Ado McGuinness: ‘Memories Are Great But What You Do Tomorrow Is More Important’

[Wandering Eyes]

Ahead of the Irish Champions Festival, Ado McGuinness opens up about one of the most difficult years of his life and his reinvention as a trainer of two-year-olds 

When Ado McGuinness was at his lowest ebb last year, he rightly would have looked at you twice had you told him that the next 12 months would see him bag a couple of premier handicaps, become an overnight success on the west coast of America and face into the Irish Champions Festival brimming with confidence about taking out a €250,000 pot. Yet, here we are. 

The seasoned handicappers that made this stable sing at all of the major festivals in Ireland in recent times are no more. Many have been retired while some were lost through the high-profile split with long-time assistant and nephew Stephen Thorne, who moved 11 horses from McGuinness's stable when embarking on his own training career. 

That hammer-blow represented a €25,000 hole in the business through training fees that needed to be plugged every month. And fast. 

But with the horses-in-training market proving harder and harder to navigate due to the strength of foreign buyers, which was illustrated this year by the fact McGuinness left the July Sale at Newmarket empty-handed for the first time in his life, another reservoir needed to be sniffed out. Channelling more of his owners' resources into the yearling sale market has already proved to be a wise move and McGuinness puts his rejuvenation as a trainer down to his reinvention of sorts along with the fact his daughter Aisling and son Tadhg [23-year-old twins] have taken a more prominent role within the business. 

“I love training two-year-olds,” the 58-year-old says, striding out between lots at his freshly-built stable in North County Dublin. “Okay, people might not associate me with training two-year-olds, but I still won a Birdcatcher a few years ago and we also had Beau Recall, who went on and won four Group 2s and was beaten a nose in a Group 1 in America. We always tricked around with the odd two-year-old but never anything too serious. But, if I'm honest, it's given me a new lease of life over the past year. I love it. And then with the family – my daughter Aisling and son Tadhg – coming into the business, it's been great.

“Thankfully we saw what was coming down the line. We bought horses like Bowerman, Current Option and Saltonstall at the horses-in-training sales but, over the past few years, the value just hasn't been there. You used to be able to go to those sales and, for say €70,000, you would be able to buy a premier handicapper. Now that same type of horses is costing twice or three times as much as he was before. You are forced to pay black-type prices for premier handicap horses and that's not a game we wanted to play.”

BBA Ireland's Adam Potts with McGuinness at Tattersalls Ireland last year | Tattersalls

Not only does McGuinness label juvenile Aqua Bear as his best chance of a winner at the Irish Champions Festival, but he goes as far as saying he will “be sick” if the €36,000 yearling purchase does not fight out the finish for for lucrative Tattersalls Ireland Super Auction Sales Stakes at the Curragh on Sunday. Aqua Bear makes up a two-pronged attack on the race for the trainer alongside Coincidental Glory. Both horses were sourced by BBA Ireland.

“It's funny, Aqua Bear wouldn't have been one you'd have been dreaming about earlier on in the year,” McGuinness revealed. “But, I think if you went into most yards in the country in February and March and asked what their best two-year-olds were, they'd have a very different answer for you come September or October. That's the beauty about these two-year-olds – they can change so much throughout the year and I'm convinced Aqua Bear is a good horse now. If he doesn't pick up a big cheque on Sunday, I will be sick.”

He added, “Coincidental Glory is not without a chance either. He'll run a big race. But definitely, Aqua Bear is the one. He worked very well on the Curragh the other day – pulled four lengths clear of what he was working with – and everyone was very impressed by what he did.”

“I got into the car after that and I bawled crying for at least an hour driving down the road to Cork. Until the day I die, I'll never forget the tears rolling off the bridge of his nose,” – Ado McGuinness

McGuinness has sent out 23 winners domestically this year, which is roughly half of what he achieved [49] in 2024. His current prize-money tally is just €328,942 short of the €790,355 the stable achieved last year but, what you won't see in any of these tables is the amount of business being done abroad. Within the space of 24 hours last month, two McGuinness-trained graduates – Later Than Planned and Yours Sincerely – made winning debuts for California-based trainer Phil D'Amato.

The combined sum those runners fetched at the yearling sales was €6,000 but they sold for many multitudes of that figure after their respective efforts in Irish maidens. These are the sort of trades that are now deemed necessary for even a trainer of McGuinness's status in order to survive in Ireland. 

“They were only cheap yearlings,” McGuinness says of his Californian delights. “The owners couldn't get a bid in the ring for Later Than Planned so they sent him to me and Yours Sincerely only cost six grand. All of those lads will go again at the yearling sales so it's great great business for everyone involved.”

He continued, “There are an awful lot of trainers who are barely surviving in Ireland because they're not trading. If you win a €100,000 handicap, or even a €200,000 handicap, you don't get a lot of money out of that as a trainer. And tell me this; how many trainers in Ireland are winning €200,000 handicaps? Not many. We all have low-grade horses and they're important to have but you won't earn any money training them. Take Laytown last week for example, we had two winners there and it was great. But it's not going to pay many bills. That's the reality of it. To survive in this game, you have to go out there and make money trading. To me, that revolves around working the sales hard.” 

McGuinness is better-qualified than most to comment on what life at the coalface is like for a trainer operating in Ireland. The son of a vegetable farmer, he has held a licence for more than 25 years and, in his role of chairman of the Irish Racehorse Trainers' Association, he understands and listens to the middle-to-smaller-tier handlers. However, he does not deny that, in the current climate where costs are sky-rocketing, some trainers need to help themselves before asking for help. 

He explained, “One of the main problems within the training ranks in Ireland right now is lads underselling themselves. When a carpenter comes down to your house, he is so much an hour and that is that. Too many trainers are undercutting each other because they are so hungry for horses. The same lads will come crying saying they're struggling. They're struggling because they're not charging enough. An empty stable won't make you money but it won't lose you any money either. If you work for nothing, you'll never be idle.”

And that's one thing McGuinness will never be. When his world was turned upside down last year through the loss of his second sibling to cancer, it was the responsibility of caring for 45 horses that drove him out of his bed every morning. 

“I got a bit of a kicking last year,” McGuinness says without a shred of self-loathing or pity. “Shamrock pulled out 11 horses and I lost my brother Johnny the following month through cancer. He was only 54 and was the second brother I lost within the space of three years to cancer so it was shocking. It broke my heart, to be honest. I just had to keep going and buried myself in work as a form of therapy. I could easily have taken to the bed while all of this was happening but I've never been afraid of hard work and keeping busy helped.”

He added, “Johnny died the first week in July last year. He was a big racing man and I always called in to see him before I went to the races. I'll never forget calling in to see him in the month of May last year. I think I was on my way to the races at Cork. At this point, he was very bad, and he sat up at the side of the bed and he just said, 'Ado, I'm f*cked.' I can still see him now. I'll never forget the tears rolling down the bridge of his nose and me going to get him a hanky. I gave him a big hug and, by God, that was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. Oh man, I got into the car after that and I bawled crying for at least an hour driving down the road to Cork. Until the day I die, I'll never forget the tears rolling off the bridge of his nose. Johnny was six foot four inches but here he was wasting away in the bed. He died not long after that so losing horses can be hard to take, but something like that puts life into perspective.”

McGuinness regularly sends horses to the beach in Rush | Racingfotos.com

McGuinness enjoyed eight of his best years as a trainer with Thorne alongside him. The latter has proved himself one of the brightest additions to the training ranks for many years and, while the relationship between the pair ended abruptly, nothing will take away the memories of A Case Of You landing the Prix de l'Abbaye and the Al Quoz Sprint or even Current Option scooping the Sovereign Path Handicap on what was then known as Irish Champions Weekend in 2019. 

“It just didn't end the way it should have ended,” McGuinness said of the split. “That's the sad part about it. We enjoyed success together and it probably shouldn't have ended like that.”

Memories alone are not enough to sustain anyone in sport. Especially not in the dog-eat-dog world that is the training ranks in Ireland. McGuinness agrees and, having come out the other side of what he openly admits was one of his most difficult years both in business and personally, he is optimistic about the next chapter.

He said, “The Irish Champions Festival is watched by people all over the world and, the more people you meet and the more people who know your name, the better in this business. You have to get out there as a trainer and make people aware of who you are and what you can do. It's never about what you have achieved in this game, it's always about what you are going to achieve next. Last week's winners are forgotten about very quickly. Don't get me wrong, memories are brilliant, and we have had some brilliant memories. But what is most important is what you're going to do tomorrow, next week, next month and next year.”

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