The conversation is in a shoot-the-breeze phase. You know the way these things turn when there is a lull between one job and the next.

Skryne Gallops is serene. Tom Gibney has taken me along for the ride – figuratively one hastens to add. Kieren Buckley, who is a regular at Capranny Stud along with Darragh O’Keeffe and Oakley Brown, is beaming from ear to ear after popping a few obstacles on Mr Saxobeat.

The trainer hops up on Regina Dracones, who has yesterday’s Randox Ulster National at Downpatrick in her diary, and they climb the rising four-furlong gallop together.

Saxo is hosed down by the unpaid staff for the morning (me), though the calibre of this most basic task is questionable and I manage to give myself as much of a rinse as the electric jumper, who has surely been named after Romanian singer Alexandre Stan’s Eurodance hit of 2010-2012. The quartet on the trip are paired off in two sand arenas to chill out and dry off before the return home.

Colin and Jessica Magnier’s facility is a fantastic one and the iffy internet connectivity on the phone would be viewed by many as a positive.

As a modern trainer, Gibney is no Luddite and indeed, he has just retrieved his mobile from the lorry. Yet the father-of-three (Katie, Rosie and James) fears that the younger generation are missing what’s going on around them given societal fascination with the screen.

“The simple thing of seeing a horse happy, seeing how happy a horse is to have a roll. I get great joy from that,” he says. “It’s in the soul, isn’t it?”

There is a clue here into why the Kells native has constantly maximised the abilities of his horses over the years, a trait that Simon Munir noted from afar and which prompted the English owner and his French business partner Isaac Souede to send Intense Raffles his way. Keeping horses healthy and happy is the universal goal for trainers but it is easier to say than do. In Gibney though, you have someone whose own spirit is lifted by a horse emitting signs of well-being, of appreciating being in this world, whether at work, rest or play.

Heart of a Lion

A two-time winner of the Irish Grand National after Intense Raffles’ stunning triumph on Easter Monday followed the victory of Lion Na Bearnai 12 years earlier, Gibney had to learn how to get them to that point though, regardless of his empathy with horses.

“I didn’t have any intention of going training,” he says, on the journey to Skryne. “I was in England at the time, still trying to make it riding. I was there three years and it just wasn’t going the way I wanted. The mother rang me and told me there was a good job going up the road.”

Andrew Heffernan had a yard outside Athboy and he wanted someone to train around eight to 10 horses for him. Gibney started in 2001, the day before the 9/11 terrorist attacks in America.

“I only took the job because I knew I’d get to ride the horses,” he explains of still hanging on to the dream of making it in the saddle. But it was an ideal way to start his new career. It was brilliant, very lucky for me, because I got to learn how to do things without all the other pressures of being a trainer. The set-up was there and everything, I was just a paid employee, and it really gave me the chance to think about training.

“For sure, I think we all have our own way of doing things. In fact I think you have to find your own way. I just chopped and changed things a bit over those first number of years in particular till I really did feel like I knew what I was doing. I was always looking for that feeling that I could get the best out of any horse I had. Until I felt I had that feeling I didn’t feel like I could do the job properly… keep them fit and healthy. And to be able to recognise them coming up to the boil.

“I am also a big believer in doing things quietly: no shouting and bawling or anything around our place. We don’t carry whips. Just a positive vibe around the place, everyone is in good humour.”

No whips?

“Yeah, we found we didn’t really need them to be honest. Most… 99% of the time, you don’t need them.”

After five years, he went out on his own, with his wife Heidi, an invaluable support. They muddled along until Andrew Thornton booted previous Ten Up Chase winner, Lion Na Bearnai to a 33/1 success in the Irish National in 2012.

Won’t back down

“That was surreal. He was the only previous winner (in the yard). We’d only have a runner about once a month. And it was normally him just to try and keep our name in the paper and remind people we were still there doing it. That was where we were at.

“We were hanging in there for years and for years after as well. Without a shadow of a doubt looking back I genuinely don’t know how we kept going. My wife, fair play to her. She stuck with it with me. It was a struggle.”

Ever get close to calling time on the whole thing?

“Oh look it went through the head plenty of times but it’s just something that obviously keeps you going. I don’t know what it is.” His string grew as a result of Lion Na Bearnai’s feat of advertisement but the first year after, a virus knocked them for six. Before long, the Gibneys were back to square one.

“I think we had five horses riding out when we won the National first. Back then, there were big yards but in comparison to what’s going on now; I can’t believe the way it’s gone.

“If you had to tell me that one person could be overseeing 300 horses, it’s hard to believe that is the way it’s gone. I kind of am surprised because these are men who have been very successful in life and made a lot of money and I’m surprised that they are happy with being put in the queue with other big, wealthy men. When I started in racing, these big fellas had their own trainers.”

Managing those individual owners and egos to keep them satisfied must take some doing, one suspects.

“It’s amazing. I can’t even imagine. But Willie Mullins is the benchmark now for a very long time. And he’s so humble with it. If you want to compete over here you have to be with Willie and Gordon (Elliott) and Henry (de Bromhead), so it does raise the bar. I know so many very good small trainers like myself who could win lots of big races.”

It was notable that even as Gibney looked to be hitting the skids in 2014, Orpheus Valley won the Guinness Handicap Chase at the Punchestown Festival.

“We’ve been unbelievably lucky, small and all as we are. We only ever had a handful of horses but we always seem to have one good one around. From Lion Na Bearnai to Orpheus Valley to Ah Littleluck to Agent Boru to The Nutcracker, there was always one who was out there running well and winning races and keeping us out there.”

None as good as Intense Raffles though, one suspects. More of which anon.

Opportunity seized

Gibney is operating at a relatively larger scale now. When the opportunity arose to buy Capranny Stud, the yard rented by Elliott when he began to make his name, Gibney jumped at it. There are a little more than 30 horses in training, with space for around 50.

The last four seasons have seen a jump in quantity of winners, starting, ironically, in the Covid season of 2020/’21, when he was triumphant 16 times. He posted figures of 17 and 10 subsequently, and is on 13 at present. Prior to that breakthrough campaign numbers-wise, his PB had been seven. In the meantime, he saddled ten winners on the flat last season, at a strike rate of 17%. No point trying to find a reason for this upsurge, however. Gibney insists he hadn’t even been aware it had taken place.

“We don’t look at that at all. A friend of mine all right would know it very well. He’d fire figures at me every now and again. But I try not to look at it.”

How can he evaluate whether things are going well or not?

“Paying the bills, basically.”

He reckons 50 would be a nice number. It’s what he has space for but it would fit his ethos too. Though he is honest enough to admit that he can’t be sure how he’d react if it suddenly started growing. What he would love to increase is the quality and Intense Raffles might just be the catalyst for that.

What must be gratifying, and offer hope to others at the coalface, is that what he was doing with what he had prompted the initial contact by Munir and Souede’s racing manager, Anthony Bromley. And those aforementioned stats that he doesn’t take any notice of? Well, Munir was watching.

“Anthony Bromley rang me in February 2023 looking to buy a horse out of the yard. And we were to-ing and fro-ing on that deal for a while and it didn’t go through. Simon contacted me and I ended up speaking to Simon a couple of times about that too and I just clicked with him to be honest. I got on very well with him, but nothing was said and that was fine.

“Then Simon rang me out of the blue in September to say that after he was made aware of us he kept an eye on our stats and what we were doing. He liked what he saw. And he asked me was I interested in training for them. I said, ‘Yeah, I’d love to.”

Interestingly, Munir asked him what kind of horses he did well with in particular.

“I was surprised. I had a think about it and then I gave him a ring back and without bragging, I said we had had good horses who were winners of bumpers. When we had horses capable of winning maiden hurdles in Ireland, they did. We had plenty of horses on the flat too. But I did say to Simon that if you asked me to pick, I think we do particularly well with chasers. Which I do, I’ve always felt that.”

When the stars align

So that was what arrived. Intense Raffles is a homebred who won his first three races in France but his form started to deteriorate once he was sent chasing. The owners thought a change of scenery might help. They liked Gibney. He liked chasers. The stars aligned.

“Physically, he was a lovely big horse. He didn’t really take to chasing over there for whatever reason. So they sent him over here with the idea of a novice chase campaign in Ireland.”

The son of Martaline got his Irish career off to a winning start in a rated novice chase in January at Fairyhouse, where his dam, Une Artiste had plundered the John & Chich Fowler Mares’ Chase 10 years previously – the last of her 11 track successes under the guidance of Nicky Henderson. The Irish National came on the radar then.

“Even though he’d only run once in Ireland, he had a lot of experience of racing. He seemed to be much more forward, he didn’t feel like a six-year-old.”

They returned to Fairyhouse, stepping up to almost three miles and two furlongs. If he could win, it would get him a high enough rating to get into the National. If. He cantered home by 43 lengths.

“He’s good. I did know when he started getting stronger and after building him up, he was the best we had. But you still don’t know how good that is when you don’t have all the horses to judge him off.”

He knows now though. There was a real confidence about Gibney prior to the National and the race itself, amazingly, was fairly stress free.

“It was, no doubt about it. He’s easy on the eye, easy watching. I was more nervous watching Driscolls Hill run in the maiden hurdle at Limerick last week.”

Still though. Given the owners, the levels of expectation externally and internally, and the calibre of the performance, he was certainly gratified.

“It’s that nice self-satisfying feeling of a job well done. It’s like anybody doing a job well you know, just like building a wall or whatever, and you stand back and look at the job you’ve done, and it feels good.”

Right direction

And now, at the end of his novice campaign, there is one more step for Raffles to take. Along with the aforementioned Mr Saxobeat, the consistent Kinturk Kalanisi and the appropriately named Must Be Obeyed, Gibney has a decent team for Punchestown next week.

He reckons Must Be Obeyed has a decent pot in her whenever things fall into place and Kinturk Kalanisi has just kept improving. Mr Saxobeat will love the drying ground but goes without a prep run. The wettest spring on record put paid to that but they have done as much as they can with him and he is ready to run.

All eyes will be on Intense Raffles, however, as he steps up to Grade 1 company in the Dooley Insurance Group Champion Novice Chase, where Brown Advisory runner-up Monty’s Star and WillowWarm Gold Cup winner Spillane’s Tower could be among the opposition.

“Hopefully he’s as well as he has been through the season. He looks like he’s good enough to have a go anyway so we’ll just have to wait and see like everybody else. I don’t think it’s possible to go and win an Irish National on heavy ground and it not take a good bit out of them. He seems well so you just have to go and see sometimes.

“We were just playing it by ear and getting to know him this year and it just happened to go brilliantly. He turned out to be better than everyone thought he was going to be and hopefully he’s not finished improving. That’s the exciting part, I suppose, wondering how high can he go? How good can he be?”

The passenger is getting giddy. Could he be headed for a Gold Cup campaign?

“I don’t know yet,” says Gibney, trying his best not to call me a fecking eejit. “He’s still a handicapper. Maybe it’s the English Grand National. Anthony has already mentioned that. There could be different options.”

Best leave it to the experts.