YOU will find few tales better to summarise the vicissitudes of racing and remind that even winning the equine lotto may not make one rich.

Even those with a passing interest in racing may tell you that it was Barry Geraghty, along with his ally Warren Ewing, who sourced Constitution Hill.

The foal, little more than half a year on this earth, cost €16,500 – and they spent the same amount on a second one.

Geraghty and Ewing paid as much for a son of Soldier Of Fortune as they did for Constitution Hill, despite concern about the former’s physique.

“Yeah,” Geraghty recalls, “the Soldier Of Fortune was smaller. We took a chance on him. He never saw the track. But we thought we’d robbed one with Constitution Hill.”

Given nearly all of his adult life has been spent as one of the great riders of his generation, Geraghty’s eye for value at the sales is quite something.

Robbed

“We bought [subsequent Gold Cup winner Bobs Worth] as a yearling and we liked him but we definitely didn’t feel like we’d robbed him, unlike Constitution Hill.”

Roughly a year before he bought Constitution Hill, bred in Worcestershire by Sally Noott, Geraghty had ridden Le Prezien to two smart successes in Britain and, as such, knew that Blue Bresil could get good horses.

He and Ewing’s judgement was on the money: at that same sale in 2017, the other five lots by Blue Bresil were knocked down for far higher sums.

“Constitution Hill was a good individual as a foal. We broke him in as a two-year-old and you are only liking him as to what he is doing until he works. But then from the get-go his work was very good.

First day

“The first day I rode him in a piece of work was when Warren brought him to Jim Dreaper’s grass gallop. I was thinking: ‘oh yeah’. The good ones make themselves known.”

When your budget is limited, there are nearly always cons as well as pros, yet Constitution Hill even then, seemed anomalous, as Geraghty explains.

“We bought two at that sale, of course. That wasn’t necessarily the budget but it was the bracket we were working in. You’d always like to be happy with what you buy. I hadn’t the same buzz when I bought Bobs Worth. I liked Bobs Worth. But Constitution Hill was just a really good individual at the price-frame we were at.

“Maybe we’d have gone to 20 grand, I don’t know. If you like them enough, you go a little further, but Mark Dwyer told me years ago that discipline in that game is so important. You have to be able to walk away. A bit like my racing career, you work on instinct.

“He was such a good individual. Plenty of size and scope for a first foal. A good walker, and had the attitude. He was just a nice, quality type.

“The further you go down the money, the harder it is to fish those out. It’s easier to be delighted with a 50-grand foal.”

Ewing reckons he and Geraghty go back about two decades. “I was riding and he was riding but we met really through Paul Carberry, a good friend of mine.”

Ewing, his son Sam a mere nipper back then, had sourced Edmund Kean in 2011 for €5,000. He won his point for the Co Antrim handler at Moira and soon developed into a smart performer for David Pipe. Geraghty saw in Ewing a man he could work with.

“I’d train horses for points and Barry agreed to get involved. We would have a similar way of looking at things and Barry is easy to work with.”

Best we’ve seen

Geraghty and Ewing now agree that Constitution Hill could be the best we’ve seen. Less than a year ago, you could have gotten a starting price of 9/4 about him winning the Supreme. Little did they know back in 2016.

“They have to go the right way,” says Geraghty. “The Soldier Of Fortune didn’t go the right way. They cost the same money but there’s no doubt which one we were happier with. That’s not hindsight.”

Ewing adds: “We sourced a horse that didn’t see the track and another who might be the greatest of all time.”

Geraghty seems to have fallen in love with Constitution Hill partly because of his greatness but also in part because of his demeanour. From the day he brought him home, his three children almost became four. Few, he recalls, are nearly as “amenable”.

Jonathan Burke has ridden against Constitution Hill twice this season. What struck him as much as anything about the horse was how utterly laid-back and nonplussed he was in the parade ring. This was a trait evident from very early.

“I had him here for three years,” Geraghty says. “You saw the kids riding him. Síofra was the eldest. The little lad, Rian, was five when he rode him. Orla was nine. He was an absolute Christian.”

High hopes

In late 2020, Constitution Hill set off for Ulster, and Ewing had high hopes. “Barry would break young horses, send them to me and I’d kick on with them. When he came up here first I was wondering a bit. He was really quiet, so lazy when he was by himself. He was still very backward.

“Then I rode him. The first day I rode him, he was the best three-year-old here and I might have had 15 horses at the time. It was lovely, effortless.

“Right away, we knew he had a lot of speed. There were a couple of half-decent horses and he was playing with them up my woodchip hill.

“I knew he was going to be special because really he was in a different class. I told everyone he was as good as I’d sat on and he was so relaxed about it all.”

Big boys

That April, the big boys were out in force at a point in Tipperary. In division two of the four-year-olds’ maiden, Anyharminasking was well-touted for Donnchadh Doyle. Denis Murphy, Colin Bowe, Sam Curling, Sean Doyle and Matt O’Connor had runners in an 11-strong field.

Constitution Hill was beaten, his first time to compete and he failed to win. Geraghty looks back now with mild indifference. Ewing was – and one senses still is – gutted.

It’s funny how two of us can see the same thing and something very differently. Ewing admits: “Ah sure, he wasn’t fit. Everything had been too easy for him, working with inferior horses.

“I was gutted. You should watch it again! He was three or four lengths clear going to the last but Ben Harvey sat up and could not see a stride.

“Ben ran him across the fence. I’m not sure how he didn’t fall yet for all of that he rallied and should have won!”

The form of the race was boosted just five days later when the winner, Anyharminasking, was sold for €145,000 at the Goffs Punchestown Sale. He joined Jonjo O’Neill and won twice on the track the following season.

A month later Constitution Hill went to the sales at Goffs UK in Doncaster and realised £120,000.

Henderson punt

Nicky Henderson had been told plenty about this Constitution Hill and Michael Buckley, who had procured Brain Power from Ewing, was happy to take a punt.

Ewing adds: “I didn’t have the licence to train. In hindsight, maybe we should have stood our ground and gone for another point with him. But our job is to sell.”

Geraghty concedes: “I phoned Michael Buckley to congratulate him on the way to the airport and I told him I’d rather have the horse than the money, which made Michael happy enough. That’s how it unfolded.”

Both Ewing and Geraghty now realise that this very special horse has confirmed their reputation as leading vendors. What has happened since has been beyond ridiculous, Constitution Hill having hacked up in all of his starts and looking very likely to go off the shortest-priced favourite in the history of the Champion Hurdle.

The two men smile when they relive the celebrations in Cheltenham last March. “Everyone knew where he came from,” says a proud Ewing, Geraghty adding that he had “an apartment in the town and we danced around the place.

“Cheltenham have a video of me doing the commentary of the race; it is absolutely magic to have it.

“Having ridden some superstars and to be standing another in the Cheltenham ring; to be beside (wife) Paula and the kids, all of them having ridden the horse, was brilliant. As Nicky English would say, it was like watching your pet dog win at Cheltenham, to have that level of involvement.”

Has it changed their lives? Ewing is proud that he sold Bold Reflection for £140,000 in November,  the mare winning a Limerick bumper by seven lengths for John McConnell at Christmas under Alex Harvey, a brother of Ben.

Ewing now has three sons of Blue Bresil at home. But how far could Constitution Hill go? “Possibly the best horse ever,” says Ewing, who is sufficiently laid back, like Sam, to be averse to hyperbole.

“He would stay three miles no problem and I would not be surprised if he went Gold Cup the season after next.

“They’ll go down the chasing route next year and his jumping is brilliant: the only mistake he ever made was at the last in his point.

“He has so much scope, so much power under him – so much power.”

Geraghty is a little more cautious about the prospect of Constitution Hill emulating Bobs Worth, both his and Henderson’s last success in the Gold Cup back in 2013.

“That was a point-to-point he should have won, three miles for four-year-olds, and he is out of a King’s Theatre mare, with Supreme Leader in the pedigree too.

“But he is a horse with so much pace, I guess his stamina can be questioned. Time will tell what route they take.”

Back story

What is perhaps a little more special about the story of Constitution Hill is that Buckley, Henderson, Ewing and Geraghty all have such a back-story involving each other when it comes to good horses.

Henderson and Geraghty will never forget the glory they enjoyed together and, if there is one moment during our chat with Geraghty when the Meathman gets a little irritated, it is when recalling the furore in late November when Constitution Hill’s intended seasonal debut at Ascot was ruled out late in the day by his trainer.

After a dire summer of drought, and unseasonable drying that month, Ascot did its best but the ground was nothing like winter soft and Henderson made the logical call. It’s rather forgotten now but Geraghty has not forgotten that criticism of his former boss.

“The thing that frustrates him and probably anyone close to him is simple: it’s all about care and patience. He didn’t run in the Ascot Hurdle because the ground had dried out. It was a no-brainer yet he gets destroyed by the press. Anyone who likes to take a shot will take a shot.

Right decisions

“Anyone knows you have a better chance of getting the trip with your horse career-wise by making the right decisions. You don’t run the gauntlet with something as precious as that.

“He’s a brilliant judge of a horse, buys a beautiful horse and trains them equally well. He won’t run one unless he feels it is right to run one.

“It’s frustrating for anyone as you’d know he’d love to run the horse. He’s training winners the guts of 50 years, Champion Hurdle winners for 40 years and he has to justify his decision making?”

Water under a bridge. But a few more rivers to cross in this incredible story.

This article is taken from The Irish Field Cheltenham Magazine 2023. CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR COPY