Cian Collins

Effernock Fizz loves to race and she loves to compete, as often as you like. You can see it in her when she does, her enthusiasm, her thirst for the fight, her competitiveness. Thou shalt not pass and, if you do, I might just dig down deep and pass you back.

She raced most recently at Fairyhouse on the first day of the Irish Grand National meeting, and she won. She wasn’t expected either, she was allowed go off at 33/1 and she traded at almost 10 times that in-running when Westport Cove and Conyers Hill loomed up on her outside on the run between the final two flights. But then that willingness, that enthusiasm. Asked for everything by her rider Carl Millar, she wrested the lead back half-way up the run-in – a never-say-die attitude, said commentator Jerry Hannon – and actually went on to win by two and a half lengths.

It was Effernock Fizz’s 96^th race, and it was her 10^th win. She has won at all types of prices, as short as 2/11 last February in a three-runner mares’ novices’ chase at Ludlow, as big as 66/1 when she won her maiden hurdle at Tipperary in May 2019. And under all codes: six times over hurdles, three times on the flat, once over fences.

“She’s an extraordinary mare,” says her trainer Cian Collins. “She obviously loves her racing, and she never quits. She has some heart. The ground was all wrong for her on Saturday, she wouldn’t like that heavy ground at all. But it just shows you, the way that she fought back, the heart that she has.”

She has been some horse for her young trainer. Winner of six races for her previous trainer Katy Brown, including a premier handicap at The Curragh on Irish Derby weekend, Tommy Sheridan’s mare finished third in a beginners’ chase at Wexford in August 2022 on her first run for Cian Collins, and she won a handicap hurdle at Killarney on her second. That was Collins’ first win as a trainer. He had only had his licence for three months. And his second was two months later, when he took Effernock Fizz over to Ffos Las and won the Welsh Champion Hurdle.

“I was just looking at the Welsh Champion Hurdle on the day that entries were closing,” says Collins. “There weren’t that many entries. Effernock Fizz had only run at Tipperary a few days before the race, she had finished second in a Grade 3 hurdle, but the race was there and she was in great form, so we figured we’d take a chance. She was great that day. She has been brilliant for us.”

It was as a jockey that Cian Collins first saw his future. A native of Tralee in County Kerry, he grew up close to trainer Tom Cooper. His dad was a member of the syndicate that owned Total Enjoyment, whom Tom Cooper trained to win the Champion Bumper at Cheltenham in 2004, and he started going into the trainer as a youngster.

He did some pony racing and some showjumping before moving up to Ger Lyons, but he quickly realised that his weight wouldn't allow him to be a flat jockey, so the connection with Dessie Hughes was made through Bryan Cooper.

“Dessie was a real gentleman,” he says. “A brilliant man. It was so sad when he passed away. I stayed there, riding for his daughter Sandra, before riding for Donal O’Shea for a season, and then moving to Gordon Elliott’s.”

He rode his first winner for Sandra Hughes – Poetic Lord in a maiden hurdle at Wexford in April 2015 – on just his third ride on a racecourse.

“Gordon is a genius,” he says. “He was so good to me. I learned so much there. I was only getting started as a jockey when I had to stop.”

A bad fall at Limerick in April 2017, when his horse slipped up on the flat on the run to the second last flight, put an end to a burgeoning riding career.

“I broke my back, my T3 and T4 and T5. I had to have two rods and 11 screws inserted into my back. They said that I was lucky that I was able to walk again afterwards, but all I wanted to do was to get back riding again.”

As soon as he was able to, he went back riding out for Gordon Elliott, and started to pre-train a few horses for him. Other people started to send him horses, and he started to run a couple of horses in point-to-points. Three months after he had sent out his first point-to-point runner, he sent out his first point-to-point winner, We Will Sort It in a five-year-olds’ maiden at Punchestown in February 2020.

He took out his trainer’s licence in June 2022, and he had his first runner later that month. Effernock Fizz won at Killarney less than three months later.

“Tommy Sheridan, Effernock Fizz’s owner, has been very good to me. I’ve known Tommy for a long time, I used to rent a few stables off him, and it was very good of him to send me Effernock Fizz.”

Effernock Fizz is one of about 50 horses that Cian Collins will have for the summer at his County Meath yard. He has assembled a fine team of people too. Davy Condon is with him full-time, the recently-retired jockey Denis O’Regan is in a couple of days a week.

“We’re very lucky with the people that we have,” says Cian. “And we’re looking forward to the summer now. I enjoy summer racing, and I enjoy going over to Britain, there are opportunities there for us. We’ll go wherever we need to go to have winners.”

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