Patience pays off for a ‘giddy’ local syndicate

ASK Gabriel Walsh what it is like to own a winner at the Galway Races and he laughs as he remembers the giddy excitement among the youthful members of the Arragh Will You Stop syndicate when Operation Houdini romped home on a memorable September evening six years ago.

A little reluctant at first, Milltown native Walsh was persuaded to join a nine man syndicate mostly made up of young, enthusiastic students to purchase the horse from Davey Fitzgerald in Co Limerick two years earlier.

Operation Houdini produced the magic to win back-to-back handicaps at the September meetings in Galway in 2008 and 2009, and was controversially demoted to second place at the Cork National due to “deemed interference” three fences out in November 2009.

Walsh had taken a break from owning horses for a few years before his nephew got in touch in 2006 and he admits he was “dubious at the beginning” when he was asked to join up with a group of students to form a new syndicate.

“We had four children in college at the time and I had taken a break due to the unpredictability of the game. But the students kept ringing me, they wanted to buy a horse from Kildare,” he says.

After their first win with Operation Houdini, some of the students were convinced they were on to a gravy train. “If you have too many in a syndicate, some would want to run a horse every week and others would want to rest him,” he says. “It’s all about patience, but when a group of students start winning it’s hard to preach patience to them!

“These young lads were very interested in horse racing, but young lads have no patience. It was brilliant to win in Galway and we got a fantastic reception from the local crowd. The horses have been lucky for me, but it is just an interest. Let nobody tell you that you are going to make a fortune out of owning a racehorse. You need to give the horse time.”

The nine man syndicate members went their own way shortly afterwards, but – teaming up with long-term colleague Jim Murphy – Gabriel enjoyed another winner with Aerlite Supreme in a maiden hurdle at Ballybrit last October.

Based in Kilconly for the past 31 years, Walsh first got involved in horse racing over two decades ago when he bought a horse called Parson’s Placid, which finished second in a handicap hurdle at Gowran Park. He kept the horse at the family farm in Kilconly, to the delight of his four young children at the time.

“I remember Jimmy Glynn, a friend of mine in Tuam, had a horse and told me to buy this mare called Parson’s Placid. I decided to breed from her, but that proved unsuccessful. Since then, I have been lucky with the horses, but you need a bit of luck in anything in life,” he said.

Within a couple of years, he formed a syndicate called The Maktoum Brothers with Tom Burke and brothers Pat and John Farrell.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.