Murphy hoping history repeats itself as he looks to ‘Enjoy’ another National upset

Ciarán Murphy with Enjoy D’allen after his first win as trainer at Fairyhouse in January. Photo: Patrick McCann/Racing Post

Michael Verney

April 04 2021 09:15 PM

Ciarán Murphy regularly reiterates that he’s “under no illusions” about the scale of the task which Enjoy D’allen faces in today’s Irish Grand National, but he knows that there’s no such thing as a no-hoper in the Fairyhouse showpiece.

One can always dream and when you’ve already lived through a fairytale, who’s to say that lightning can’t strike a second time just eight years since Liberty Counsel went off an unnoticed 50/1 shot before ripping up the script?

That magical day is easily the highlight of Murphy’s 25 years in racing, as Ben Dalton’s mount denied no less a duo than Willie Mullins and Paul Townend (Away We Go) to provide Danish native Dot Love with an unlikely National crown.

“It has to be my best day in racing,” Murphy recalls. “We had some great days with Shadow Eile, she got to Cheltenham and jumped the last upsides Quevega in the 2013 Mares’ Hurdle and she finished fourth, she ran a cracker.

“We’ve had some brilliant days, she won a graded race and Dawn Shadow has been very good but to win an Irish National from a small stable like ours had to be the pinnacle.”

Murphy has since graduated from assistant trainer to having runners in his name since the turn of the year, but little has changed with Love still central to everything that happens at Charlestown Stud in Mullingar.

Murphy insists that “it’s really only changing the name on the licence” with Love still “doing whatever has to be done”, while the trainer’s younger brother Aaron is head lad, as well as their point-to-point and bumper jockey.

The Ballymore native has only overseen the progress of Enjoy D’allen for his last four starts, having previously raced for Peter Fahey, but the change of scenery seems to have worked the trick as the seven-year-old arrives as a lively outsider today.

Enjoy D’allen provided Murphy with his first winner at the Meath track in January before quickly doubling his tally later that month and two subsequent placed efforts in novice handicap chases make him the “right profile” for the lucrative affair.

The presence of Grade One winner Latest Exhibition highlights the class which the Irish National now possesses since the pair’s greatest day in 2013 and Murphy certainly errs on the side of caution when assessing Enjoy D’allen’s hopes.

The €400,000 contest has been “earmarked since he first won for us” but Murphy reckons “there’ll be better days ahead” for the Network gelding with a huge slice of luck needed to upset the big guns.

“We’re not getting ahead of ourselves, we’re a fairly small operation and we find it hard to compete on the big days with the horsepower we have, but it’s lovely to have one there,” he says of Conor Orr’s mount.

“There’s a lot of good horses ahead of us and if we can go and run a nice race, we’ll be over the moon. It would be nothing short of a dream to be able to win again, (but) I don’t think it could happen, to be honest with you.

“But at least we’re there with a fighting chance and we know what it takes to win it. There’s no point in codding ourselves, but the horse is fit and well and he has the right profile and we’ll let him do the talking.”

Along with his brother Joseph, a 2012 Olympian at eventing who has high hopes of representing Ireland again in Tokyo later this year, Murphy learned his equine craft under Love and he has etched big plans for the future.

Breaking and pre-training have always been a main focus and will remain so despite Gigginstown House Stud – racing manager Eddie O’Leary has been “an absolute star and a very good friend for years” – beginning to scale back their racing interests and that forced them to “reinvent ourselves”.

Murphy has 40 horses in training but will be able to accommodate 70 by the end of the summer with huge developments taking place at Charlestown as they look “to take a step further up the ladder” and make their mark against the big hitters.

“We’re under no illusion that we can compete better in the summer and that’s what we’ll do this year.

“We’ll target the summer and we have a nice bunch of horses to go to war with,” he says.

“But we’d like to have a selection that we could run in the winter that would be competitive and run in some of the bigger races.

“That would be your shop window and if you progress and compete against Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott and Henry de Bromhead and show that you can do that then you will get the horses.”