FOZZY Stack isn’t one for slapping himself on the back after a big race win. Even after the biggest of big races that you can win.

Sure, he enjoyed Aspen Grove powering home under Oisín Murphy in the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks in New York last Saturday night.

There was the validation, justification and satisfaction that flows from a decision to send a filly across the Atlantic to give you your maiden Group/Grade 1 win at one of the biggest tracks in the world, but for Stack, it doesn’t take long to realise that the wheel turns again and it’s on to the next challenge.

Still, even he was surprised when he returned to his Thomastown Castle base near Cashel, Tipperary, in the very early hours of Monday morning.

“I flew into Shannon overnight and got back to the house to find no key left out for me, and all doors locked,” he says laughing this week. “I had to climb through a window to get into the place at 6.30am!”

Not a major price to pay when you take into account all the happenings of the weekend. Despite Stack’s reluctance to fully immerse himself in the achievement of a maiden Grade 1 win, make no mistake, this was a brilliant training performance. If Aidan O’Brien sent a filly over to win the Belmont Oaks after previously finishing last in the Irish 1000 Guineas, we’d be shouting from the rooftops about it.

Stack’s operation, one that has 55 horses at its disposal currently, has a contrastingly different outlook when it comes to the economies of scale that come with such a plan. It was a big call to go for it and while it was a team decision that included the input of the filly’s owner/breeder Craig Bernick and the Magnier family, who continued their long association with the Stacks to buy into the daughter of Justify, ultimately the buck stops with the trainer.

“She has always shown ability,” Stack asserts. “She ran well on her debut at the Curragh and then we ran her on Derby weekend and she ran no race but then we went to the Group 3 and she won that with Mark (Enright) on her.

“Her final run at two was over in France (Prix Marcel Boussac) and she ran quite well and we were thinking then she could be a 10-furlong filly. Her comeback run at Leopardstown was good, she ran well in the Guineas Trial, but she was in season then for the Irish 1000 Guineas and she ran poorly.

“In the spring, Craig was over and we discussed her plans, and the idea was put forward to go to America. Look, it’s great she has gone and done it now. Anytime you go over there and win a race, it’s not easy, you know? You need a lot of things to go right with the race and so on and everything fell into place.”

Relationship

Bernick, based in Florida, has been with Stack more or less since he took over the licence from his father in 2017. Dual winner and Group 3 placed sprinter Woody Creek was the first horse they combined with and set the base of a relationship.

Bernick’s Glen Hill Farm has “around 20 mares in Europe” along with the 30 mares they have at home. The intention of Glen Hill Farm is to develop pedigrees by racing their fillies and like many others, they see Irish racing as an ideal measure of quality.

“I first met Fozzy at the sales in Saratoga,” Bernick said. “Hubie de Burgh had started to help me out a year before that, and he had started sending horses he bought as yearlings for a trading partnership to Fozzy. So Hubie recommended him and that’s how we started.

“The first horse I had over in Ireland was with Jim Bolger. Jim is a great trainer along with everything else but Fozzy was the same age as me, I was really looking for something that could be a long term relationship.

“Aspen Grove was always a highly regarded filly. We gave a lot of money for the mare and so she was always a nice prospect and Fozzy always liked her. She has won a Group 3 at two and a Group 1 now, so it’s fantastic.

“It was a very brave decision from Fozzy to come over to Belmont but he knew the filly and he knew it wasn’t her true running in the Irish Guineas and we knew that if she ran her good race, she was good enough to win.

“Fozzy is a really good trainer and he understands the quality and level of a horse. I think a lot of the trainers in Europe that don’t train for the big owner-breeders or big operations, they have to train their horses to win on the right day, and probably get sold, which is customarily what he has had to do.

“When you train for yourself, maybe it’s easier, but when you train for owner-breeders who have big ambitions for their pedigrees, then the expectation level is higher.

“Fozzy can do whatever he wants with his operation now, he is a very capable trainer.”

As Bernick mentioned, he isn’t the only international owner-breeder invested into Stack and so a Group 1 breakthrough on an international stage is surely a highly significant achievement given such investment carries lofty ambitions.

But Stack stays true to his personality when the suggestion comes that this could be a key development in laying the foundation for further Group 1 riches. “Time will tell,” he replies, with a preference to keep focus on the short term.

His matter-of-fact thought process probably comes from his dad Tommy, who needless to say, has legendary status in the game as Red Rum’s rider, a multiple National Hunt champion jockey, a multiple Group 1 winning trainer and having fought his toughest battle off the track when going through a bout of meningitis nearly 25 years ago now.

Six years ago, Stack senior did a video interview with The Irish Field entitled the Story of Red Rum. Towards the end of the piece he was asked by Leo Powell, what is he looking forward to, to which he simply replied: “Tomorrow. You look forward to what is in front of you, so you look forward to tomorrow and see what is next, there is no good looking back, because that is history, you have to look forward and keep looking forward.”

That perspective has been instilled in his son.

“Look, racing is a hard game,” Fozzy says. “One day you’re a genius and the next day you’re a fool. It’s not something you need to be getting carried away with either way. Sometimes you do the right thing and sometimes you do the wrong thing.

“Obviously you enjoy the big ones but I don’t think it’s worth getting too up about, you know? You’ll have something fancy running in the next few days after a big win that finishes last and you’re back down to earth fairly fast. You have to keep an even equilibrium.

“Listen, there’s not much point looking back, you have to look forward.”

Driving seat

Stack has been doing that since 1999, ever since he returned to Thomastown Castle when his father fell ill. He had just started a stint with John Dunlop, having spent a summer in Chantilly with Nicolas Clement. He had plans to go to Australia and America to equip himself for when he would eventually take over the driving seat at home, but all that was shelved.

He steadied the ship but it wasn’t easy, not least when the horses became sick that season, but a filly called Antinnaz kept the show on the road, winning a listed contest at Haydock before finishing fifth in the Prix de l’Abbaye and the owners stayed loyal.

Thankfully Tommy returned to the helm, and with Fozzy now playing an integral role, Thomastown strengthened significantly and gained a foothold again in the pattern - most notably sending two top level winners in 2007, Myboycharlie in the Prix Morny and Alexander Tango in the Garden City Stakes at Belmont.

Then came the likes of Lolly For Dolly, Wannabe Better, Scream Blue Murder and Onenightidreamed, which took the Stack stable up to the end of 2016, when Fozzy took over the reins.

The base was there for him but such a transition can often be troublesome. It’s to his credit that he has maintained the quality levels, sending out a Group 3 winner in Diamond Fields at the very start of his first season in charge.

The likes of Alexander Komnenos, Son Of Rest, Aloha Star, Castle Star and now Aspen Grove have continued the trend of big race success. Indeed, the Stacks have never been afraid of the quality level needed to compete in Ireland, indeed embracing that factor.

“Ireland is the hardest country in the world to win a race, no matter what level,” Fozzy asserts. “There’s a lot of brilliant people in Ireland training race horses and a lot of big investors in bloodstock, whether it be flat or jumps horses, there’s a lot of expensive horses in the country.

“Listen, high quality doesn’t do anybody any harm, it’s good for the game, it’s good for racing, it’s good for everybody and everything. Aidan is very hard to beat but it’s not as though he dominates the thing completely, he obviously wins a lot of races but he sets a high standard and it’s up to the rest of us to try and compete.

“There’s no point in giving out about it anyway. You have to crack on and do the best you can in your own little way.”

He has done exactly that, regularly sending out 18-20 winners a season and while last year was a lull due to a lack of older horses and a higher number of back-end juveniles, this term he looks in great shape to score his best ever tally, with 11 winners already on the board, and a healthy strike rate of 16%.

“I always wanted to train,” Stack says. “I was never really one for school. I had plans to get around to a few different countries and learn from different trainers but it wasn’t to be. I had to come back and get going here.

“Myself and my father have been soldiering together for a long time. He’s in good form, not a bother on him and he’ll be 78 in November. He’s been there and seen it all, you know? I picked up a lot of things from him when I was young. I suppose you couldn’t help but do that.

“He has an unbelievable work ethic, he’s still around the place and harrowing the gallops every day. You couldn’t but admire the man. He still takes a huge interest in everything that goes on.

“I’m very lucky to be training here. My father set everything up and it has been a lifetime’s work for him. I’m just lucky to be the custodian at the minute. There are plenty of people here who worked here for decades.

“The likes of Liam Esmonde - he looked after Aspen Grove before she went to America. He came from work experience when he was in school, and never left. He must be 30-odd years in the place. There is a real good core of staff here and they’ve been here a long time.”

Tutelage

Aspen Grove will stay in America for the time-being, under the tutelage of Mark Enright, and with the aim of taking in either the Saratoga Oaks or Del Mar Oaks, more likely the former according to Bernick.

She will be the star name for Stack for the remainder of the season but at home, he is hopeful of unearthing more quality and continuing his fine season.

“When you have a small team, you need your main protagonists to stay sound but, look, the horses are running well and we’ve been happy with the way things have been going,” the trainer explains. “We’re looking forward to getting a few more juveniles out in the next month.

“We never have a huge team so we try and get as much quality as we can. We’ve 55 horses at the moment but we’ve a few heading to the sales this month so that number will go down. I’m fairly content, we’ve 70 odd stables so we’re not really set up to have 150 horses, and when you get to that number you get issues with staffing and so on.

“When you’ve any number of horses you’re going to have bad ones too, but you just want to try and keep the owners supporting you. You’re just trying to get them to the track firstly and then you’re trying to win races with them.

“Then, hopefully you might find one or two that are above average along the way.”