Joe Murphy

The Irish Flat season is a matter of weeks away, with the opening day of the season kicking off at the Curragh on March 15, where the €100,000 Irish Lincoln takes centre stage. There will be Classic clues aplenty on April 12, when the 2,000 and 1,000 Guineas Trials, along with the Ballysax Stakes, a key Derby trial, takes place at Leopardstown. TDN Europe's Brian Sheerin has had a look at some of the under-the-radar three-year-olds who could have a big role to play that weekend and indeed for the...

Group 1 winner Cercene will not contest the Breeders' Cup meeting at Del Mar next month and will instead be prepared for her four-year-old season, according to trainer Joe Murphy. She was under consideration for the GI Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf. The daughter of Australia won the G1 Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot. Second in the G3 Athasi Stakes in early May, she ran third in the G1 Irish 1000 Guineas prior to her Royal Ascot heroics. Runner-up to Whirl (Wootton Bassett) in the G1 Nassau Stakes, Cercene...

Joe Murphy has raised the possibility of stable star Cercene travelling to Del Mar for the Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf in November. A winner of the Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot, the Australia filly went on to finish second to Whirl in the Nassau Stakes at Goodwood over a-mile-and-a-quarter before reverting to a mile when fifth in the Matron Stakes at the Irish Champions Festival.  While unable to land a telling blow, Cercene was only beaten three lengths and Murphy feels she could have finished closer with a...

Shes Perfect faces a crucial gallop on the July Course at Newmarket, before her connections make a decision on her participation in the upcoming G1 Tattersalls Falmouth Stakes at the same venue. Last seen finishing down the field in the Prix de Diane, Shes Perfect arrived at Chantilly having already proved herself a high-class filly, notably finishing first past the post in the Poule d'Essai des Pouliches, before being demoted by the ParisLongchamp stewards for causing interference to her closest pursuer, Zarigana. The daughter of Sioux Nation is set to...

The racing Gods looked down and smiled on us at Royal Ascot last week in delivering one of the greatest results imaginable when Joe Murphy and his son - also Joe - landed a breakthrough Group 1 triumph in the Coronation Stakes with Cercene.  It was a triumph for the grass roots operators and one that many thought was impossible in this day and age. The Murphys run a high-class but humble outfit on the outskirts of Fethard in County Tipperary. Success over the might of Francis Graffard and Aidan...

Gary Carroll has received a 14-day suspension and a £5,800 fine after being found to have used his whip eight times when partnering Cercene to victory in last week's Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot, twice above the permitted level. Carroll revealed to the TDN on Sunday that he was still on a high after the daughter of Australia provided him with a breakthrough success at the top level, but this sting in the tail will now see him suspended from July 4-17, inclusive, with the penalty being doubled due to...

Gary Carroll has admitted to still being on a high after landing the Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot aboard Joe Murphy's Cercene (Australia) and revealed that the breakthrough success at the highest level was made even sweeter given it came for the Fethard-based trainer who has been one of the rider's biggest supporters down through the years.  No trainer has supported Carroll quite like Murphy. The pair are operating at a 10 per cent strike-rate since they first teamed up together back in 2009. There have been 1,077 rides and...

ASCOT, UK -- It was a day when so many of those engaged at Royal Ascot were thinking also of a great man gone away in Ireland. Kevin Prendergast would undoubtedly have revelled in the splendid results for some of his fellow Irish trainers on Ascot Heath as they in turn paid tribute to him. And there was even a winner for his old friend Awtaad, the last of the trainer's Classic winners, whose son Ethical Diamond triumphed in the Duke of Edinburgh Stakes after another, Ascending, had won Tuesday's...

ASCOT, UK -- Plaudits have rightly been dished out to popular 70-year-old trainer Joe Murphy, who notched his first Group 1 victory in sensational style when Cercene outpointed the Poule d'Essai des Pouliches winner Zarigana to land the Coronation Stakes. Appropriately enough for a daughter of Derby winner Australia, the filly is owned by Queenslander Shane R Stafford, who is now based in Ireland.  Stafford, who describes himself as "just a boy from the Bush", said as he was about to be called up to collect his trophy from the...

Robert Moran, whose increasingly familiar yellow and black colours will be carried by leading G3 Munster Oaks S. contender Rosscarbery (Ger) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) at Cork on Wednesday, has revealed how the filly's trainer Paddy Twomey has reinvigorated his love for racing after a number of bad experiences left him contemplating his future as an owner.  The American yacht broker has already surpassed his greatest tally of wins in a season with six successes on the board this campaign, three of which were recorded by Rosscarbery, who Moran says...

When Joe Murphy purchased the 350-acre Stoneleigh Farm 13 years ago, the Lexington businessman admitted the land was mostly for "relaxation," but the operation hit the big time as the breeder of multiple Grade I winner Exaggerator (Curlin) and again when selling that star's half-sister by Medaglia d'Oro for $1.3 million at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale last August. Murphy returns to Saratoga next week with a yearling full-sister to Exaggerator who sells as hip 206 through the Warrendale Sales consignment during Tuesday's second session of the auction. Murphy, who owns...