A Morning With Amy Murphy

While many 24-year-olds are still pondering future career paths, Amy Murphy has long had her heart set on training racehorses and, having been issued her licence back in August, has made an eye-catching start to her dream job. At the time of writing she had saddled 18 runners–Flat and jumps combined–with seven of them coming home in front for a winning strike-rate any established trainer would be proud to own. Britain's youngest trainer, who has set up at Hamilton Stables in Newmarket, says, “From an early age this was always what I wanted to do. School couldn't have got in the way more for me.” She was no doubt aided and abetted in her passion for racing by the fact that her father, Paul, has bred a select but talented band of National Hunt horses at the Murphy family's Wychnor Park Stud in Staffordshire. “Whenever dad had a runner I was always sick that day so I could go to the races,” Murphy continues. “But he told me I had to get some sort of education before I went into racing so I somehow persuaded him to let me go to Hartpury Collegeto take the equine science course.” Proper hands-on experience followed, with stints as a barn leader for Tom Dascombe before a winter spent in the employment of the doyenne of lady trainers, Gai Waterhouse, in Sydney.

“I'll be forever grateful to Tom Dascombe for the opportunity he gave me. I decided I wanted to go to Australia to see how things were done differently over there so I went to Gai Waterhouse and there's no better person to learn from. She was extremely good to me–I was only there for a winter and I was travelling horses to Melbourne and to Magic Millions and I was really lucky to be able to learn such a lot from Gai in such a short space of time. I was also lucky with the horses I rode, one of them being [multiple Group winner] Sweet Idea (Aus) (Snitzel {Aus}).”
A return to England meant a job with another master educator, not just of horses but also of future trainers, Luca Cumani, whose previous employees include Christophe Clement, Marco Botti, David Simcock and Ed Walker. Murphy's associations with top-class horses also continued, as she was the regular rider of Postponed (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) before he left Cumani's Bedford House Stables.

She says, “I came home to work for Mr Cumani as pupil assistant and after just over a year in that job, Matt Cumani decided he was going to train in Australia so I was offered the assistant's job and I had three absolutely fantastic years in the role. What a master to learn from. It's the small things with him that make such a difference.” Murphy has packed a great deal into her short life to date and it would be easy to mistake her for someone way beyond her years. It's still dark as we meet on a freezing morning and we head straight across town from her yard in pursuit of two of her jumps string on Newmarket's schooling ground known as The Links. Despite a thick frost, an all-weather strip with hurdles and steeplechase fences means that the few National Hunt trainers in the town can continue to work their horses even in the grip of a cold snap. Murphy is assured and friendly as she directs her staff and regular jumps jockey Jack Quinlan from the ground, with her tiny Labrador puppy Milo tucked in her jacket to keep him warm.

As her father's homebred Mercian Prince (Ire) (Midnight Legend {GB}) pings over the row of hurdles in front of us she declares, “I don't think I could have him in better form.” She's right. The following day the 6-year-old is sent off favourite at Sandown for the 32Red Handicap Chase and records his second win on the bounce for Murphy–an important victory for a young trainer on a Saturday Grade 1 card. Mercian Prince's win comes just over a week after Murphy's first Listed success with the mare Kalane (Ire) (Kalanisi {Ire}), again over fences, at Doncaster. With such decent backing from her family's nice team of homebreds, it would be understandable if the trainer was to concentrate on the jumps but this is not her plan. “People have said to me 'Why would you set up in Newmarket?', but I absolutely love the place. Most of my experience is on the Flat,” she says. “Don't get me wrong, I love both codes equally, but the Flat is predominantly where I'm going. Equally, I've had some fantastic jumpers sent my way which I wouldn't want to turn away.

“Dad's had an amazing amount of success from a small broodmare band, breeding the likes of Mad Max (GB) (Kayf Tara {GB}), Carole's Legacy (GB) (Sir Harry Lewis) and Pendra (Ire) (Old Vic {GB}), and to have some of those sorts of horses coming through our hands is wonderful. We have Kalane's 4-year-old full-brother heading over from Ireland next week.” Among the jumpers in the stable is a youngster who must qualify as the largest thoroughbred in training in Newmarket. At 18 hands, the 5-year-old Pellinor (GB) (Kayf Tara {GB}) is a sight to behold and he will attract plenty of interest when he makes it to the racecourse as he is the first foal of Paul Murphy's nine-time winner Carole's Legacy.

One way in which Murphy has put her Flat experience to good use is with her first winner on the level, Shan Dun na nGall (Ire) (Shantou), whom she bought from the stable of leading jumps trainer Gordon Elliott in November for just £3,500. Less than a month later, the 6-year-old, known by the slightly easier stable name of 'Sean', became her first Flat winner at Chelmsford on Dec. 1 and he reinforced his record nine days later when winning over two miles at Newcastle. Making those victories sweeter still was the fact that Sean was ridden in both wins by Murphy's partner, Lemos de Souza, whom she met while working for Cumani. The Brazilian is now a vital part of her daily training operation.

“To have someone of Lemos's calibre with me in my first year of training is fantastic,” she admits. “It's not just the work-riding, we bounce ideas off each other hourly, and it's a great confidence boost for me to have his opinion. The only thing we have argued about has been a name for our puppy.” Currently, the yard of 19 horses is truly one for all seasons. Alongside the eight jumpers, there's an array of Flat horses, rising from just-broken juveniles to older campaigners recruited from recent horses-in-training sales with the help of agent Matt Coleman, who has shown his faith in his new client by taking a share in a horse with her.

“When I decided to set up I didn't want to just have a yard full of yearlings so my main focus was to buy some older horses to get me up and running,” Murphy explains, and one horse her eye keeps drifting back to as we walk through the yard is a good-looking son of Kodiac (GB) named Thaqaffa (Ire) who was bought from Shadwell in October for 17,000gns. “Of the older horses, I'm really looking forward to running Carnival King (Ire) (Arcano {Ire}) and Thaqaffa. Carnival King is a horse we bought from Brian Meehan's with a rating of 88. He's been on holiday for two months and has just come back in this week. Hopefully he can be our flagbearer on the Flat and take us to some of the bigger meetings. Thaqaffa is the young pretender. He's rated 80 and hopefully he will take the next step up and progress.”

In the meantime, Murphy's name is quickly becoming bandied about as a trainer to follow. It will have done her no harm to have persuaded her father to lease Mercian King (Ire) (Robin Des Pres {FR}) to the Thoroughbred Club, the young wing of the Thoroughbred Breeders'Association, for members aged 18 to 30. When he became her first ever winner on Nov. 15, Murphy was able to please all 160 of his owners in one go. A job well done, and one which is likely to continue in a similar vein.