O’Flaherty hooked on racing
Canterbury horseman Jesse O’Flaherty is in his first season of training and he is loving every moment of it.
“I just love the training and selling, I love the drive of it,” he said. “Training is quite an addiction, and I don’t feel like it is work because I love doing it.”
O’Flaherty has teamed up with his former mentor Brian Court, with the pair entering a training partnership nearly 20 years after O’Flaherty first worked for the Broadfield trainer.
“I worked for Brian 18 years ago and I was his foreman,” O’Flaherty said.
While young, O’Flaherty didn’t lack experience, having ridden since he was a child, and with the support of his parents he rose through the ranks of riding at pony club to competing around the country in eventing and show jumping, and he has continued with the latter discipline in recent years.
“I started riding when I was five,” O’Flaherty said. “My father, Bryce, used to ride and he supported my riding career, and he used to take me all over the country as a kid.
“I had a pony, I hunted, show jumped, evented and had a couple of quite successful show hacks and competed at Horse of the Year.
“I evented when I was a teenager but in the last few years I have mainly show jumped. I was quite lucky and got an ex-World Cup horse off a friend and I have done quite a bit of show jumping in the last few seasons.”
While he enjoyed his time working for Court, O’Flaherty wanted to explore other career opportunities, but always felt the pull of racing and fortuitous circumstances led to a full-circle moment when rejoining Court’s barn.
“I went away and did some farrier work and landscaping and I was showjumping,” O’Flaherty said. “I was doing some horses at home for Marsh Racing and then they shut their stable at Riccarton.
“Brian and Leslie went away, so I went around there to help out while they were away, and Brian said he was getting to the point where he wanted to step back a little bit.
“I have joined back up with them and I am grateful to Brian and Leslie for the opportunity to go into partnership with them.
“It was like returning home. I get on well with them, they treat me like family.”
While Court and O’Flaherty have a small team of racehorses in work, their business model is focused more on producing young stock for overseas markets and rehabilitating racehorses.
“We are both business-orientated and produce quite a few young horses to sell. While we have got the racing ones, we have sold quite a few to Hong Kong,” O’Flaherty said.
“We have bought quite a few from Karaka to get up and going and we have quite a good connection with Hong Kong, so they will be going through the ranks to potentially end up over there.
“We also have a lot of thoroughbreds and standardbreds for rehab, and they come to use the aqua walker.”
While their racing team is small, Court and O’Flaherty have a few racehorses in work and enjoyed their first win together courtesy of War Court (NZ) (War Decree) on Riccarton’s synthetic track at the end of April.
“It was great to get that first win,” O’Flaherty said. “He (War Court) loves the poly and he goes very well fresh-up.”
The stable will return to race on the surface on Wednesday where they will be represented by Queen Courtney in the Cup Week Hospitality On Sale Soon Maiden (1600m) and Correction in the Grand National Tickets On Sale Now Rating 75 (1600m).
Queen Courtney (NZ) (War Decree) has placed in her last two starts on the track and O’Flaherty is hopeful she can break through for an elusive maiden win at the midweek meeting.
“She kept us guessing at the start but since going over a bit further distance and putting on the blinkers, she has stepped it up a bit more and her last two starts she has tried her heart out,” O’Flaherty said. “Hopefully over a similar distance she is going to kick on and do it again.”
O’Flaherty is also upbeat about the prospects of Correction (NZ) (War Decree), who he shares in the ownership with his parents and family friends, and he said he particularly enjoys seeing the enjoyment the gelding gives his father.
“We put Correction back into work to give Mum and Dad and some close friends a bit of fun,” O’Flaherty said. “Dad follows racing hugely and giving him an interest in a horse to follow is great.
“He (Correction) is racing out of his grade on Wednesday, but he was going to either be on the ballot or in a bigger field, so we thought he is an older horse and he needs a bit further distance. We have put a senior jockey on in Terry Moseley and he has had a fair bit of success with him.”
O’Flaherty is enjoying his time training and said he has been able to incorporate some of his sport horse background into his team’s training.
“Training racehorses and showjumpers is all about fitness and I use a lot of the techniques from jumping,” he said. “I do quite a bit of that (jumping) with the racehorses to give them a bit of variety in their life.”
