Thursday, 30 December 2021 | 13.2°C Dublin
‘ It’s David against Goliath and when you’re David and achieve, it’s some feeling’
Phillip Rothwell with Mcalpine. Photo: Patrick McCann/Racing Post
Some people get a car while others might throw a big bash or go on holidays to celebrate the milestone, but Philip Rothwell’s 21st birthday was a little different as that was the day when he commenced his life in the training ranks.
Rothwell’s licence was quickly put to good use with five winners from a handful of horses, which were trained out of three chicken huts and three cattle sheds on his father’s dairy farm in Wicklow.
He started with “utterly nothing” before building an impressive stable, with Native Jack’s Cheltenham Festival success in the 2006 Cross Country Chase one of many career-defining successes, but much of that came crumbling down when the economic crash hit.
The Tinahely handler was struck like many others with numbers dwindling and quality hard to come by, but all the while the fire to return to the Cotswolds with a winner kept burning. When the 15-year duck was broken at last month’s November meeting, the dam burst.
Mcalpine sprung a 33/1 surprise in a seemingly inconsequential handicap hurdle to close the Friday card but it meant everything to Rothwell, and he couldn’t hide his emotions in a teary-eyed interview with Lydia Hislop on Racing TV.
There have been plenty of wisecracks thrown his way about the tears that flowed, but he’s happy to take such slagging in his stride as he didn’t realise just how much he craved another winner at racing’s Mecca.
“I got a lot of slagging over it and I’m prepared to get it for the next 10 years. For the last number of years it felt like we were getting further away from it rather than closer to it and to pull off the result was just magic,” the 43-year-old says.
“You feel like you’ll get back there every couple of years, but then when it wasn’t happening it was difficult enough to take there for a while and I didn’t think it was bothering me as much as it was but Cheltenham is a very special place.
“You bottle pressure sometimes and it means an awful lot to me to have a winner there. I’d love to be able to go back to the Festival in March to have a proper graded runner and have a good stab at it, I wouldn’t go for the sake of going.”
Rothwell has always been one to wear his heart on his sleeve and he admits he had a little sob behind the stand in Ballinrobe this summer after a barren spell for loyal owner Oliver Barden was put to bed with a double.
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Rothwell has bounced back in the past three years with a steady flow of winners, and three Punchestown Festival successes this term put another feather in his cap considering the task of battling it out with jump racing’s big guns.
“My big thing is that I do not want to increase numbers, but I would love to increase quality.
“I have to root very deep to find horses at a level that we can afford to buy and get results with,” he says.
“To put in the hours to find those as well as looking after the ones at home, you need some level of results to be coming to give you the enthusiasm to stay working at that every day of the week. The challenge is huge at the level that we’re at,” he adds.
“It’s David against Goliath and when you’re David and you achieve, it’s some feeling, whereas I guess the lads that are shopping with the monster budgets probably just don’t get the same kick out of it. We’re able to really enjoy the good days.”
Despite appearances suggesting that Rothwell has ridden out the sizeable storm which decimated his 45-strong yard, he is keen to point out that rising costs like insurance, diesel, bedding and feed make the reality a much different prospect.
He outlines how the costs of his trainer’s licence have “increased fourfold”, while a €2,000 fine for the running and riding of Duffys Hodey at Limerick last month under the ‘non-trier’ rule – a decision he describes as “deplorable” – hit him hard.
“We’re banging in winners now, but the IHRB (Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board) haven’t seemed to notice that we’re still riding out the storm. We’re in the middle of a pandemic and I’m only getting back close to building up a full stable of owners and horses again,” he says.
“Everybody is saying that we’re doing really well, but I can tell you from my side I’m able to afford to buy the groceries on a Friday, pay my mortgage and keep my head above water but not much with it now.
“We got a good few winners and I brought in a good bit of prize money this summer, but I got a fine for such a horse not putting his best foot forward and I lost my appeal which I thought was deplorable, but that’s the way it is.
“That experience cost me €3,500 with the appeal and a bit of legal help and to put that in perspective, that would be the same as me getting prize money from possibly 10 winners this summer.
“The prize money that I got from maybe 10 winners was taken off me in one fine and if you went into a court of law, what would you want to do to be fined that level? Speeding down the motorway is €80 and someone could be killed.”
Having “excellent staff” keeps the show on the road, though, and Rothwell is relishing the Christmas period with the likes of Layla’s Daffodil, Mcalpine, Oscer Romero, Galon De Vauzelle and exciting chasing debutant Feelgood Island set to fly the flag for him between Leopardstown, Down Royal and Limerick.
There’s also a glint in his eye when speaking about a bumper prospect next spring which “could be next level again” as he bids to stake a claim at racing’s top table again.
He’s been through tough times, but he’s much wiser for the experience.
“I’ve gone through half of my career maybe and I’ve a huge amount of water under the bridge. If I got some of the opportunities that I did in the past I think I could do maybe even a little bit better again which is a good way to feel about the whole thing,” Rothwell says.
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