JOHN Feane was born to be a trainer. His late father, Jimmy, was a lifelong horseman, his uncle, Declan Gillespie, was a top flat jockey and later successful trainer, while John has spent most of his life working with racehorses.

He rode as an amateur himself before turning his attentions, with considerable success, to training in his own right. He is devoted to his craft and has no regrets, having flirted with life in the ‘real world’. In fact, he considers himself fortunate.

“At the end of the day, I am lucky that I have a passion and love for horses and training, I couldn’t see myself doing anything else. I have been at horses all my life, my dad was training first himself and then went to work for Mr Haefner at Moyglare Stud, where he stayed for 30-odd years until he retired.

“I worked there alongside him when I was young and he was helping me for a couple of years when I set up, tipping around in the yard until he passed away, unfortunately, two years ago now. I miss him fiercely.”

He also considers himself fortunate to train on the Curragh, a place he eulogises about:

“The Curragh is a great place to train, even big trainers who train elsewhere come here regularly to gallop horses, but when you are based here those facilities are on your doorstep, all the gallops you want, so there are no excuses when you are training here.

“Pat Kelly and all the groundstaff who look after all the gallops do a fantastic job, they are world-class facilities. It is reasonable for owners to have horses trained here, it’s not too far from Dublin, it’s ideal.”

After leaving school, John initially studied business and engineering, spending two years doing that, but the lure of horses was too much, especially as he had taken out his amateur licence. He remembers:

“Initially, I was with Michael Halford and then I rode for Frances and Pat Smullen, Frances Crowley as she was then. I was with her when she had plenty of good NH horses, Nil Desperandum, Moscow Express and she also won an Irish 1000 Guineas in that time with Saoire.

“My first winner was for J.P. McManus at Cork. I only rode for maybe a couple of years, but I was alright, I had eight or nine winners all told, in bumpers and hurdles, I rode a winner for Dermot Weld too.

“I think riding competitively teaches you a lot and definitely helps when you go training, you have an understanding of what horses have to go through in a race, it does stand to you. Though I was a jumps jockey, I always loved flat horses, so I wanted to train on the flat.”

Together with his life and training partner of 20 years, Susan Roberts, John initially based himself at Declan Gillespie’s Curragh yard back in 2014.

He recalls that time: “Susan’s father, Reggie Roberts, always trained a few horses in Rathangan and Susan and I originally started training for him, and he is still an active owner in the yard.

Horse racing enthusiast

“He kept his own licence, but I think this is his last year with it. Reggie is a real greyhound and horse racing enthusiast, one of a dying breed of sporting people. He just loves animals and competing, he has won nearly everything in the greyhound world, apart from the Derby, I think he has been second in it a couple of times.

“Susan and I worked our way from there basically. You don’t get a Saturday or a Sunday off, it is 24/7, 365 days a year, but you have to love it to do it. It is great to be able to do what we love doing.

“We only keep a small number of horses, we have stables for 26, but have good clients and some good horses. We moved into our own yard at the Curragh, New Rathbride Stables, just last April. We bought it late last year and then did it up. It is not a business model that would work for everyone, but I just think that keeping it smaller suits us. But when we get the horses, we can compete with the bigger yards.

“Susan and I are like two peas in a pod. She is a great horsewoman. We have great staff as well, who have been with us from the start.”

The couple made a lively start to their venture too, he recalls:

“Prince Connoisseur was the first horse that I trained, he won three of his first four races and the Joe McGrath Handicap at the Curragh, Fran Berry rode him for me. He ended up getting a bad heart murmur and he was never the same horse after that.”

Plenty of quality horses have passed through his hands since then and John is grateful to a loyal group of owners for that.

“Yes, I have great owners,” he acknowledges. “Including James Hanly and Charlotte Musgrave of Ballyhimikin Stud. They are great breeders. I have Ano Syra for them and the two-year-old filly Fregada won first time out lately, beating a horse of Aidan’s. Presently, she is not sold and we will get her back next year and there is a good programme for her.

“She stayed a stiff six furlongs well at the Curragh, so would imagine she will get seven and a bit further in time. She has a lot of ability, so we will have to nurture her and keep her right, basically.

“Ano Syra has been a model of consistency in group and listed races. Unfortunately, she didn’t manage to win one, but she rocked up in good company every day for the last two years. She was just a length or two from being a Group 1 or 2 filly, but she did plenty of running and retired sound, not too many of them do that.

“She is a lovely broodmare prospect, by Kodiac. James and Trevor Stewart plus some of his clients have had a fair impact on the breed. Cassandra Go was a blue hen for Trevor Stewart, she is the ancestor of Rhododendron and Auguste Rodin. It is good to get supported by breeders like those.

“Another owner with me is James Browne of Kilnamoragh Stud, he has good, tough, honest horses. Damien and Ann Cassidy too, Ivan Holloway in Australia, I don’t want to leave people out, but there are too many to mention them all, they know who they are.

From the beginning

“A lot of my owners have been with me from the beginning. You need people to have a bit of patience with horses too, that pays off and they let you do what you want with them.

“It is surprising what horses can do, they can turn a corner, you find the key to them and they take off.”

Vera’s Secret, owned by the aforementioned Browne, is another typical Feane slowburner, winning the inaugural Fillies’ and Mares’ Handicap on Irish Champions Weekend this year, though she was so big she needed all the time she was given.

“Well, she is huge, about 17.2 hands,” her trainer explains. “She was so big that she didn’t come into training until she was a four-year-old. She ran well a few times last year, but really came into her own this year at five.

“She won two of her four races this year. The ground was a bit too soft for her on her last start in a listed race at Tipperary and she is gone home for the winter, but I can see her being competitive in those sort of races next year.”

Sometimes, for trainers like John Feane, coming up against the superpowers of the game can feel like banging your head off a brick wall, but there is a flip side to that, he explains:

“Racing in Ireland is so competitive and it is great that it is. Aidan O’Brien, Dermot Weld and others are fantastic trainers and have a lot of good horses, but on the other side of the coin, they are a benefit to you too, if you are able to run up to them or beat them, there is then a marketplace to sell your horse.

“A lot of people are basing their business on selling horses. Horses like Obviously, who won a maiden and a handicap for Peter Fahey and went to Phil D’Amato, then ran in four or five Breeders’ Cups, winning in one of them.

“With the standard here, sometimes American clients, they prefer when they are just placed because when they bring them over, especially fillies, they are competing for such good prize money in maidens and allowance races.”

Major attraction

Feane cites the market to Australia as a major attraction for people selling horses too and feels we can learn from the model of racing down under:

“A horse I sold to Ivan Holloway, Dublin Journal, has won four or five races in Australia, he won last week in Horsham, I think. Dylan Browne McMonagle won his first two races in Australia on him last winter for friends of mine that also have horses here. We bought him off Jim Bolger. I think he could be running for half a million in a Cup race next time.

“He has gone through a certain criteria to get into those races, a bit like the Pertemps Qualifier for Cheltenham. People are giving out about the Friends Of The Curragh and the prize money of the Cesarewitch and maybe the money would have been better spent on a series of qualifying races for staying horses.

“If they put a series on for lower grade horses and had a final at somewhere like Galway, everybody wants to have a winner there, you would be able to sell horses on that basis, it would be an incentive for the smaller owners. Though I know it is difficult to please everyone in this game and it is not an easy job.”

Taking it as it comes

John is philosophical about the ups and downs of training horses and life in general, taking it all as it comes:

“Someone said to me recently, that pressure with horses is a privilege, having a good horse to train and the pressure that goes with it. Look, you hear a lot of lads moaning and groaning too, but you have to take the positives from life and look forward, even when things aren’t going so well. It is a tough old game, but we try to be as positive as we can.”

Well said, John Feane. I think a lot of people in the industry echo those thoughts.