JUST to the left of the section where horses are taken out onto the track at Cheltenham, there is a small area where all the stable staff watch the action unfold.

It’s probably the best place to watch a race at Cheltenham. You get trainers and owners down there as well, but it just hits different to the guys and girls who look after these horses every day.

The area is just adjacent to the last flight. It feels like if you shout loud enough the jockeys would hear you as they whizz by, but they almost certainly can’t. It doesn’t stop anybody from trying though.

It was here that Padraig Roche stood last Tuesday week to watch his first ever runner in Cheltenham, and in Britain.

For the previous three days, Roche had ridden Brazil himself on the track in front of him. He’d felt his horse become happier with his surroundings each time. He was fit and well, peaking at the most important time of all, and his trainer knew it.

Yet, when you’re standing on the other side of the white rail, you’re just the same as the fella or girl you’re standing beside because there is nothing else you can do. That feeling of helplessness.

Roche watched his horse track the hot favourite and much hyped Gaelic Warrior early. He winced when he got hampered at the second hurdle, after a concertina effect from the right jump of the Mullins horse knocked another horse into his path. It halted his momentum and knocked him to the outside. Despite how early it was in the race, in his heart of hearts, his trainer thought that might be it. Everything has to go right at Cheltenham he felt, and that lost ground was vital.

Still, Mark Walsh had Brazil back on an even keel and he was back up to duel with Gaelic Warrior, whose right jumping tendency was becoming more erratic, by the time they came down the hill. When that horse kicked a length clear off the turn, Walsh didn’t worry, it gave him an opportunity to come up the inside, away from Gaelic Warrior’s right hand side. Bingo.

Coming to the last, Gaelic Warrior, with no deterrent, jumped even further to his right, almost facing Roche and co looking on, while Brazil jumped straight and true, stayed on up the hill strongly and gained the verdict by a short head. Magic.

“Sure it was unbelievable,” Roche asserts. “I was down there watching it with Jody McGarvey and a load of other Irish, we went wild - I’d say there are pictures to document that!

“It’s some feeling but I suppose it’s only now that you get to appreciate the winner in full. I was only reading back over all the messages this week. It was all a bit of a blur at the time.”

Unique

Every Cheltenham Festival winner is unique, not to mention your first one, but Brazil was unique for so many other reasons as well.

Padraig is embraced by J.P. McManus in the winners enclosure \ Healy Racing

As mentioned he was Roche’s first runner and winner in Britain. He was ridden by one of his best friends in Mark Walsh. He came from Ballydoyle where he and Walsh learned so much as a pair of 14-year-olds spending a summer working for Aidan O’Brien. He was owned by J.P. and Noreen McManus who have done so much for the Roche family. But perhaps the most unique part of it all was that it was 20 years on from when Padraig led in Like-A-Butterfly after she won the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.

He watched the race from the very same space, before running down the long chute to greet Charlie Swan and the mare, to lead them back on the most coveted walk in jumps racing. This time, he waited for his horse to come to him at the halfway point of that walk, basking in the glory of his own achievement.

“Khayrawani was the first horse I saw win for us at Cheltenham but I was too young to be leading him in, I was walking up beside him,” he recalls. “Like-A-Butterfly, I used to ride her out before I went to school. I will never forget the feeling of leading her back in. She was the favourite and the roar was just unbelievable.

“Cheltenham is just a special place. Everybody wants to be there - owner, trainer, jockey, stable staff - it’s all you want. The feeling I got with Like-A-Butterfly was unbelievable, but Brazil topped it.”

Brazil is a full brother to Capri. He didn’t reach the same heights on the flat as that Irish Derby winner but his previous trainer Aidan O’Brien recommended him as a possible jumping prospect and Roche is grateful to be given the opportunity.

“He’s been as straightforward as you could have wished for from day one. He took the jumping like a natural,” the trainer says. “With each run he progressed and he was learning the whole time. He ran in three good maidens and for his last run in those, Simon (Torrens) rode him and he was very happy with him, he thought he’d progress again.

“He went to Naas then, and Mark was delighted with him so we said we’d give him a go in the Boodles. It wasn’t a long-term plan or anything.”

Footsteps

In sending out a Cheltenham Festival winner, Roche was following in the footsteps of his dad Christy, but he has been doing that since day one. Christy Roche is a legend of Irish racing. Multiple champion jockey, multiple classic winning jockey, multiple Grade 1-winning trainer, multiple Cheltenham Festival-winning trainer.

And where Christy went, Padraig followed.

“I remember dad going into Jim Bolger’s when he was first jockey there. I’d be going down with him in the mornings. I’d say I was only four or five at that stage but I remember Jim and Jackie being there and standing on the side of the gallops.

“That was around the time of St Jovite. I remember him winning the Irish Derby with dad in ‘92. And dad went on to Ballydoyle and I remember going there. Dad and mam have been great. Sure it’s only for them that I’m in the position I’m in today.

“Dad has always been there for advice. He was over the moon last week. To be honest, you couldn’t write it, really. For Mark to ride the horse - I’ve been friends with Mark for ages - we went down to Ballydoyle for two summers in a row when we were 14 and 15 and sure then, Mark came to work for dad. And for the winner to be for J.P and Noreen and Frank and Claire, with all they’ve done for me, unbelievable.”

The McManus connection to the Roche family has been long and fruitful. Aside from Like-A-Butterfly and Khayrawani, there were great days with Grimes, Youlneverwalkalone, Le Coudray, Joe Mac and Far From Trouble. It was fitting that Christy’s last winner, Out Of The Loop, came for J.P. and even more so that the same horse was Padraig’s first winner just two months later.

Brazil and Mark Walsh get the better of Gaelic Warrior and Paul Townend to win the Boodles Juvenile Handicap Hurdle at Cheltenham \ Healy Racing

Being the son of a legend and having McManus in your corner is clearly a headstart for any burgeoning trainer, but you still have to deliver and maximise that opportunity. It is just over four years since Out Of The Loop gave him an early breakthrough and Brazil was his 51st winner, from a relatively small team. The ‘Milkey Bar Kid’ (a label from Pat Healy since he was a boy) has done well.

A Cheltenham winner should be cherished for the pure emotions but it’s important for other reasons as well.

“The publicity is unbelievable,” Roche says. “I never expected that - the different people who rang and text me. Hopefully that can help us get more horses and in turn, a better quality of horse, now that people can see what we can do with it.

“I don’t want to sound cocky or anything, but we always thought we could do it. I’ve got great staff and a great set-up on the Curragh. Maybe your confidence would be a little bit higher but I always thought we could do it. The important thing is you’re showing people you can do it.

“We’re still only a small yard here. I’ve about 30 horses and around seven staff members. All the owners have been great and we’re just trying to build it up as we go along. The ambition is to fill as many boxes as we can. The more horses you have the better chance you’ll come across the good ones. We’ve a few two-year-olds for the flat this year as well and you’d be looking forward to that.

“Any trainer will tell you that winning in Ireland is a serious achievement. It’s seven days a week and it’s tough work but we do it because we love it. I wouldn’t go anywhere else. If we have the right horse, we’ve no problem taking anyone on. You have to take on that challenge.”

Own man

While he is strongly identifiable through his dad and the McManus silks, Roche has always set about gaining his own experience and being his own man. Sure his father is always there for advice and recently provided him with a homebred winner in Something Abouther, who was sold on to stay in the yard, but he took the time to go out and learn new things, see how other people do it.

“Becoming a trainer was probably always on my mind to be honest with you,” Roche says. “I was lucky when dad was training he had two very good lads in Paddy Burke and Eddie Doyle and they taught me an awful lot about horses so it was always in the back of my head anyway.

“I suppose everywhere I went before I started, I was looking at the way different people do things. I was in Ballydoyle for two summers, and sure Aidan was brilliant and you’d learn a lot there. I took a year out and I went to Australia for a year where I was staying with Lucy Foster, lord have mercy on her, and I was riding out in Randwick for a while - that was a unique experience.

“When I came home, dad was gone a bit quiet and Conor O’Dwyer was starting to train, so I was with Conor for a couple of years and he was great, and I actually did a couple of months with Kevin Prendergast as well. They were all brilliant people, you’d be learning something the whole time when you were working for those people.”

Signature success

Roche has 11 winners on the board in Ireland this jumps season and he’ll fancy his chances of equalling his previous best tally of 14, and also of securing more signature race success with Brazil, who will get an entry for the Grade 1 Anniversary 4-Y-O Juvenile Hurdle at Aintree and also the talented Slip Of The Tongue, who could be one for one of the big handicap hurdles at the upcoming spring festivals.

A Grade 1 success could be very significant for Brazil, who hasn’t been gelded and would be very interesting proposition at stud, but also for Roche, who will have trained a Cheltenham and Grade 1 winner in just four years training.

And needless to say, he is most definitely in it for the long haul.