Final winter, Irish coach Ado McGuinness helped his longtime proprietor and good friend Gary Devlin purchase a 2-year-old Hot Streak colt who had just won a group 3 at the Curragh. With his modest pedigree, the previous connections can be forgiven for thinking they had taken A Case of You as far as he would go and that this was the moment to cash out. He had been sold as a foal for €950 (about $1,100), and original trainer John McConnell had purchased him as a yearling after he went unsold at the 2019 Goffs Sportsman’s Sale, for €3,000 ($3,290).
Having trained more than 20 years, McGuinness has learned to trust his eye and instinct above all else. When a sale to owners in Hong Kong fell through, McGuinness offered to buy A Case of You for a sum that he describes as the most he had ever spent on a horse.
“I’ve never met an expert on horses because there is no such thing,” McGuinness said. “Nobody knows everything about horses, but that’s the beauty of the game.”
McGuinness does know more about horses than most. He is ranked eighth among Irish flat trainers for 2021, on pace for his best season ever, and has improved his stock in recent years, primarily by identifying the right promising young horses at the sales. He has sold maiden winners that went on to success in the U.S., including Beau Recall , the multiple grade 2 winner for Brad Cox.
“We always had to keep selling to survive, but I’m privileged now to have some nice young horses,” he said. “We’ve proven that if we can get the horses, we can produce results.”
A Case of You trains Nov. 2 at Del Mar
A Case of You gained his 3-year-old debut on Dundalk’s all-weather Polytrack floor. Considering they may have a horse for the Ballylinch Stud Crimson Rocks Two Thousand Guineas Trial Stakes, they stretched out to seven furlongs for the Leopardstown trial and struggled late. Again at six furlongs, he gained the Goffs Lacken Stakes (G3) over a tender course at Naas. That led to a strive within the Commonwealth Cup (G1) at Royal Ascot, however A Case of You misplaced a entrance shoe within the heavy going and drained within the ultimate eighth.
This fall, he rounded into high kind—higher than anybody imagined a yr in the past—with a 3rd within the Rathasker Stud Phoenix Dash Stakes (G3) on the Curragh and an in depth second shortening as much as 5 furlongs within the Derrinstown Stud Flying 5 Stakes (G1). Devastated by the thought that they’d simply missed what is likely to be their greatest probability ever at a bunch 1 with a Breeders’ Cup Problem “Win and You are In” berth at stake, McGuinness and Devlin instantly pointed to the Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp Longines (G1), on the Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (G1) program.
Emotional Abbaye Win
Common jockey Ronan Whelan felt he ought to have gained the Flying 5. He now absolutely understood the acceleration A Case of You possibly can summon going shorter. Whelan’s timing at ParisLongchamp was spot on, one way or the other making up greater than two lengths within the ultimate strides to stand up by a brief head over Air de Valse , who was five lengths clear of 2019 Abbaye and 2020 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint (G1T) heroine Glass Slippers . The Abbaye was the final “Win and You’re In” race for the Nov. 6 Turf Sprint, awarding entry fees and travel to Del Mar.
“As soon as we won, we were going (to the Breeders’ Cup), and that was it,” McGuinness said. “As long as the horse was sound and happy, we were coming. It’s such a big occasion for me. I never had a horse good enough to make the trip. And he’s not going as a complete outsider. He’s going as a group 1 winner and group 1-placed from two group 1 starts (in his last two outings). I’m hopeful that he’ll put up a very smart performance.”
A Case of You wins the Prix de l’Abbaye at ParisLongchamp
The Abbaye win set off a raucous celebration for a group largely unfamiliar with group 1 glory. There were bearhugs and tears in the winner’s enclosure, followed by countless pints at an Irish pub in the City of Light.
“It was just so emotional,” McGuinness said. “It meant so much to everybody, from the guys that walk in the yard to Ronan. When you win a big race like that, your first group 1, you’ll always remember it, and I’ll remember it until the day I die. The reception I got out of the Irish people that were in the stands that day was just unbelievable.”
McGuinness, however, was thinking all the while about his younger brother, Laurence McGuinness, who passed away from brain cancer at 47 early in the year, just weeks after A Case of You came to the barn.
“I saw him nearly every day of his life,” McGuinness said. “He worked at home at the family farm, as well. I never worked anywhere else, only at home on the farm, same as him. When you grow up with someone and see them nearly every day… it’s very hard. When he was diagnosed with a brain tumor three and a half years ago, he wasn’t given a pile of time to live. He got 12 months, and he fought it for three and a half years. You’d look at him every day when he was fading away, and it was tough to take.”
Due to COVID-19, for much of his brother’s final months, McGuinness was only able to look at his brother and talk to him through the window of their childhood home.
“That was so hard, knowing that he was never going to get better,” McGuinness said. “He died in the same room, in the same bed, as my father died.”
Reason to Celebrate
McGuinness and his four siblings grew up on the family vegetable farm in North County Dublin.
“I was just one of those crazy kids that lived for horses,” McGuinness said. “There weren’t many horses around, but I always kept a pony or two.”
McGuinness enjoyed show jumping and, later, fox hunting. When his parents opened an equestrian center on the farm, he helped to run it. “One day, a guy who had ponies with me there came in and said, ‘I want to buy a racehorse, will you train him?’ And I said, ‘I’ll try!’ I’d never worked anywhere but home on the vegetable farm, so I had no experience. That was 21 years ago. I made mistakes along the way, but one thing I believe is you try never to make the same mistake twice.”
A strong work ethic that permeated the family vegetable farm sustains McGuinness to this day and makes him an attractive trainer to clients who want someone hands-on. At 56, he still loves to feed the horses himself every morning. He drives the trailer (“the box,” as it’s called overseas) from track to track. He exercises his horses on the beach along the Irish Sea to get them extra fit.
“I spend a lot of time with my horses back home,” McGuinness said. “I do love them. I’m in the barns first thing in the morning, and I’m in the barns last thing at night. I eat, sleep, and drink horses—you can ask my wife.”
A Case of You arrived at Del Mar Oct. 29 and cleared quarantine two days later. This week McGuinness only has one horse to feed personally. The colt got a light canter each of his first two mornings on the track and was settling in well, the trainer said.
“He’s very professional,” McGuinness said. “He drank up on the flight, and he takes everything in stride. As long as he keeps eating and sleeping and drinking as he has, we’ll have a great chance.”
A Case of You drew post 6, outside of Glass Slippers and 7-2 morning-line favorite Golden Pal .
“We can just sit in right behind the pace and let the frontrunners do what they want to do,” McGuinness said. “We’ve gone through the film and watched the American favorite. The way he takes the race will suit us. We like to have something to aim at. Hopefully, we have a couple of horses to aim at, and then we beat them.”
If so, there will be another night out with Devlin and the same 20 or so compatriots that partied into the wee hours after the Abbaye. And, more emotion for McGuinness at the culmination of a painful year that he remembers most for the loss of his youngest brother.
“That’s why we like to celebrate when we do have a winner, especially a big winner like that,” McGuinness said. “I don’t drink too much, but I definitely did that night in Paris.”
