingness to shake up their business is fuelling the success of one of the hottest yards in the country right now. What a time it is to be hitting top form too, right on the eve of the Dublin Racing Festival.

No matter where you turned last week, it seemed that winners followed for Declan Queally’s Co Waterford operation.

Goffs Thyestes Day at Gowran Park? Try a double on for size, headlined by the coming-out party for a genuine Cheltenham Festival contender in Rocky’s Diamond. At only five, the exciting stayer became the youngest winner of the Grade 2 John Mulhern Galmoy Hurdle in history.

How do you follow up a 12-length debut bumper winner with Carrigmoorna Beech at Gowran? The Lisroe team only went and struck again in a Fairyhouse Saturday bumper through the useful-looking I’ll Sort That. What a buy he looks now at €3,500 as a store.

As if that wasn’t enough, an already memorable week got even better when Cheltenham Festival Hunters’ Chase contender Rocky’s Howya collected in an open point-to-point at Cragmore. Every dart thrown at the board seemed to hit the bullseye.

There was a time when point-to-points were a place of major emphasis for the shrewd Munster outfit but times have changed.

After sending out 21 winners from 54 point-to-point runners in the 2022/’23 season (a sizzling 39% strike rate) and 18 winners from 38 runners last term (an even better 47% strike rate), it might come as a surprise to note that Rocky’s Howya was only the Queallys’ fourth runner between the flags this season. There is clear intention behind that shift, however.

“I moved home eight years ago to work with Dad and about five years ago we decided to go down the selling road with our horses,” says Declan Queally Jr, a driving force in the continued rise of his father Declan’s training operation.

“We did very well. Our ability to produce horses to win first-time-out was second to none and we brought a lot of horses to sales. Plenty were sold but the game started to dry up for us because some of those horses weren’t going on for their UK trainers. I felt people started to go off us at the sales.

“I remember hearing back that agents on the ground at sales in the UK were suggesting they didn’t feel a horse would be improved out of our place. It was also pointed out to me, though, that if those boys are beginning to get afraid of you, the upside to that is we must be able to train.

Change of plan

“I came back from the last sale at Cheltenham and felt we should pull the stopper on the selling game and focus more on being a public training yard. That was the end of 2023/beginning of 2024. It got me a small bit down at the time but I picked myself up and I encouraged owners in the yard to come down that path of buying horses to race on the track, rather than sell. We now put our energy towards training winners, getting owners, syndicates into the yard and concentrating on building a team.”

He adds: “Funnily enough, Rocky’s Diamond was bought with the intention of selling but thankfully David and Margaret Kiely were happy to keep this horse for the new route we were focusing on. It’s worked out beautifully. Really, the change of plans has worked wonders for us. I’m very thankful to all our loyal and new owners who are giving us a chance.”

At a time when concerns linger over the training superpowers getting bigger, and medium to smaller outfits shrinking, some might think it’s a massive undertaking to build a business model on track winners.

Queally, now in his mid-30s and helping to get the best from a string of 40 horses, doesn’t see it that way.

“I like the challenge of it,” he says. “I have the utmost respect for Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott and another Waterford man in Henry de Bromhead - they are legends - but they’re still only three men. They’re not superhuman. They’ve got stables, gallops and horses. If you’ve got a horse and do them right, you can take them on. I have a lot of respect for them, but they don’t scare me.

“I don’t get put down by that challenge. People going on and on, complaining about it... It just gets a bit lame. Those guys aren’t breaking any rules and had to start out from somewhere. You see it with trainers like Ross O’Sullivan recently, and the likes of Peter Fahey with big winners in other years - if you get a horse who’s good enough those yards can be taken on. It’s pointless moaning about superpowers. You have it in every sport. It’s moaning about nothing… You try to find suitable horses, box cleverly and hope to beat them.

“We’re trying to win as many races as we can, and this first proper year of that model is going very well. We had been selling all our best soldiers previously. The best horses I had before are all gone to other trainers. I knew it was going to take time to restock and thankfully we’re beginning to do that, slowly and steadily.”

Recruitment approach

Does buying National Hunt horses purely with the racecourse in mind, as opposed to focusing on a future trading angle, impact how the Queallys do business at the sales?

“We’re dealing with smaller budgets than is mostly the case with the bigger yards anyway. We’ve had calls with owners looking to spend somewhere in the region of €20,000 to €30,000, and that’s where I’ve got to find good horses on a budget. Gavin Cromwell was a genius at that. It’s how he got going.

“Rocky’s Diamond cost €20,000 as a store. Mozzies Sister didn’t cost an arm and a leg, nor did Bacchanalian or A Tipp For Gold. It’s tricky and I have to work hard to find those horses at those prices - we don’t have owners spending well into six figures - but hopefully they can begin to cover themselves with a couple of wins.

“I study form a lot and would like to think I have a good handle on the point-to-point form, and all the tracks, from riding down the years. You have to use your brain to buy horses who can win in Ireland. That’s what we have to do if we want to push forward. I’d still be kind of a chancer by nature and don’t mind taking a chance on horses at the store sales myself either if it’ll lead to winners in the yard.”

The accomplished amateur rider, who has the experience of 239 winners between the flags to call on (and nearly 100 on the track), previously looked like winding down his career in the saddle. He has no intention of quitting now. Riding three of the stable’s winners last week clearly gave him - and his family - immense satisfaction.

“I turned professional before but I was heavy and it didn’t really suit because I hadn’t the time to be at the track in time for maiden hurdles - bumpers are just handier as the last race of the day,” he said.

Younger inspiration

“The weights are easier as an amateur too. I was wasting and in the sauna a lot previously. My weight is more under control now. My two daughters, Ava (15) and Mollie (five), love watching me riding. I have a new little boy now, Ross (eight weeks old), and when I see them after riding a winner it just pushes me on to keep going. They’re shouting for me and smiling. It gives you inspiration, to be honest. They’re drawing pictures of me and following me.

“We’ve got a very solid family business. I’m kind of towards the forefront but my father is a massive help, talking to owners, feeding every morning and evening, keeping a close eye on the gallops and getting feedback from the lads in the yard. My mother is great to have in the office, looking after colours, vaccinations and anything that’s needed.

“The feeling it gives me to see my kids enjoy the winners is something I can’t describe.”

Queally has no problem describing how good Rocky’s Diamond is. The faith he has in the horse is reflected in how he’s been campaigned.

After winning a Gowran handicap hurdle in October off a mark of 123, it looked a highly unusual move to hand the youngster only his fifth career start in the Grade 1 Savills Christmas Hurdle at Leopardstown. Some National Hunt horses wouldn’t even have debuted by that early stage of their career.

The Altruistic gelding didn’t let him down in the three-miler, though, massively outrunning his odds of 66/1 to finish fourth. That only fuelled Galmoy Hurdle dreams last week, and rolling the big dice has left Rocky’s Diamond as the current fifth favourite for the Paddy Power Stayers’ Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival - priced no bigger than 16/1.

“This horse’s wind is crazy,” he explains.

“Other horses would be blowing hard after work, and he’d be standing there not able to blow a candle out. You’re looking at him wondering if he worked at all. He’s so clear-winded, and a good mover. Even as a character, he’s a friendly kind of a lad. A beautiful horse.

“It’s a big ask for a five-year-old to win a Stayers’ Hurdle [no horse aged five has won the race since 1951] but we’re going to let him have a go. He doesn’t know how old he is. He doesn’t know he’s facing into a colosseum-like scene. He’s happy out within himself, we treat him well and he won’t be phased by the crowd. We’ll need luck on the day but it doesn’t look the deepest division. He seems to stay well and you’d be hoping he could run into a place.”

When asked after those Gowran heroics when it first looked possible that Rocky’s Diamond could tackle such a tall order of a campaign for a five-year-old, Queally quipped: “Probably about three weeks before April 19th [at Limerick] when we backed him at 100/1.”

That gamble was only one half of an almighty touch pulled off involving two runners from the Queally yard that evening. There was said to be carnage in the betting rings at both Limerick and Ballinrobe (and off-course) when Rocky’s Diamond and Diamond Nora won maiden hurdles at the tracks. They returned at SPs of 22/1 and 16/1, having been available to back in the minutes leading up to the off at 100/1 and 150/1.

Fine execution

It remains to be seen whether reports suggesting the brace cost the betting industry as much as €500,000 are totally accurate, though IrishRacing.com noted that a €30 each-way double was struck at an off-course betting shop two hours before racing. That bet had the horses combined at odds of 80/1 and 125/1, meaning a €339,000 payout was in order.

An ability to size up the bookies shouldn’t come as a surprise, however, given Queally Jr, and his multiple Group 1-winning brother Tom of Frankel fame, both spent time with the legendary Barney Curley.

Declan Jr was tasked with riding two legs of Curley’s famous four-timer bid in 2010, running out an easy winner on the second leg before the third runner, Sommersturm - ironically thought to be the biggest certainty of the lot - came unstuck as 1/3 favourite. All three others collected in a coup that reportedly yielded a £4 million payout.

“I didn’t know when I was going out to ride that day what was shaping up,” said Queally, who is readying four chances of his own for the Dublin Racing Festival - the standout of which appears to be impressive Christmas winner Carrigmoornaspruce.

“Tom did say to me ‘you’d want to wake up a bit today’, but I had no idea about it. I only knew when it started to filter through on the news feed. Sommersturm didn’t fire on the day and actually ended up being very moderate.

“I worked for Barney for a couple of summers. He didn’t say a lot but when he did, you listened closely because you didn’t want to have to ask him to repeat it.

“He was a fair man for different tricks. I was definitely listening anyway, we kept a couple of things on board. Hopefully we’ll be able to get the bookies the odd day.

“We won’t put them out of business, but we’ll keep them on their toes.”

The past golden week suggests the Queallys will have little problem doing that. An outfit well-equipped to survive and thrive well into 2025 and beyond.

Mozzies Sister

Saturday: 1.15 Nathaniel Lacy & Partners Solicitors Novice Hurdle (Grade 1)

Her owners in the For The Love Of It Syndicate are all booked up and can’t wait to see her run this weekend. She’s a very good jumper but didn’t seem to jump off as well as she can off that tacky ground at Limerick over Christmas. I think she’ll be better here. She’s a very good mare who will be galloping at the line.

Bacchanalian

Saturday: 1.50 Gannon’s City Recovery & Recycling Services Juvenile Hurdle (Grade 1)

It was a good performance from him last time at Fairyhouse. I think the small field will suit him. He’s a good horse with a lot of ability. If the ground turns out tacky and some of the more stylish juveniles don’t handle it, he could show up well as a hardy, 16.3 hands horse. He stays real well so the flat ones who don’t like that ground could be found wanting with this lad because he loves those conditions.

Custom Taylor

Saturday: 2.25 Race And Stay At Leopardstown Handicap Hurdle (Listed)

He sneaks in towards the bottom and Cian Quirke claims 5lb off him. The helter skelter of a handicap at a faster pace than a maiden hurdle will suit him. He’s a relentless stayer who needs an end-to-end gallop.

A Tipp For Gold

Saturday: 2.25 Race And Stay At Leopardstown Handicap Hurdle (Listed)

A decent horse who hasn’t run for us yet [previously with Mags Mullins]. He works very well. Philip Donovan claims 5lb off him and I think he’s better than his mark of 125.

Carrigmoornaspruce

Sunday: 4.25 Coolmore N.H. Sires Luxembourg Irish EBF Mares Bumper (Grade 2)

We’re very happy with her since winning at Christmas; she’s done some nice bits of work. It’ll be a tough race but she’s in good order and I can’t wait to ride her. She’s up there with the best bumper horses we’ve had. I will say, I’ll Sort That, who won at Fairyhouse last weekend, is a quick horse with a lot of ability too.