ON the outskirts of Malmö, the tables of Jägersro Racecourse’s VIP restaurant are being tidied away. It’s 4pm, and the last contest of a nine-race card ended almost an hour ago. Jessica Long, her husband Padraig, mother Caroline, and daughter Beatrice are the only guests left, watching raindrops patter down on the terrace outside.

Today saw American Zodiac take the Swedish Oaks, delivering a second Scandinavian classic success in as many days to jockey Carlos Lopez. But just as much excitement surrounded the Hurricanelöpning just after 1pm, and the return of Jessica’s Swedish Derby hero, Ayani, who led from the front, finishing well clear to a ripple of applause.

Owned by Chess Racing, under the control of ABBA’s Benny Andersson, as I pull up a chair, Jessica confirms September’s Group 3 Stockholm Cup International remains a speculative next step, though she’s also keen to run her star three-year-old abroad.

Jessica, who spent three seasons at Coolmore, and met Padraig while he was at the Castlehyde outpost, keeps a discernible Irish twang to her accent.

Padraig, meanwhile, who hails from Co Galway, has spent almost 20 years in Sweden, and now speaks with characteristic Scandinavian in-breaths, searching for words in Swedish to be translated back. “I moved home to study,” Jessica explains, “and to get a ‘real job’ in Sweden. But my heart was always with horses.”

Tag along

Padraig, who didn’t grow up in racing, insists he was happy to tag along, entering full-time employment with Jessica’s parents, who also trained. Jessica says it was always her plan to keep the family operation going, though she admits studying abroad was an essential grounding.

She says she stays in touch with her much-valued racing network in Ireland. “Swedish apprentices often lack basic knowledge,” she sighs. “We had an apprentice in our stables once, and I told them which filly was this season’s Guineas hope. The apprentice asked why we couldn’t run her next year!”

Laughing, she and Padraig turn serious when they share concerns about a lack of new talent in the riding ranks. Scandinavian apprentices, they say, often lose interest after riding out a claim, or move abroad in search of a wider reaching career.

For Ayani – known as ‘the elk’ or ‘the gentle giant’, given his imposing stature – the journey home is a matter of metres. Jessica’s stable sits to the far end of Jägersro’s training complex. Horses return to the family farm, near the village of Klågerup, for their winter break, and the couple keep a collection of broodmares on site: two of their own, and a collection for top Scandinavian owners (for aforementioned Benny Andersson, and for Norwegian businessmen Morten Buck and Magne Jordanger).

From either base, Copenhagen’s Klampenborg Racecourse is just over an hour’s drive, with Gothenburg Racecourse lying just over three hours up the E6. Oslo’s Øvrevoll Racecourse is a six-hour trip, and taking runners to the headquarters of Swedish racing – Bro Park, just north of Stockholm – involves a seven-hour hike.

Little wonder, then, Jessica makes regular use of circuits in France and Germany. Both Hamburg and Hanover are in closer proximity than Bro Park, and Baden-Baden is an ever-popular pilgrimage.

Last year, the couple’s eight-year-old, Good Eye, even represented Sweden in the UK, running at York and Goodwood, where he secured a respectable fourth in the Stewards Cup.

Throughout our discussion, I’m reminded that, in just a few years’ time, the view from our window may cease to exist.

New racecourse

Jägersro, a tight dirt oval, is rented from trotting, an infinitely more popular equine pastime in Sweden. The course is slated for closure, and we’re meeting as Svensk Galopp (Swedish racing’s governing body) has announced its decision to build a new racecourse in Bara, 12 km from Jägersro.

Skånska Fältrittklubben (the local racing association) and Jockeyklubben (Swedish racing’s social club) will be providing financial loans if an agreement is signed, with facilities rented from YCAP AB.

The new project is a welcome development, says Jessica, though she’s wary of renting, rather than owning, the land. Certainly, it’s good news for those with a dislike of Jägersro, characterised today by sparse corridors, unused grandstands, and a vast car park it shares with a nearby shopping mall.

With the season underway, the couple spend most working hours at the Jägersro stables, which includes a shared training circuit to the right of the racecourse. Yearlings, broodmares, and mares in foal remain at the farm.

Jessica arrives early to feed the 20 or so horses in training, while Padraig does the school run. “Many of our mares travel abroad to be covered,” Jessica explains, “so we might only foal between two and four at home each spring. We’re a team of four or five, with an assistant on the farm, and helpers at our racecourse stables.”

Jessica tells me there are around 10 professional trainers at Jägersro, a similar figure to the 12 at Bro Park.

“Generally, we keep fewer handicappers down here,” she adds. “It also helps that the climate is kinder to us and, of course, that we don’t spend an extra day on the road when we travel to courses down south.”

Norwegian Derby

Jessica currently occupies second position in the Swedish training leaderboard, tucked in behind neighbouring Jägersro trainer Lennart Reuterskiöld Jr.

Her Derby and Oaks winners are the leading earners.

As we prepare to pack up, walking over to her office, I hear more about her charge in the upcoming Norwegian Derby: Captain’s Choice, a French import who finished seventh in the Swedish version last month. I’m also told about her two-year-old Swing, who won the Lambada Cup for Benny Andersson’s wife, Mona.

The couple say Andersson’s racing interest hasn’t, sadly, pulled a new crowd into the game, though his dedication to the sport is well-documented.

“Benny loves studying bloodlines,” say Jessica and Padraig. “He once said the thrill of buying horses was bigger than anything he’s done on stage.”

Big words for a superstar. And words appreciated by his Swedish trainer: the Irish educated Jessica, as she shares an international outlook with this most northerly of thoroughbred industries.