JESSICA Harrington is just back from her walk of the gallops with the dogs, the daily half-hour saunter that is balm for the mind and body.

She is glowing, the picture of rude health. A skiing trip is planned for January, the knee that had briefly curtailed the pursuit of a lifelong, annual indulgence now able for the rigours of the slopes having been reconstructed a couple of years ago.

Since then, there has been the battle of the past year or so with breast cancer, after her October 2022 diagnosis.

Like most that have taken for granted the force of nature reared in Summerhill but now a long-time fixture in the Kildare village of Moone, the disease came a cropper.

So, the blonde hair is stylish, still short but growing. It had begun falling out through chemotherapy and Harrington quickly booked an appointment with her hairdresser to shave it off. When it started growing back, it did so just as when she was a youth.

“Oh yeah, dark black and curly,” she says chuckling. I’ve got the colour right now but it’s still curly. You have to laugh. I still have the wig but it sits there and I look at it. I’m going to put it away now.”

Pragmatism has long been this indomitable woman’s watchword. So it was, as she told a reddening David Jennings (that’s how I imagine him anyway) for a Racing Post interview at the end of May about her impending mastectomy.

“I’m going in to get the boobs off,” she said, as Jennings shifted uncomfortably in his chair (again, I’m envisioning).

Then, the characteristic from-the-hip kicker.

“Sure they’re not much use to me now!”

The operation didn’t cause Harrington to miss much racing and the horses, and family, gave her focus. Daughters Emma and Kate have been steady accompanying hands at the tiller at Commonstown for a number of years now, along with Emma’s husband, Richie Galway, and Eamonn Leigh, whose retirement after decades of sterling service was announced on Friday.

Step by step

Throughout, Harrington had a notion that being negative would give the cancer fuel. So, she trusted in the process, took it step by step and here we are, chatting about the past, the present and by far her favourite portion of time, the future.

But, having received a Contribution to the Industry recognition at the HRI Awards to commemorate a stunning dual-purpose career, the 76-year-old had to allow herself a glance over the shoulder at what had been achieved since taking over the permit from her late husband, Johnny.

What she saw was a multitude of Grade 1 and Group 1 triumphs including glory at Cheltenham and Royal Ascot, garnering Gold Cups, Champion Chases and Champion Hurdles, an Irish 1000 Guineas, Irish Oaks, Irish Grand National and Cheveley Park Stakes, as well as a couple of Coronation Stakes and Tingle Creeks, won by such equine luminaries as Moscow Flyer, Alpha Centauri, Sizing John, Macs Joy, Alpine Star, Jezki, Pathfork, Our Duke and Magical Lagoon.

“Yeah, it does make you think that we have done okay and it surprises me that I have done as much as I have,” she says of receiving the honour and having her achievements totted up.

“I don’t know, it’s a funny thing looking back. Probably when I first started training, when you achieve something you say, ‘Oh my God, that was one of my things I really wanted to do.’ Now, you achieve something and you think, ‘I want more.’ Which sounds very strange, but that’s what it is. I don’t want to stand still.”

Hence her quip on the stage at the Mansion House that nobody better be thinking they were pensioning her off. She recalls a conversation earlier in the week about sourcing new owners and setting up a new syndicate, during which she noted that standing still meant getting overtaken in any high performance environment. There is a reason she has achieved so spectacularly over the past 30 years.

Little patience

It is probably no surprise then, given that philosophy, that she has little patience for attempts to dilute the influence of the sport’s most successful trainers or deem their vast accomplishments in a negative light. Or for anyone complaining about trying to compete in that milieu. She has nothing but admiration for her high-flying peers, be it Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott or Aidan O’Brien.

“Don’t complain because someone else has been lucky."

“It’s always been hard to take them on … it has been hard to take them on in the jumps and it was twice as hard to take them on the flat. But, you know, you put your head down and you go, and the thing is, don’t complain.

“Years ago I remember someone asking me about Willie and then about Gordon winning. And I said, ‘Well, you just got to raise the bar.’ You got to try and do better yourself. Promote yourself better… get owners and get better horses.

“But don’t complain because someone else has been lucky. They didn’t get there by chance, they got there by hard work. They hadn’t it handed to them when they started.

“I had four horses when I got my licence. Some trainers have done very well. Look at Gavin Cromwell, how well he’s done. And in both codes. It’s just through hard work and getting out there, getting the owners and getting the horses. And they all probably somewhere along the line had a bit of luck, of course.

“I just think that there should be competition. Cream rises. That’s how it works. The best get to the top. Let them be good, let them be the best. Just because they have a lot of horses, fine. They have managed to go and get them, they didn’t start with them. They didn’t walk into 300 horses sitting in their yard. That’s my attitude.”

Attitude

And who can question the Harrington attitude? Certainly, it was pivotal to her recovery this year.

“It’s a funny thing. You get told what they are going to do to you. And you accept it and you basically put everything into your doctors hands. You accept what they are doing as the right thing. And however horrible it is, it’s the right thing. They know what they are doing.

“I think you’ve got to have that attitude, you’ve got to believe that they know what they are doing. Because if you don’t believe what they are doing is right, you are going to question it the whole time. I never did.

“You do this, you do that, and get on with it. And then we’ll do this and then we’ll do that. I just sort of sat there and said, ‘Okay, fine. That’s what you want to do, that’s what we’ll do.’ And when they got to the end of it, they said, ‘Right, that’s it, you’re finished now.’”

Looking back, she thinks she sort of became a bit institutionalised through it all. Conditioned. It was just routine, that first 12 weeks of Monday morning treatments in Dublin. Along the way, every box was ticked and then, came the good news.

“It’s sort of a funny feeling. You hardly dare believe it. And then it sinks in.”

And they tell you they don’t want to see you now for six months. Happy days. Throughout it all, there were the horses.

“You just go out and look at them and you know, horses are awful gentle around you too. They would never sort of jump on top of me. They sort of knew you weren’t well.”

She’s firing on all cylinders now though, happy to have talked about her illness if it helped anyone, by illustrating that “it’s actually not the end of the road”.

There is much Harrington still wants to achieve. Adding a Derby and Grand National for example. But such targets have always been balanced with commercial reality.

“The majority of horses in her yard have a price and sometimes that means loading up a potential superstar on a box and waving goodbye.

Right time

“You’ve got to let them go and you’ve got to do what’s right by the owner. And if it’s going to be for sale and you’ve got it at the right time, it’s great. You go and do it. Okay, there are times that I don’t want horses sold but they get sold and that’s it.”

There’s that utilitarian approach once more that has served her so well.

The presence of a larger, global market might have had some role in her gradual transfer of emphasis from jump racing to flat, but it was really happenstance. Unintended.

“The Niarchos family sent me some horses. I was lucky I had a bit of luck on the flat and it was really through (the first Group 1 winner) Pathfork that it happened, because they bred him. There were lots of little things that were coincidences, that one thing led to another.”

Of course Alpha Centauri and Alpine Star were two Niarchos superstars she trained to elite victories. Now, there are a number of owner-breeders that provide her with stock.

“I always think, every year, ‘Help! I haven’t got enough two-year-olds.’

She won’t see their new ones until next year, but a pair of soon-to-be juveniles have arrived just before we start to talk, to bring the tally in the yard to 10. There are 15 more due in shortly to step up preparations. She and the buying team will “mooch around”, pick up a few more here and there along the way through the breeze-ups sales.

“I always think, every year, ‘Help! I haven’t got enough two-year-olds.’ And then I end up with plenty of them. I’ll have between 40 and 50 two-year-olds, maybe more. I probably had between 50 and 60 last year.”

Bluedrum, a Naas maiden winner in September is one member of next year’s classic crop that could be exciting next year but what is noteworthy filtering through her two-year-old runners in 2023 was the number of them that ran just once.

“I’ve got some nice two-year-olds. I probably didn’t have as many two-year-olds winning as I had last year but they were all a much more backward type of two-year-old. I’m delighted with them all now.”

Group 1-placed Trevaunance, Royal Ascot and Irish Champions Festival winners Villanova Queen and Satin, Yashin, Scarlett O’Hara, Saturn and Quar Shamar are some of the older horses staying in training.

Yashin and Shane Foley won for trainer Jessica Harrington and owners Gerry and Tom Byrne at Leopardstown \ Healy Racing

“You need older horses and then I’ve got a good few which will be three-year-olds that have never even run, as well as all those that ran just once.”

Among the 2024 three-year-old crop with experience is Givemethebeatboys. A Group 3 winner that has performed brilliantly at Group 1 level twice in the autumn, he had been owned by Con and Theresa Marnane, who retained a share in the son of Bungle Inthejungle after selling a majority holding to Bronsan Racing.

Biggest stage

Sadly, Theresa lost her lengthy battle with cancer at the beginning of December. It would be quite something were Givemethebeatboys, or any other of the Marnane horses housed at Commonstown Stables, to deliver on the biggest stage in 2024. “He will hopefully be aimed for some of the top sprinting prizes. That would be great if he could do it for them. He’s a nice horse and I’d be very hopeful.”

Harrington has always enjoyed Christmas racing. Macs Joy, Moscow Flyer and Our Duke all plundered major prizes at Leopardstown in the past and if the conditioner might not have that calibre of performer in the yard over obstacles right now, she will have a runner every day.

Jetara is certainly progressing, now that she has learned to settle and the Punchestown listed winner could chase Grade 3 honours around Foxrock next Friday. Striking, Pigeon House, Ashdale Flyer, Beau Walking and Ashdale Bob will all be saddled before the end of the year.

“It’s fun. This is a lovely, lovely time. And you know, the team might be smaller but I’ve got plans for them all.”

The excitement about what lies ahead is palpable. Onwards. And upwards.