TURN the clock back 12 months and Natalia Lupini was the subject of racing media interest heading into Irish Champions Weekend. Off the back of a break-out season winners-wise, she was a natural port of interest and had a couple of chances at the crescendo two-day event.

As it transpired, both Dunum and Blairmayne just missed out on the Sovereign Path Handicap at declaration time and so it was the filly Highly Desirable, declared for the Ingabelle Stakes, who would be her sole representative. She was a maiden going into the Group 3, but Lupini felt she was well worth her place and despite odds of 125/1, she ran a fine race to earn valuable blacktype in finishing third. Job done.

This time around, Natalia Lupini is subject of racing media interest after the Irish Champions Festival. It’s not potential, it happened.

Kitty Rose made it two from two in the Ingabelle and now looks a cast iron 1000 Guineas prospect. She certainly wasn’t a 125/1 shot on the day either.

Dunum, in just as good form again, having won the Ahonoora at Galway, had no problems getting into the Sovereign Path, and came so close to landing an amazing double for Lupini, only for Ryan Moore garnering a whirlwind late surge from the favourite Broadhurst to deny them.

Nevertheless, it was the most tangible sign yet of progress for an operation that has made giant strides in the last two years.

“It was our biggest day,” Lupini asserted this week. “The Irish Champions Festival is one of the biggest meetings in Ireland and in Europe, so it has to be our biggest day. It is a great credit to our team and to the owners. This is where we all want to be.”

Lupini has been catching the eye of a lot of the experts recently, with her strike rate most notable, but also her success relative to the initial value of the stock at her disposal. Dunum cost just €2,800, for example.

Kitty Rose, bought privately from Aguiar Bloodstock, presumably cost a little bit more than that, but in relative terms, it’s unlikely she was a bank breaker and more likely that she is worth multiples of her initial price right now.

She was a most impressive winner on debut at Naas and stepped forward from that again with her smooth success in the Ingabelle.

“We have done business with Robson before and he has guided us with good horses,” Lupini explains. “The owners, Nigel (O’Hare), Gary (Devlin) and the Kabin Racing Syndicate were starting their venture this year and they wanted to buy a nice horse, something that could bring them to the biggest days and Robson suggested she could be the one, that she had that potential.

“She is a big filly, so we took our time with her, let her develop, but during the spring she was showing us lots of potential. Everything she did, she did easily.

“We took her for a gallop on the Old Vic and Billy (Lee) rode her and he liked her a lot, thought she was a smart filly. She always had a big stride on her and she can get into a good galloping rhythm.

“We thought she could run a very nice race first time up, but you never know with two-year-olds and their first run, their first big day out. She did everything perfect that day, she won going away, so we were really impressed.

“After Naas, the lads got lots of offers, but fair play to them, they held on. We had made a plan for the Ingabelle and they stuck to that. It worked out for everyone and it was a great day.”

Stronger

Naturally, the phone has been ringing for the daughter of Invincible Army again, and the swell of interest is significantly stronger. It may perhaps be too strong this time, with Lupini revealing that negotiations are ongoing with potential suitors this week. Ideally, she and her team would love to keep the filly, but she knows that might not be the case, and will fully accept that scenario because that is her business model now.

Now in her ninth year training, her operation has transformed from a small scale yard where she trained for herself and a few friends, to a yard that can take on the biggest operators more regularly in two-year-old maidens and in premier handicaps.

To put it into numbers, she trained 15 winners in total in her first seven years, but last year she sent out 14 winners from just 56 runs, which equates to a very impressive 25% strike rate, while it has been more of the same this term with 10 winners from 65 runs.

The significant change is the addition of her partner Craig Bryson, who has come on board to provide a new business acumen and his own experience.

“I met my partner Craig and we put our heads together and turned the operation more into a business to try and find more quality horses to run as two-year-olds, sales prospects out of own,” Lupini explains.

“We bought a few more of our own last year and we’ve just been quite lucky. We picked up a few new owners that joined in the venture by purchasing yearlings or two-year-olds, and it’s kind of grown for us as a business.

“Craig was in Ballydoyle for a good number of years so he has learned from the best and he has good experience with two-year-olds and he has been able to bring that to the yard. He has also brought his experience with the training stage of a yearling developing into a two-year-old, and that has just added to what we already had here.

“We work closely together with the training of the horses and I find it very enjoyable. I don’t think anyone can fully do it on their own so for me, it’s great to have someone to share it with - we love training and we’re both very ambitious.

“Of course, when you invest in more horses, there is more risk and with more risk, there is more pressure but Saturday was huge. It gives you that confidence that you can compete, and there is a huge satisfaction in that because we are taking on the best trainers in the world here in Ireland.

“It’s a huge incentive to get back on the big days as well. Everyone works really hard here - we have a team of staff that are really capable and really dedicated, and there is a big sense of achievement when things go right.”

Lupini has come a long way from the 19-year-old student who arrived in Armagh to work in a hunting yard. She is from Milan but is the first of her family to have anything to do with horses.

She gained her insight into racing on family trips to Tuscany where they would travel down to watch the famous Palio de Siena - a fierce race that takes place on the square of the Italian town Siena. Think Chester times 10 with no interference or whip rules.

She started working in racing yards in Milan and by 16, there was nothing else she wanted to do. She did return home from her first stint in Ireland to complete a degree in psychology, but her heart was set on a return.

“I always just really enjoyed being here, the people, the horses, the facilities. For racing, Ireland is a great place,” Lupini says. “When I came back in 2012, I wanted to be able to follow racing closely and learn about everything I could and I thought the best thing to do was to buy a horse.”

Abstraction was bought by Lupini for just €6,000 but did everything his owner wanted him for and more, taking her all the way to Dubai for the World Cup carnival while in training with Sarah Dawson and he went on to win four times and place five times at listed level.

“That probably gave me the incentive to go and give training a go myself. I got my licence fairly quickly.

“Obviously there were lots of challenges at the start and we had a sickness in the yard for most of the first two years but I’m a very positive person, and I try to imply that to training horses. Maybe the psychology degree helps as well, it teaches you how to deal with pressure!”

On the map

Blairmayne was the horse that really put Lupini on the map as a trainer. Backed by close friends she had made since moving over, she bought him for €17,000 out of the Goresbridge Breeze-Up Sale and he went on to win eight times in all and actually went very close to giving his young trainer her Irish Champions Festival breakthrough when just touched off by Mr Lupton in the Bold Lad Handicap at the Curragh in 2020.

Though the training methods are modernising all the time now at her base in Loughbrickland, her philosophy has always been centred around a simple strategy of keeping horses happy and content at home, so they can save their best for the track.

“We like to keep them in their routine, so morning exercises and whenever it’s possible, we like to turn the horses out in the paddock for grazing in the afternoon,” she explains.

“With the yearlings, we try to do a lot of grass work in the winter months and we find that puts great condition on them as two-year-olds and gives them early experience of grass. Of course, we try to give them the best nutrition and supplements we can, so we keep it pretty simple.”

An improving outfit like Lupini’s is likely to grab more attention now, and that may evolve into more horses. That is a challenge in itself because the emphasis has always been about maintaining quality levels.

“That has always been what we’ve wanted to do,” she confirms. “But you need to expand to give yourself a better chance of getting more quality in, and we understand that. That is a challenge but an exciting one.

“Staffing is a problem for lots of trainers but I think we are in a good position here, we’ve got a great team and they understand that we’re getting better horses now, and are excited by that. That helps a lot.

“We hope to be at the big yearling sales now, to build for next year. I suppose we’re always hoping to find that yearling that will be ready for the early part of the season, a selling prospect but of course, you’re aware that if you want that extra quality, you’re getting into bigger money.

“Our way is always to look at the horse first and then look at the pedigree and work it from there. Hopefully we can get a few nice ones in again.”

Off the back of last weekend and this season as a whole, you can expect Lupini and Bryson to continue their progression. The business part is steadfast but the sporting ambition is always there as well, that if the cards fell their way, the dream could be on.

“Everyone dreams of a classic contender,” Lupini reflects. “Maybe we’ll still have one in Kitty Rose, or maybe not, we’ll have to see how things go, but whatever the case, our plan is just take it one day at a time, one step at the time, do the best with what we have and improve the quality of the horses we have.”