WE may not get to see British trainers as often as we’d like at the Dublin Racing Festival, but they were certainly out in force a day later at Tattersalls Ireland’s Caldwell Construction dispersal this past Monday.
A host of the great and good from British National Hunt racing were involved in the high-octane sale that saw an eye-watering €5.29 million spent, and the €740,000 star attraction, Caldwell Potter, ultimately ended up crossing the Irish Sea to continue his career with Paul Nicholls.
The British-based trainers flying home that evening included Nicky Henderson, Jonjo O’Neill and a red-hot young handler Harry Derham, who has been making a real name for himself on the track in his first full season with a licence. He also made his mark in the sales ring alongside bloodstock agent Ed Bailey when purchasing smart youngsters Imagine and Mollys Mango
When the time came to board the flight and others headed to the priority queue, Derham strolled towards the back of the economy line where he met none other than The Irish Field’s terrific columnist and tipster Rory Delargy.
“No priority, Harry?” asked Delargy.
“Absolutely not - I’m on a budget!” grinned the young trainer, having spent just the €490,000 on the Caldwell pair earlier in the day.
Whatever about his travel methods, Derham’s first full season with a training licence has looked a lot like life in the fast lane to these eyes.
Another success at Huntingdon on Thursday brought his seasonal tally to an impressive 28 winners from 103 runners - meaning a sizzling 27% strike rate. No trainer with at least 30 runners in Britain this season has a higher rate of victory with their representatives. What’s more, his record of winning with 22 of the 46 horses he has saddled this term (48% strike rate) is bettered by only one trainer in the top 30 standings. All told, this is a young trainer making ground rapidly.
There could be more to celebrate for the 29-year-old today at Newbury when he sends out Brentford Hope in the £155,000 Betfair Hurdle. A big-race win would cap a stellar run for Derham, formerly an assistant trainer to his uncle, Paul Nicholls.
“I thought I’d enjoy it, but I think I’m enjoying training more than I’d ever have anticipated it,” he beams.
“If there is something that has surprised me, it’s how much there is to think about constantly. You’re always trying to think three months, three weeks or three days ahead; there’s always a weather forecast to think about, or race planning for a horse who has just run.
Relentless
“If you want to have sustained success like we all are trying to do, you have to be working with horses today to win next month, and buying horses now to win next November. It is relentless in terms of trying to be on top of everything all the time.”
Derham endeared himself to many during his time with Nicholls through his excellent and open media contributions, including a popular Ditcheat online diary. He remains an engaging character in front of a dictaphone, but he has consciously taken a step back from social media since before his first runner, Seelotmorebusiness, became a first winner for him back in December 2022 at Huntingdon.
“Two weeks before I had my first runner, I logged off what was Twitter and haven’t been on it since,” he says.
“My sister and business partner [Amy] is in charge of the social media accounts for Harry Derham Racing, I have absolutely nothing to do with it. Ruby Walsh had a good line on social media… He reckoned that if you wanted to read all the good stuff about yourself, you needed to read all the bad stuff too. I don’t want to read the bad stuff so I won’t read any of it. I don’t want it.”
Has his flying start brought added pressure to maintain these success levels?
“Whenever you have a winner, all everyone seems interested in is where the next one is coming from. There’s an element of refixing quickly on what’s going to happen next. I don’t think it’s adding pressure because I expect a lot from myself and put myself under a lot of pressure anyway. It’s about working even harder now to keep the thing going.”
There is no danger of Derham getting carried away by his early exploits, lest you worry. While remaining utterly polite, there is a no-nonsense sentiment to how he conducts himself, almost in the style of his old boss. He is not shy about expressing his ambitiousness.
“All it is at the moment is a start – that’s it,” he asserts.
“We’ve been going for just over a year, not long at all. We’re not in any way established. We’re trying to set high standards and an expectation that our horses will look smart and run well; you’ve got to forge that over a number of years before you have a reputation for those things. We’re very much focused towards building on this.”
The former jockey, who partnered 16/1 shot Salubrious to victory in the 2013 Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle at Cheltenham, was certainly building for the future when splashing out €320,000 for Grade 2 Craddockstown Novice Chase winner Imagine and €170,000 on blacktype mare Mollys Mango this week.
Despite the array of challenges National Hunt racing is faced with at the moment –including dominance of a select number of stables and increased scrutiny on the sport’s social licence – Derham insists he had no hesitation in plotting a future in jumps racing.
“I think if you know any sport well, you will find problems within it,” he explains.
“This might fall on deaf ears when speaking to an Irish audience, but my big passion is cricket and there’s always a mini-crisis to be found there, and that applies with all other sports if you look hard enough.
“In racing, there are clearly problems. However, as Monday’s sale demonstrated, there are still lots of very wealthy people looking to spend an awful lot of money on this sport. I think the sale was an example to show how many people want to be involved in this game. I’m very fortunate at the moment to have owners who are very enthusiastic about it.
“Personally, I look at my group of owners, coming from various different demographics, and I think there’s encouragement there. I understand there are issues with lots of things like prize money and race planning that you need to be realistic about, but you can also say there’s a lot to be proud of in racing and really good things happening.”
Caldwell recruits
On his new acquisitions from the Gordon Elliott yard, he adds: “It’s very nice to have a client to go and buy those types of horses. It’s an existing client in the yard. I thought it was an interesting sale. If you put yourself in Gordon’s shoes for a second, it’s awful for him to lose those horses so you don’t feel good about that. At the same time, we all read the reasons for why they are being sold and there are owners who want to get involved. We had a small list of horses to have a go at and we got two really nice ones to go to war with.
“Both will probably go to Cheltenham, all being well, but the owner and myself are very much of the opinion that I won’t have had these horses long by the time Cheltenham comes around and we are excited about their prospects for the future, as well as this season. They’re young horses.
“I think Imagine will go to the Turners Novices’ Chase and Mollys Mango will head to the Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle. They deserve to be there and we’re looking forward to them. There’s a great mares’ programme in Britain for Molly and you’d really be excited about her over the next couple of years.”
Effective recruitment has been a theme of Derham’s bright start, and 90,000gns buy Brentford Hope is a decent example of that.
Second in a handicap hurdle off a mark of 113 on his final start for previous connections, the one-time Derby hope (rated 100 on the flat) rattled off three wins in his first four starts for his current yard. He lines up in today’s Newbury feature off a 21lb improved mark from what he had previously shown.
“When you’re trying to buy horses, you’re looking for an angle where you could improve them with,” says Derham.
“We felt with Brentford Hope that for the money we’d have to spend for him, he could run straight away in decent Saturday races. We’re going to try and get more involved in Irish point-to-pointing but you’ve got to spend a lot of money to find out if they are good horses on the track.
“We felt Brentford Hope already had nice form in the book and that there were some little angles where we could get more from him.
“He’s done well for us and we’re looking forward to the Betfair Hurdle now. We’ve always had this race in our minds for him and rain this week is a help to us. He’s got no secrets from the handicapper but it’s great to be able to run for that sort of prize money, he loves the track and we didn’t run him over Christmas just to keep in a little bit in our pocket. He goes there in really good form.”
Shrewd purchase
Exciting juvenile hurdler Givemefive – unbeaten in two starts for Derham – looks another shrewd purchase, this time through his cousin Megan Nicholls out of the Johnny Murtagh yard. He was snapped up after winning a 47-65 handicap at Roscommon in September and is now a general 25/1 chance for the Triumph Hurdle.
However, that was not Derham’s only coup surrounding the likeable four-year-old. Despite describing himself as a “poor golfer”, he convinced part-owners Brooks Koepka and Graeme McDowell to buy the horse with him after winning a nearest-the-pin competition at a pro-am event last year.
“By sheer luck, I hit the best nine-iron of my life,” Derham quips of the unlikely boon.
“We’ll step Givemefive up now in the Adonis Hurdle at Kempton on February 24th. That will tell us where we’re going with him, but he’s already done us proud.”
It’s also welcome news to hear that the former Greatwood Handicap and Welsh Champion Hurdle-winning jockey, who opted to quit the saddle at the age of 19, is also keeping Irish targets in mind for his string this spring.
The lack of participation from British trainers at meetings such as the Dublin Racing Festival has been a source of frustration to many, and was only amplified when Sophie Leech struck with Madara in the €100,000 Ryanair Handicap Chase last weekend. Derham insists he is keeping on eye on the Irish programme book.
“We have a horse called Fidelio Vallis, who won well at Musselburgh on New Year’s Day and has had his form work out very nicely,” he says.
“There’s a lovely two-mile-and-five-furlong handicap chase for him at Punchestown worth a lot of money that I’d really be keen to take him to. I don’t have the type of horses needed for those Grade 1s at the moment – unless you’re one man in Ireland at the moment it seems like nobody else probably does! But I have a couple of horses I’d really like to bring over. The handicaps are about having the right horses and I’ve got half an eye on them going to Punchestown. Brentford Hope could easily be on the teamsheet too because I don’t think Cheltenham would suit him. I’ve ridden around Punchestown and thought it was the most amazing track.”
Mullins dominance
What is Derham’s take on the major dominance of Willie Mullins in National Hunt racing?
“I’m nothing but impressed,” he says, matter-of-factly.
“From what I can see, he’s got an amazing group of horses, which has taken him years to build, but also an incredible group of staff. His team is phenomenal. I think what he does is absolutely extraordinary and I am not one of these people who thinks it isn’t fair. I instead want to get better so one day I might have horses to compete with him.
“That won’t happen overnight but I’m a young guy and want to have a good reputation, train lots of winners and hopefully one day owners will have belief in me to invest in horses to compete at that level.
“There are always dominant forces in sport. Nobody is trying to limit the squad size of Manchester City even though they are having a big impact in football. Yes, Willie wins a lot. Yes, Willie has a lot of horses. But he appears to be doing more things right than everyone else.
“I don’t think there’s any value in us calling for him to be restricted or anything like that. My read on the situation is to ask myself how I can get better. What is he doing that I can do? In all sports, you can be envious of those at the top or challenge yourself to do better. The latter is what I want to do.”
Mullins has made Cheltenham his playground and Derham could be set to go head-to-head with him in the Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle when saddling the highly exciting Queens Gamble, a classy mare he took over when Oliver Sherwood retired from training and joined Derham’s team.
“She’s a very good mare and I’m literally training her for one day this season, I have been all year,” he says.
“Her two outstanding pieces of bumper form came at Cheltenham and she wasn’t fully wound up when winning last time. She’ll be as good as I can get her on the day at Cheltenham. Jade De Grugy is without question the one we all have to beat from Willie’s, but if I can get Queens Gamble in the form I believe I can, this filly will run a huge race.”
How much emphasis does Derham place on training a first winner at Cheltenham? Does it represent the mountain top for his ambitions?
“That’s a difficult question because 95% of my horses currently won’t be going to Cheltenham,” he says.
“Is that the mountain top for them? Absolutely not. For some of them, it might be a 0-100 handicap around Market Rasen and that’s fine. However, I’ve got four or five nice horses who will be going there and a Cheltenham winner would of course be massive. My owners wouldn’t have spent all that money on Monday if they didn’t want to go to Cheltenham.
“Whether I’m at Ludlow on a Wednesday or a big race on a Saturday, every runner is very important to me because you have to build a career on the smaller lower-grade horses. I very much hope that one day I have a lot of Cheltenham winners in the future, and I’m not one of those people who say it wouldn’t be a big deal. It would be absolutely enormous.”
Whether or not a first Cheltenham winner materialises for Harry Derham this spring, there’s every chance he could succeed on his away day and break his Punchestown Festival duck a month later.
If Fidelio Vallis collects, don’t say you weren’t told. You will know which queue to find him in at Dublin Airport to join in the celebrations.