SoBe Hair Salon of Morrisons Quay Cork City have announced that they are the SOLE Hair Sylists for TV3’s Xpose Live which is taking place in the Silver Springs Moran Hotel CORK City between May 14th – May 16th. We here at FixIt4U are delighted to have such a prestigious Hair Salon as a Member.  Congratulations to Pam Morrissey and all the team at SoBe Brown.

By Donn McClean

Strange thing for the son of a legendary racehorse trainer: as a child, Ciaran O’Toole wasn’t that gone on horses. He had a bad fall when he was six, and didn’t sit up on one again until he was 12, despite maximum paternal encouragement. He’s not sure why. Perhaps it was the fall, perhaps it was the fact that there were always horses around, maybe he took them for granted, perhaps it was down to the fact that he was so interested in cars. Still is.

He enjoyed the good days all right, the days when his father Mick was bringing horses over to Cheltenham and coming back with the booty. Two consecutive Sun Alliance Hurdles with Davy Lad and Parkhill in 1975 and 1976, Bit Of A Jig in the 1976 Stayers’ Hurdle, Mac’s Chariot in the 1977 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, Gay Tie in the 1978 National Hunt Chase under amateur rider John Fowler, Chinrullah in the 1980 Champion Chase, although they lost that one on a technicality, and Hartstown in the 1981 Supreme Novices’. Then there was Davy Lad in the 1977 Gold Cup. That was a good day. Of course, they didn’t have jockeys’ agents in those days but, even if they did, Dessie Hughes would still have been in the saddle.

Ciaran O’Toole is to Irish jockeys’ agents what Hoover is to vacuum cleaners, his success in evidence on the walls of the house, just outside Kildare, that he shares with wife Aisling and kids Catherine and Michael. There were a couple of early-adopting agents in the UK all right in the early 1990s, Dave Roberts and his ilk, but it wasn’t until O’Toole and Charlie Swan between them decided that if one of them concentrated on booking the rides, thus allowing the other more time to ride, it might be an altogether more efficient way of going on.

The path from trainer’s son, occasional jockey, half-aspirant trainer to top jockeys’ agent has been long and meandering. After regaining his interest and his bottle, O’Toole had his first ride on a racecourse and his first winner at the age of 16. Unusually, all of his first 20 rides finished in the first four.

“I think that was more down to the quality of the horses than the quality of the rider,” he laughs. “My father encouraged me hugely, and I’m sure he was putting me up on good horses so that I would enjoy it, encourage me to keep at it, and it worked. I was never good enough to turn professional, but I really enjoyed riding, I enjoyed being around racing people. There are no better people in the world than racing people.”

Tom Taaffe and Brendan Sheridan were getting going as riders then, O’Toole’s peers, and the craic was good. He went over to California for a couple of summers during the early 1980s to ride work for John Gosden, now top British trainer, and John Sullivan, a Kerryman by birth but who had been in California since 1941. Then, when he was 19, he joined David Nicholson as assistant trainer.

“I had a great time at The Duke’s,” he recalls. “Charter Party was there at the time, and Very Promising and a whole clutch of good horses. I had a few rides for him myself, I rode a couple of winners, but no major ones.”

After Nicholson, O’Toole joined the late Alec Stewart in Newmarket for the Mtoto years, during which time he struck up a good friendship with Walter Swinburn and the Hills twins, Richard and Michael, and Paul Eddery. Things were good in Newmarket, a group of 20-something-year-olds together, the Arabs were spending plenty of money and there were lots of good horses around Newmarket, Zilzal, Indian Skimmer, Reference Point, Doyoun, Mtoto himself.

“I didn’t really have a career path in my mind at the time,” says O’Toole now. “It was in my mind that I was gaining experience with the possibility of going back to be assistant to my father, or of going out on my own as a trainer, but I suppose when you are in your 20s you are just enjoying life. I met some great people in Newmarket though, people with whom I am still very friendly. If you travel, you will always meet people who will benefit you in the future, and I have met lots of fantastic people on my travels.”

A stint in South Africa later, he came back to Ireland in 1990 with no idea about what he would do. He couldn’t afford to set up as a trainer on his own, and he was pottering around a bit with his dad, riding a little when, on his way back from Summerhill point-to-point when the car in which he was travelling crashes, turned over, a couple of vertebrae broken, riding career over. He was in a cast for six months.

The accident focussed his mind, made him think about what he was going to do. He got friendly with Charlie Swan, and came up with the idea that he would help him do his rides, try to get him riding even more winners than he was at the time, break the Irish all-time record.

“Charlie had a lot less to gain than I had,” says Ciaran. “He was already champion jockey. But he thought it was a good idea, he let me have a go, and I am eternally grateful to Charlie for that. Once I had Charlie, I was able to approach other riders from a position of strength. I got Frannie Woods after that. Frannie had had a handful of winners that year, a year later he had 30, a year after that he had about 70, so it looked to be working for the people who obviously had the ability, but maybe didn’t have the time to book their rides.

“I wasn’t very popular for a while. In those days, if a lad rode out for somebody, he accepted that the trainer’s horses were his horses to ride. But I was ringing up asking trainers to put one of my boys up. Trainers found it helpful when they got used to it, but some of the other jockeys weren’t too happy about it. It’s like anything that’s new, you will meet resistance, but it’s all fine now.”

There are other very good Irish agents now, but O’Toole still has the largest stable, first mover advantage, and he looks after some of the top riders in the country, Barry Geraghty and Paul Carberry and Paul Townend and Paddy Flood over jumps, Fran Berry and Kevin Manning and Colm O’Donoghue and Rory Cleary on the flat.

Cheltenham this year could be very good to O’Toole, his lads have big chances in the big races, Go Native in the Champion Hurdle, Cooldine in the Gold Cup, Pandorama, Dunguib and a plethora of others. He has had some good days, some lucrative days, days when his riders have gone through the card, days when his riders have amassed significant prize money. Even so, ask him what his best moment in racing, and he has no hesitation: still Davy Lad, Gold Cup day 1977.

DMC 100227

During his record breaking walk last year, Bart Murphy met many cancer patients and sadly, all are not with us today. The harsh reality is that one in every four us will have cancer during our life. This year Bart plans to walk 2000 miles (another walking record) to raise funds for St Lukes Hospital, Dublin. To achieve this challenging 2000 mile target, Bart will walk 25 miles a day for 80 days.

As the main sponsor for this years walk, FixIt4U.ie is proud to be assisting Bart in his endeavours and we urge all to help Bart through sponsorship & donations, particularly in the present harsh economic climate.

This years walk will start at the Stand House Hotel in the Curragh on the 21st of April at 8am and will finish in Kilcullen some 14 miles later. During Bart’s first walk from the Curragh to and around Punchestown racecourse he will be joined by twenty of some of Irelands best known jockeys & horse trainers.

At 4pm on 9th June 2010, Bart will walk from the GPO to Leinster House where he will be joined by Minister Micheal Martin and over thirty TD’s drawn from all parties.

Bart is planning to walk in every town and village in Leinster and every street and district in Dublin. The final leg of Bart’s journey will take him to Foulksmill, Co. Wexford on July 10th, where I’m sure Bart will be ready for a well earned rest.

Bart is hoping that local communities, schools and sports clubs will help to raise much needed funds in aid of St Lukes Hospital.

In an attempt to promote Bart’s Walk for Cancer, FixIt4U.ie are sponsoring series of Poker Classics which will be held throughout Leinster and will be attended by some of Ireland top Jockeys.

If you wish to support Bart’s Walk For Cancer, either by walking and/or helping to raise much needed funds, please contact Bart on 086 0312772 or 01 6275368.