THE sliding doors moment is a term that has become popular in modern language. A seemingly inconsequential moment that transpires to have significant consequences.

A racehorse’s career is full of sliding doors moments. It’s quite literally the nature of the beast. Derby contender White Birch is a good example.

Roger O’Callaghan bought the son of Ulysses as a foal from Cheveley Park at the December Sale in 2020 with the aim of pinhooking him. However when he went back to Newmarket for Book 2, the offers didn’t match his valuation, so the colt came back to Mullingar.

Shortly after, George Murphy approached O’Callaghan about buying a yearling, on the off chance he might have something he liked for his family’s operation in Upton, Co Cork. O’Callaghan recommended this grey colt and as it transpired, Murphy was in the right place at the right time.

“We liked him a lot and he always showed us plenty,” Murphy recalls now. “We were always happy and excited with what he was showing us. He was a very tall two-year-old. He wasn’t weak but just with his size, we wanted to give him plenty of time and not to be rushing him.

“That’s why we waited until the back end of last year to run him. We just wanted to give him every chance.”

White Birch ran with promise on his debut at Naas, fifth in a one-mile maiden on heavy ground.

Murphy and his father John were happy with that. They knew he’d improve for the run, fitness wise and experience wise and he did that significantly on his next start at Dundalk, bolting up by six and a half lengths. Robbie Colgan rode him there and he got off him and said he could have gone around again. He felt the colt could be anything.

Modus operandi

Here lies a second set of sliding doors. Like many operations, the Murphys’ modus operandi is to trade horses, get out when the graph tips to a new high peak. The state of the business often renders that decision to be easily made but while the phone rang and offers came through, they wanted to see if they could sell him to keep him in the yard, the best of both worlds.

“There was serious interest in him,” George says now. “I can’t say how grateful I am that his current owner went ahead and bought him, and then left him with us.

“You never know for sure what way a horse is going to go, whether they can live up to their potential but we were always very keen on this colt, and it was great that we were able to keep him. For that, I am hugely thankful to his owner and I’m just delighted the horse is living up to his potential now.”

White Birch’s current owner is Chantal Regalado-Gonzalez. Her red and yellow silks are very well recognised in Irish racing through the exploits of the likes of Zhukova, Iridessa and Oaks heroine Qualify.

She also has an established relationship with the Murphys. Big Time was the first horse she bought off them and he went ever so close to landing the Group 1 Phoenix Stakes as a two-year-old, coming up to 10 years ago now.

Since then the Murphys have had further success for Regalado-Gonzalez with the likes of Charterhouse, War Diary and Marlborough Sounds, and so there is a precedent and a trust built up, and that may well have been a factor for the owners.

Whatever the risk was in taking on this colt after a sole maiden win, it has paid off in spades thus far.

“I think it would be silly to say we were confident that we would win the Ballysax when we went up to Leopardstown but we really liked this horse and thought he was very good at home,” Murphy says, taking up the story from this season. “Shane Foley had ridden him in a few pieces of work and he was confident he was a very, very good horse. Niall McCullagh had ridden him as well and he felt the same.

“We were hopeful of a big run. I thought he’d be in the frame but when he went and won, it certaintly wasn’t a shock to us.”

White Birch was a 22/1 shot on the day and probably didn’t get the credit he deserved given a lot of the talk centred around the much hyped favourite Alexandroupolis, who faded back to third. Then again, White Birch didn’t even have a Derby entry at the time. In fact, he had no big-race entries.

He does now.

Stepping stone

The natural stepping stone for a Ballysax winner is to go back for the Derby Trial previously well known as the Derrinstown over the same trip and same course, but the Murphys had other ideas.

“I suppose we started talking about Epsom then,” Murphy says. “Going back to Leopardstown was a good option but from an experience point of view, I just thought going to York would be beneficial to him.

“If he wasn’t going to handle a noisy and big atmosphere, I thought I’d prefer it to happen in York rather than Epsom. That was the decision we came to with the owners, and all the time the goal was to gain further experience and education for the horse.

“Look you always want to win but I was just delighted with the way he ran to finish second. Things didn’t go 100% right for him in the race but he still proved that he is a very good horse and that was what I was most happy about.

“Maybe in the back of my head, I was wondering was the heavy ground a factor at Leopardstown. Did that make a big difference to him?

“So I was delighted that he was able to compete on proper fast ground, and in doing so, proved he was a very good horse, a horse that could go for a Derby.”

Grew up

It wasn’t a sliding doors moment that got George Murphy into racing. In fact it was more likely he would go that direction than not given he grew up around horses. He competed to a very high level in show jumping when he was younger and went on to ride winners on the track.

He was 13 when his father trained Newmill to win the Queen Mother Champion Chase (2006) but the operation has since migrated almost all attention to flat racing, John citing that taking that strategy was more business savvy for trading horses to an international market.

While John’s name remains on the card, it’s very much a family-run business, with his brother Jim largely running the breeding arm of the operation, Highfort Stud.

That provides the team with stock which they can filter to profit from at various stages, with some going to the sales and some going into training.

John and George also work the sales and use other contacts to source horses.

“Our business is predominantly trading the horses,” Murphy says. “We own the majority ourselves or with partners, and I suppose we just found there’s a far more international market with the flat horses and more people to buy them at every level so we turned our focus to that. We still have jumps horses and will trade away with them, but the main focus is on the flat.

“We always try and buy yearlings, and Dad has always done well at sourcing them, you’re always trying to get a better quality. Hopefully we’re getting a few nicer ones now. That’s the main basis of the business, you are always hoping you find a good horse.

“We’ve probably around 30 horses in training and that is a number I like at the moment. We’re happy where we are at.”

Trade

When you have 30 horses and have to trade most of your good ones at various stages of the season, end of season results can be volatile, but bar last year, the Murphys had sent out over 10 winners a season for five of the six previous terms and that is a good return.

“I think we had some nice horses last year but most of them were two-year-olds, the likes of White Birch, and you’re not going to push them to get them out just for the sake of it,” Murphy explains.

“The three-year-olds we had probably weren’t a great bunch and that’s just the way it can go in our business - when you’re buying in a bunch and selling a bunch every year, you’re going to have a quiet one here and there, they can’t all be fast unfortunately.

“There is no doubt it’s tough going in Ireland. Maybe sometimes, you’d be going to the races thinking you’d love it to be easier, but generally speaking, I don’t think it’s a bad thing.

“The competition here means we probably have the best product in the world and that’s the reason the two-year-olds and three-year-olds are so sought after worldwide. If they can go and compete on the track here, they generally don’t have a problem competing in any other jurisdiction.”

Variance

The Murphys already have four winners on the board this term, so the variance is reverting back to type, not that it overly bothers Murphy, who comes across very much like his father at the races - level headed, relaxed and laid back.

Given he personally placed a huge amount of faith in White Birch, you wouldn’t have blamed him for doing handstands around the Leopardstown parade ring after the Ballysax, but despite his relatively young age he’s already well accustomed to how this game goes.

“I suppose I’ve grown up with it,” he says. “There is no point in getting too high. Tis’ a good game to level you off. I’d seen it a lot in the jumps game. I don’t know how the jumps trainers deal with the injuries, not necessarily the big injuries but the small ones, just when you have a horse ready to go.

“I’d say that is just as much a reason for Dad moving us towards the flat. Of course you still get injuries and bad days, but you try to stay positive and think of the good days, that there will always be more to come.”

Given the size of their operation and the requirement to trade horses to make the business viable, it’s fair shout to say that White Birch is that once-in-a-career type horse, a bona fide Derby horse; the right colt, developing at the right time with the right credentials to compete seriously in still the most revered test of a thoroughbred.

The sliding doors type horse.

“I have no experience of Epsom myself other than what I hear of the track being a daunting place for a horse but White Birch is a super mover, very well balanced, has a great brain and he is so laid back,” Murphy explains. “All going well, we’ll travel him over a couple of days before and he’ll settle in nicely.

“It’s fabulous to have a horse as good as him and again, I can’t be more thankful to the owners.

“I’m trying not to think too much about the race at this stage to be honest but obviously it would be amazing if it happened, for the owners, for us, for the team here which we’ve had around us for so long - the likes of Billy Callaghan and Sinead O’Sullivan, it would be class.”