John Feane

John Feane is talking about the horses that he ran at the Irish Champions Festival. Four runners on Irish Flat racing’s hottest weekend, and all four ran well.

“Indigo Five ran a blinder,” he is saying. “She always runs her race, always picks up prize money. And she was given a fine ride by Wesley Joyce. He’s a good rider, plenty of bottle, rides well.”

Greek Flower ran a big race in the Bold Lad Handicap in which, not for the first time this season, she raced against a probable draw bias.

“She was fastest of the field through the final two furlongs,” her trainer is saying. “Her finishing speed percentage was almost 106%. She’s a good mare. If things fall right for her, she could get some black type, but there is big prize money in these big handicaps and she keeps on picking up some.”

Second in the Rockingham earlier this year, second in the Scurry.

“Ano Syra deserved to take her chance in the Group 1 race, the Flying Five,” he continues. “She was only beaten five lengths in the end. She usually runs well in those Group races, and Seamie (Heffernan) was very complimentary about her afterwards.”

Fourth in the Renaissance Stakes, second in the Phoenix Stakes, third in the Phoenix Stakes, third in the Greenlands. Twice.

“And Vera’s Secret was good on Saturday.”

Vera’s Secret was Feane’s only runner at Leopardstown on the Saturday, the first day of the Irish Champions Festival. The new one-mile fillies’ and mares’ handicap had been her target for a little while, 19 runners hurtling around Leopardstown’s bend, but he hoped that she would go well.

“She’s a big mare,” he says. “We didn’t get her until last year, when she was four, and we had to take our time with her. She didn’t make her racecourse debut until September, and it was probably a blessing that she didn’t win her maiden then.”

She ran well though, and that was ideal. A nine-furlong maiden at Punchestown, and she looked set for victory when Ronan Whelan kicked her clear at the two-furlong marker. She was green though, she looked around her, pricked her ears, moved a little to her left, and she was just run down close home. It was a fine run, and defeat meant that she could run in two more maidens before the season’s end.

On her debut this season, Jim Browne’s mare was impressive in winning a one-mile fillies’ handicap at The Curragh, on the back of which she was well fancied by the market for the Irish Cambridgeshire, despite a 17lb hike from the handicapper.

A few little things went wrong in the Cambridgeshire. She was in the stalls for a while, she got a little worked up, and she was a little keen early on in the race. She led from early and she raced along the inside rail in a race in which the protagonists came wide and late, with the winner Wigmore Street coming widest and latest of all. And she led to the furlong pole before her early exertions took their toll. Her trainer took a lot of positives from the run.

“She rides out in a hood at home,” he says. “So we said that we would let her race in a hood at Leopardstown, we thought that she just might relax a little more.”

She did. She was sharply away, but she relaxed in front. Nathan Crosse was able to set the fractions that he wanted to set on her and, when he asked her to pick up early in the home straight, she changed her lead and kicked on from the front.

“I knew when she changed her lead that she was going to take a lot of catching,” says her trainer. “She didn’t change her lead at all at The Curragh. But she was great at Leopardstown. To make all the running in a race like that, to win by almost four lengths. That was grand.”

John Feane has had many grand days in racing. He won the Joe McGrath Handicap in 2014 with Prince Connoisseur. He won a Gowran maiden in 2017 with Bigwood, who was subsequently sold to Hong Kong, where he won a couple of handicaps worth around €100,000 to the winner. He sent out Bounce The Blues to win the Listed Owenstown Stud Stakes in 2020 for Vera’s Secret’s owner/breeder Jim Browne’s Kilnamoragh Stud, and Bounce The Blues went on to win the Group 3 Sceptre Stakes for Andrew Balding, before winning a Group 2 race in Italy.

He won two big-field handicaps at The Curragh with No More Porter, who was beaten a neck in the Bold Lad Handicap at The Curragh on Irish Champions Weekend on his last run for Feane before he joined Ado McGuinness. He sprang an 80/1 shock in the Group 3 Guineas Trial at Leopardstown with Keeper Of Time, on the back of which the Mehmas filly was sold to race in America.

“We only keep 20-odd horses,” says Feane. “We have a small team of people here, my partner Susan Roberts is a big part of it, and we like to keep a small team of horses. Concentrate on quality. We’re lucky in that we have a lot of owner/breeders who send me nice horses.”

He was bred for it himself. A nephew of top-class jockey and trainer Declan Gillespie, his dad Jimmy trained himself on The Curragh and was assistant manager to Stan Cosgrove at Moyglare Stud for 32 years. He remembers riding all those Moyglare horses, Irish Guineas winner Trusted Partner, Pretty Polly winner Market Booster, Tattersalls Gold Cup winner Definite Article, beaten a short head in the Irish Derby.

“I used to ride Definite Article around the roads here,” he recalls. “Those horses would come back from Mr Weld’s when they needed a break. And Dad used to break all the Moyglare yearlings.”

John rode as an amateur, he worked for Michael Halford while he was still at college, and he rode as an amateur for Frances Crowley after he finished college, before he and Susan decided that they would go out on their own. They have just moved into a new yard, and they have a lot to look forward to for the rest of the season.

“Vera’s Secret could go for the Balmoral Handicap at Ascot on Champions Day. Indigo Five could go back for the handicap at The Curragh in which she was beaten a neck last year. She’ll love soft ground. Ano Syra could go in the Renaissance Stakes at The Curragh at the end of the month. And we have a few nice two-year-olds to look forward to.

The concentration on quality continues.

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