THE black, yellow and red silks of Waterford businessman Michael Hanrahan are well known to Irish racing fans.

Already this season Michael’s horses have been in the winner’s enclosure 10 times though Lieutenant Highway (four wins), The Friday Man (three wins) and Brog Ahaon, Derridae and Shecouldbeanything.

The last-named filly looks very exciting. Unbeaten in a point-to-point and bumper, she is one to watch out for if turned out in the coming weeks.

Michael first had horses with the late Joe Crowley and they included Metroella, a blacktype filly on the flat in 1993 and very good juvenile hurdler the following year. “She was one of the first horses trained by Aidan O’Brien and she was a very good filly,” Michael recalls. “We probably shouldn’t have put her hurdling so early. She hurt her back and it never came right, so we put her in foal instead.”

She bred Brogella – her name a nod to Michael’s footwear business – and that filly won two big hurdle races at Punchestown and Killarney in 2006 when trained for Michael by Frances Crowley. She was also Grade 1 placed behind Brave Inca in a Hatton’s Grace.

The credit crunch and recession soon followed and Michael found he couldn’t get a decent price for any of Brogella’s foals, so in 2012 he sold her for just €10,000 to Ronnie O’Neill.

As happens to all breeders, once you sell the mare the foals start winning! Brogella’s final foal bred by Michael turned out to be Swamp Fox, a winner of seven races and over €250,000 in prize money. Another foal named Rene’s Girl won six for Dan Skelton.

Ronnie O’Neill bred Brogella to his new stallion Valirann in 2015 and the resultant foal was Knappers Hill, now a winner of nine races for Paul Nicholls including the Grade 2 Elite Hurdle at Wincanton last month. His full-brother Sionnach Eile has won three, most recently a premier handicap at the Galway Festival.

Luck has turned

None of this has dampened Michael’s enthusiasm for racing and his luck has turned since he hooked up with Gordon Elliott over a year ago.

“The first horse I sent to Gordon didn’t work out but we got talking about the future and Gordon introduced me to some nice horses,” he explains.

Lieutenant Highway was bought privately from Camilla Sharples and both The Friday Man (£43,000) and Shecouldbeanything (£68,000) were picked up at the Tattersalls Cheltenham Sales.

The Friday Man and Lieutenant Highway are on a break at the moment, and they stay with Mosie McCabe in Adamstown, Co Wexford. Mosie has also trained a few winners for Michael, most notably Derridae, a 50/1 winner at Thurles earlier this month.

“Mosie is a great man to look after horses,” says Michael.

Due to poor health, Michael doesn’t get to the races every day he has a runner but he was there when Shecouldbeanything won impressively at Limerick. “My sister, Teresa Hanrahan, often travels with me, and my good friend Seamus Comerford from Mooncoin was there too. My wife Nora loves racing but she has a bad knee and prefers to watch the horses on television.”

When Michael learned Shecouldbeanything had won a €5,000 bonus by being nominated to the Weatherbys ITBA National Hunt Fillies Scheme he was pleasantly surprised. He hadn’t realised she had been nominated to the scheme but it looks like Gordon’s office team made sure the mare didn’t miss out.

“We think she might be a good one,” he whispered. “She’s a fine big mare with a lot of quality. She was due to run again recently but the race was cancelled. Hopefully she will be out again soon. If she runs, I will try to be there.”

There you have it. If you see M.J. Hanrahan in the parade ring, that’s a good sign!