TopSpec - Trainer of the Quarter - Denis Hogan
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By Breandán Ó hUallacháin
The TopSpec Trainer of the Quarter award has been won by Denis Hogan. Hogan will receive £1,000 worth of TopSpec feed, supplements and additives as well as a consultation with one of their senior nutritionists.
Denis Hogan was unsure what to expect when Sceptical, a £2,800 unraced purchase at the Horse-In-Training Sale at Doncaster in August 2019, joined him at his state of the art facilities last year. When asked how he approached the initial training of the gelding, Hogan said: “If we got a horse with form, we’d have something to go on, a line of ability, a rating probably, a distance that he races over, whereas when they’re unraced, we’re going off breeding and what they’re bred to do. Like most horses that have never raced, you build them up gradually. He then got a piece of work, and after a fast piece of work or two, we knew he was decent.” He concedes, however, that he wasn’t anxious when initially training the son of Exceed And Excel, knowing from Godolphin he had trouble breathing: “We knew he had issues, we knew his wind wasn’t perfect, but we’ve dealt with them (horses with wind problems) before.”
Though the gelding debuted on the all-weather at Dundalk on 30th October 2019, he had a wind operation after that run, with Hogan admitting “we got away with the first run.” The likeable handler states that the horse isn’t very difficult to train, describing him as “a joy to do anything with. On that score he’s 100% as good as you could ask for with temperament and attitude. His temperament, is absolutely brilliant, he’s so relaxed, calm. Nothing would phase him whatsoever, you could put him anywhere in any size of crowd, even travelling he never gets worked up. You could put him anywhere in a race – up front, out the back, in the middle.” Sceptical’s training routine has essentially remained the same since his arrival. It is quite simple; it doesn’t involve anything special, according to the Tipperary native, who is lucky to have access to a 5-furlong deep sand gallop and another gallop similar to Dundalk for his top charge. “We don’t over gallop him really, he’d be cantering away, and turn him out as much as we can; he might have a gallop at The Curragh or somewhere before a big race, but that would be it really.” Though Sceptical has run on both the all-weather and turf, his training doesn’t change much, irrespective of the surface he’s being prepared for: “No, not massively – much the same, only that the surface is different. I suppose he doesn’t need to be over the top fit for the all-weather, it’s an easy surface and horses skip off it – they tend to take the race quite well, not as hard as soft ground.”
While proudly conceding that he has many race options with a horse of this quality, the Cloughjordan man is cautious about asking too much of his stable star: “We have to be careful we pick the right races now and not over-race him. With a horse like this we have a couple of options, a few different plans. The Group 1 races are literally all overseas now, and right into the autumn, there are winter festivals in every corner of the world nowadays. I’d imagine he’d be kept busy.”
In citing the international success of his fellow county man, Tom Hogan, with the late Gordon Lord Byron, Denis Hogan may be considering some long haul flights for this laid-back individual: “Australia – there’s some big prize money down there, and he could be a candidate for the Breeders’ Cup, or the Prix de l’Abbaye, and Saudi has the big racing festival out there in February – there’s tonnes of options out there.”
