Punchestown Festival 'everything' to local cross country specialist trainer Maher

This feature was originally published in the Kildare Post's 32-page Punchestown supplement on Thursday April 19. Pick up your copy in stores throughout Kildare to see more great pieces like this.

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"The boys were saying to me 'Peter there's other racecourses you can train winners on', and I said 'no, this is the only place to get the winners,” remarked trainer Peter Maher in the parade ring after the opening race of the 2017 Punchestown Festival.

The Newtown-based handler was speaking to this newspaper after watching Enniskillen win the Sean Breen Memorial Steeplechase to start the festival on a perfect note, and his love affair with the local track will continue once again this year.

“Everything would revolve around Punchestown,” Maher told the Kildare Post ahead of the festival, and that’s why the wins on the track just a few miles down the road is all the more special.

Maher will be focusing on cross country races once again this year, aiming Enniskillen, Mtada Supreme and Ballyboker Bridge at the five-day festival. He is pragmatic about everything in his occupation, insisting that he knows he is ‘a big fish in a small pond’. Small fish can often swim up the biggest rivers however, and Maher is not short of ambition when it comes to his prospects. While he concedes that this year might not be the year, he has one big dream: win all three banks races at the Punchestown Festival.

He certainly has form backing up his lofty ambition too. Mtada Supreme, Enniskillen and Ballyboker Bridge have all won in Punchestown before, with the latter winning on two occasions at the venue. Maher believes that they weren’t too far off completing the hattrick of victories in one festival last year, but an absence of luck went against them outlines the trainer.

“Three banks in one year,” Maher states firmly on what would constitute a good Punchestown Festival.

“I’ve trained a banks winner every year for the last three or four years, so there’s no reason why we wouldn’t do it, and our stocks have been getting better and better. It’s nothing to do with being pushy or bally – I nearly did it last year. Ballyboker beats Mtada and Mtada beats Enniskillen, so if they had have got clear runs they were all in great form and you could see that.

“He was actually the worst of my horses going believe it or not,” Maher revealed when talking about Enniskillen.

“I actually should have won the three banks races last year, but the way things happened… that’s racing. Ballyboker broke a little bone in his knee at the second fence; Mtada Supreme certainly looked like he was going to win the La Touche and he ran out. It certainly looked like he was running the best, but you can’t count all your chickens before they hatch.”

All-rounder

There are few trainers who dabble specifically in training cross country horses. Maher is quick to point out that he is much more than a cross country specialist and has had wins at the Galway Festival and on the flat in Down Royal, but he is a ‘hunting man’ and cross country remains his first and strongest love.

“The racing is gone very competitive at the minute,” he notes.

“Now, I’ve had a winner at the Galway Festival on the flat over a mile and I’ve had a bumper winner and I’ve had chase winners. I’m well able to train any type of horse, it’s just cross country that I have a love for because I’m a hunting man myself. I served my time with PP Hogan, and that’s where Enda Bolger served his time. I enjoyed the cross country there and I just took to it.”

The business out in Ashfield Stud is constantly growing. A team of trainers currently look after 30 horses, and work focuses on everything from pre-training to race training. Taking in horses that have been bought at the sales and then breaking them in to ensure they can manage a greater workload when they go elsewhere is another key facet of their services.

‘Throwaways’ have helped Maher and his stables on the racing front, taking in horses who were let go by bigger yards and turning them into winners. Mtada Supreme and Ballyboker Bridge are two such examples, and Maher feels it highlights his yard’s ability to deliver.

“When we get the right horse, we deliver here,” he states.

“I’ve trained a winner at Punchestown Festival every year, and there’s not too many of the big trainers that can say that. I know where I am in the pecking order; I understand I’m a small fish in a big pond, but at the end of the day when we get a horse we deliver. All our good winners have been throwaways from the big yards. Mtada was a throwaway; Ballyboker was a throwaway… we patch them up and get a good win out of them.”

Increased competitiveness

Maher foresees a more competitive cross country sector in the coming years due to the establishment of more trainers in that area of horse racing. Enda Bolger remains the big name in cross country fare, but there are plenty more trainers sprouting up who have turned their hand at gaining success on the scene.

It’s all for the good of the steeplechase in Punchestown concludes Maher.

“It’s not just me and Bolger at it all the time now.”

“There’s plenty of them turning up now [trainers] and as long as the cross country is interesting and it’s a good race and continues, because it’s a great tradition in Punchestown and it would be a shame for it to go. That’s why I started running my horses back again because it was always just Enda Bolger’s horses winning and it was going to go because nobody was taking them on. That’s why we started running, then we started winning and getting more confidence and then we started getting better horses.”

With just 24 runners this season so far, Maher is likely to increase that figure by at least 25 per cent in the five days at Punchestown. He isn’t lying when he says ‘Everything would revolve around Punchestown’.