Colm Murphy retired

shamdrog63

Its an eyeopener to see a talented Trainer like Colm Murphy have to retire for financial reasons despite having some of the biggest owners in the business with horses in his yard.

theaceofspies

The chicken is coming home to roost for a lot of people at the coalface of NH racing in Ireland. The HRI mantra of prizemoney, prizemoney, prizemoney is leading to the situation where the small owners are disullisioned with racing as they cannot compete with the power-house owners.
HRI are a one-trick pony and their policies are going to ruin racing in Ireland.

Francie Barrett

Didn't he just get given some of the Potts horses? It is pretty damning for horse racing that a decent trainer like this should go by the wayside.

byronbay2

The Mullins juggernaut is squashing everything in it's path (not his fault, of course) - winning all the big races and leaving nothing but crumbs for the rest. Other trainers have to survive on an absolute shoestring or fall by the wayside.

convert

Comes as a bit of a surprise, especially for a trainer who has trained so many great winners. Must be extremely tough and hard on him. It does raise bigger queries, though, as have been highlighted above. Are the 'big' trainers, such as Mullins, "taking" it all and making it much harder for the smaller trainers? Is there any way around it/to prevent it from happening?

matthew8

He trained 6 winners last season in Ireland. 47 trainers managed to train more than that. He only had 48 runners. That's nothing to do with Mullins/Elliott, he simply wasn't attracting the owners he needed to.

Huntley

He had an unhealthy yard for a few years I'm not convinced they ever solved it.

BumperD

Bar a few of the top trainers (read top 5), most of the rest have small stables or trying to build up stock. Just watch the field sizes here and the U.K. Long gone are the days when cash was flowing freely out of the atm's to pay for the pleasure. Sure even the sheik himself is trimming back. It's just the way things are now and for a while to come. You'll see as these smaller yards close, the bigger ones will fill and a few more too, meaning that more become economically viable. Most currently aren't, and have been hanging on for this consolidation to occur.

theaceofspies

It's a damning indictment of Irish NH racing to see a young & intelligent trainer of 20 Grade 1 winners quitting while having owners like Gigginstown, McManus & Potts horses under the roof.
Lot's of smaller fish out there hanging on by their finger nails and in many cases living off past glories.

Nulty

It's a very sad situation for Murphy. Forced out of his career by circumstance. Always came a cross as a level guy and his horses have given us great memories.


I think Voler La Vedette was my favourite of them all. Always underrated and maybe still in the shadow of Quevega as the super mare of that generation. Her second in the World Hurdle was agonising. Would love for her to have beaten Big Bucks.

marvin80

http://www.racingpost.com/news/horse-racing/boom-time-for-tizzard-with-potts-runners-switched-to-yard/2162887/top/#newsArchiveTabs=last7DaysNews

"IN CUE CARD and Thistlecrack he has two of the most exciting horses around – and now Colin Tizzard’s firepower is set to grow even greater with 15 horses from Alan and Ann Potts coming to his yard.

The leading owners have moved all their horses trained by Colm Murphy, who has announced his retirement, to Tizzard. The first dozen, including Grade 1-winning chaser Sizing Granite, arrived on Sunday morning."

HarshOstrich

marvin80 wrote: »

http://www.racingpost.com/news/horse-racing/boom-time-for-tizzard-with-potts-runners-switched-to-yard/2162887/top/#newsArchiveTabs=last7DaysNews

"IN CUE CARD and Thistlecrack he has two of the most exciting horses around – and now Colin Tizzard’s firepower is set to grow even greater with 15 horses from Alan and Ann Potts coming to his yard.

The leading owners have moved all their horses trained by Colm Murphy, who has announced his retirement, to Tizzard. The first dozen, including Grade 1-winning chaser Sizing Granite, arrived on Sunday morning."

Be interesting to see if he can get more out of them
I think he will

Radioheader

We had a horse with him at one stage. Very nice fellow and absolutely trustworthy, but his communications skills let him down. I think he viewed talking with the owners as an inconvenience. We never really knew going into a race how the horse was expected to do.

For day-trippers like us, half the craic was getting a bet on when the time was right, but we never got the nod. The horse won one race and was placed several times so wasn't a complete mule.

He achieved great results with some great horses, but not so much with the lesser lights in his yard. I wonder is he the sort of trainer who works brilliantly with 10 or 15 horses, but can't manage 60. Obviously you can't make it pay with just 15 horses.

He is a clever guy though, so I expect he will do very well in the next stage of his life - I wish him the very best.

Kauto

There is a reason why he quit and it had nothing to do with making it pay. Story will break over the next few weeks!!!

I had a share in a Winning Ways sydicate, leasing a mare, Colm was the trainer. Did one stable tour, the chap couldn't have been nicer.

Honest too, the mare got injured and the next one he reckoned wasn't worth persevering with.

I couldn't wish him anything but the best for the future.