WHEN Run For Oscar quickened up to put the £200,000 Cesarewitch to bed in a matter of strides, it was just another well thought out, well executed long-term plan that came to fruition for Charles Byrnes.

The Limerick trainer will be the first to tell you that such long-term plans don’t always work out as well as that but the winning rider David Egan’s assessment rang true when he said: “I didn’t know much about the horse before other than I was in the race he won at Haydock last time, but I knew Mr Byrnes is a master in these types of races.”

Byrnes’s reputation has nearly always preceded him, either negatively or positively; it depends on who you talk to. He hasn’t shied away from the betting side of the game and always embraced the challenge of landing the big touch, most notably six years ago when he sent out a monster treble on a Tuesday evening at Roscommon that hit bookmakers for a presumably hefty sum.

Such training feats will always have admirers, perhaps from the more traditional racing fan, but it seems more are now willing to be critical and take a negative view.

The Limerick native is also part of a large cohort of trainers in Ireland who sent out multiple Grade 1 winners 10 to 15 years ago but has since been priced out of the market for the best young prospects.

But one thing is for sure, he is a highly talented target trainer and he has shown that from the beginning of his career, at a lower level in racing but very much at the highest level as well. Run For Oscar wasn’t out of the blue. He followed the likes of Off You Go, Wonder Laish, Advanced Virgo and Thosedaysaregone who were all produced in excellent shape for marquee wins on some of the biggest days on the calendar in recent seasons.

Suspension

Those wins have played a large part in the success of his training business but there is no doubt that the six-month suspension he had to fulfill last season was one of the hardest times in his career. Byrnes was found to be “seriously negligent” by the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board after it emerged one of his runners, Viking Hoard, had been “nobbled” with a sedative before his intended race at Tramore in 2018.

Prior to this interview, he has said very little on the subject due to legal obligations but he has maintained the belief he was in no way negligent.

With the help of his son Cathal, who took over his licence during the six-month suspension, he has now come through that episode and is adamant he has lost no business over it, backed up by a very loyal owner base.

Testament to this are his results on the track. Blazing Khal was a seriously exciting novice hurdler last season and it was unfortunate a setback ruled him out of the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle, for which he was favourite after an impressive Grade 2 win at Cheltenham. He will be back this season.

Shoot First, ridden by Byrnes’s teenage son Philip, gave the family a truly memorable win at the Showcase meeting at the same track last month and touch wood he will be back at the festival for the Pertemps Final.

And now Run For Oscar, having taken out one of the most prestigious handicaps on the flat, will transfer codes and take on another marquee handicap, the £125,000 Betfair Exchange Stayers’ Handicap Hurdle, at Haydock next Saturday.

“I’ve been watching the Cesarewitch for years and I always had in my head that if you had a horse who could switch off in it, and come there with his run, that he would be very, very hard to beat,” Byrnes reflected this week.

“Run For Oscar ran third on his second run this summer at the Curragh but he looked a really good horse that day. He ran into all sorts of trouble and Seamie Heffernan got off him and said he’ll win a big race.

“The problem we had was he kept getting balloted out of races like the GPT at Galway. We eventually found a race for him at Haydock and he nearly raced too lazily there, that’s the type of horse he is, but won and got 8lbs for it.

“The Irish Cesarewitch was worth a lot of money this year but we always felt this race would suit him better. The course for the race is unbelievable really. Two miles and two furlongs with no real bend.

“Look, it worked out exactly as we planned on this occasion, it doesn’t always work out.”

Run For Oscar carries the mauve colours of the Top Of The Hill Syndicate and will prompt many to remember Solwhit. Two members of the syndicate have since sadly passed away but Pat and Mary O’Hanlon have maintained the colours and name, and remained loyal to Byrnes.

The 2013 Stayers’ Hurdle winner was an amazing horse, excellently trained. He won Grade 1s at two miles, two and a half miles and three miles, at all three of the major festivals. But though he was uniquely sourced from Belgium, Byrnes is adamant he wouldn’t have got him in today’s climate, with the rising costs of young stock pricing him and many others out of the market.

“There are a lot of factors and you could probably say there are more Grade 1 horses in this country than there ever was but they’re all being bought by the big owners who will only have horses in the top three or four yards,” Byrnes says.

“That’s the way the world has gone. Ordinary syndicates just can’t afford what might turn out to be a good horse any more. I think it is a bit sad because there are an awful lot of talented trainers and horse people in the country apart from the top three yards.

“It’s just the power of money they have behind them now. Back in the day, if you had a millionaire owner you were doing well, but tis’ a billionaire owner you need to have in the yard now to compete at the top level.”

Afloat

Adapt or die. Byrnes had to change tact and has done enough to keep afloat, while at the same showing his prowess when he can get his hands on the increasingly elusive talent.

“I’ve always done well enough from the horses-in-training sales,” he says. “But again, over the last few years, it’s gone very expensive. I bought two or three last week at Newmarket but we weren’t competing at the top level or anything.

“We’ve been buying foals for the last six or seven years. That has stood me in good stead, only for that I’d have found it very hard to stay at the level we’ve been at. I had a good agent there, Richie Downes, he always buys five or six foals for me there every year and only for that we’d have found it very, very difficult to stay at a reasonable level.

“We’ve found good value in the foals. Again, it is getting very expensive, they’re nearly making three-year-old prices now. But because we’ve gone this way, it means I’ve got young horses coming through the whole time.

“At the moment I have foals, two-year-olds, three-year-olds and four-year-olds who are nearly ready to start. We bought Blazing Khal as a foal for a cheap price so we’ve had a bit of luck with it so far. Of course we need to sell horses as well. Ideally you sell them to stay in the yard. We probably own too many at the moment ourselves but we have sold a few recently and hopefully we’ll restock with more foals in the coming weeks.”

The betting side of the game has become harder for him with the rapid progression of that industry. But in a general sense, he decries the way things have developed with bookmakers, especially on course.

“You can still land a touch like, you just need to think outside the box,” he says. “But there’s no point taking a fist full of dollars to the race track anymore. It can still be done but not to the same level.

“I think the way things have gone now with bookmakers has been terribly detrimental to the racing game because I think betting and racing go hand in hand. You take the betting out of it, as far as I’m concerned, racing is finished altogether.

“I remember walking into Listowel as a young fella, and the betting ring would make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. There’s very few places like that now, maybe Galway, Leopardstown at Christmas, Punchestown, Cheltenham. There’s only a few places now where you have that activity and I think racing is all the worse for it.

“I think on-course bookmakers have been treated very badly over the years. Instead of having to pay big fees to stand at racetracks, I think the racetracks should be paying them to stand. They are a vital part of the atmosphere. With no bookies in front of the grandstand, you’re looking out into open fields, there’s nothing there like. You have to go with the times, I know that, but I think racing is all the worse for it you know.”

30 years

In two years time, Byrnes will be training horses for 30 years. Standing the test of time is a great indication of success for any trainer. Undoubtedly his resolve was tested last year when he was given a six-month suspension by the IHRB following their findings in an investigation into the running of his horse Viking Hoard at Tramore in 2018.

“It wasn’t a nice time at all,” he says. “It was a bitter pill swallow. Aside from the effect it had on my family, it cost us a lot of money as well between legal fees and everything else. I’m trying to leave it behind me now.

“I think everyone knows how hard done by I was. I mean, I got a six-month suspension for leaving a horse unattended for about 15 minutes. The IHRB said after that the one thing they were going to do is put in cameras in every racecourse. I think they’ve only got two racecourses set up for that so far.

“Look, I have moved on. To be honest, it didn’t affect my business at all really because I think everyone in racing saw it for what it was. Every one of my owners stuck by me and that means a lot. It did cost me a lot, between money and stress and everything with it, but we got through it anyway.”

A fillip for Byrnes has undoubtedly been the emergence of his son Phillip, who provided a big family moment when riding Shoot First to win at Cheltenham last month, his first ever ride at the course.

Older son Cathal also plays a huge role, having gained experience in Australia and America, before coming home to take an assistant trainer role.

“The two lads have made all the difference,” Byrnes asserts. “I’m not sure I’d be at the game only for them coming through. Cathal has been brilliant you know, he’s by my side the whole time, and with Philip coming through, it’s very exciting. Two weeks ago, to ride a winner at Cheltenham, that was a special day, an absolutely tremendous feeling.

“Philip is basically just riding for me at the moment but in the next few months, he is hoping to start venturing out and he’ll probably start riding out in other yards. He wants to get going properly.

“Cathal has been brilliant. He does a lot of the racing which is a big thing for a smaller yard, for someone to be able to look after everything. He is a big part of it and hopefully in the not too distant future, he’ll take over from me.”

That will be another while yet you’d imagine. Along with Run For Oscar, there are plenty more horses Byrnes has to look forward to this year, not least Blazing Khal, who he still believes can be his first Grade 1 winner since 2014.

“He just had another little small setback so we were held up a bit. He was back riding out this week but it is going to be the far side of Christmas now before he’ll be out. But however long it takes, we’re looking forward to him.

“He is going to stay over hurdles this year. I don’t really have a plan for him yet, we’ll see how he goes.

“The horse he beat twice in Cheltenham last season (Gelino Bello) went and won his Grade 1 at Aintree, so we can be hopeful about our fella.

“We’ve got a few nice four-year-olds coming along. There’s a Getaway, a Mahler, a Court Cave, a Westerner and they’ll all go down the bumper route.

“We’re excited to see what they can do.”