Continuing our series of interviews with leading jumps trainers, GG’s Joe Napier caught up with Josh Guerriero, who trains alongside Ollie Greenall. He discussed Iroko’s bid to go one better in the Grand National, weighed up the Betfair Chase and Coral Gold Cup for Jagwar and named Billytherealbigred among the stable’s ones to follow this season.
GG: Hi, Josh. There’s an obvious place to start with, and that’s Iroko, who’s been placed in two Grand Nationals in a row. He’s probably been a bit unlucky to bump into maybe the best Grand National horse of the modern era in I Am Maximus. Is there the hope that he is destined to win the Grand National this year? Or is he potentially ready to step into Grade 1 company instead?
Josh Guerriero: Whether he’s destined to, I don’t know, but he certainly deserves to win a Grand National. Having been fourth and second and been so consistent, I would love to see him win it. The reasons we might have for beating I Am Maximus is that he’s now getting into his veteran years; he’ll be 11 this year in the Grand National. We’re going to be nine, probably just at our peak really, whereas he might hopefully be ageing out of his best years, but all in all, he is going to be very hard to beat. As far as going into Graded races, I think he’s rated 160 now, so he’s not far off running in them. We’ve always been pretty mindful of keeping him fresh and protecting his mark, whereas now we’re on 160, there’s probably not a lot of need to do that. We might have a go at some of the better races throughout the season and see whether he can compete at that level. If he can, it might change our route and we could end up in a Gold Cup.
GG: I see he’s got a Betfair Chase entry. Another horse that has one is Jagwar, who went from a winning machine a couple of seasons ago to being the nearly horse during the last campaign. Do you see Grade 1s in his future as well? Or is he still on the handicap trail, with the Grand National the aim again?
Guerriero: Obviously, when Jagwar was winning, he started off such a low mark that he was improving rapidly. Then once he got to 150s, you don’t just keep improving. He’s got to a level where now he’s very competitive, but it’s not quite as easy for him. He’s just not on as good a mark, hence why it’s a bit harder. We may have a go at the Betfair if it’s too dry for Iroko there; he does want better ground than Iroko. If not, we’ll go to the Coral Gold Cup. I’d love to see him on a track like Newbury that would really suit him. We could drop in and just ride him to finish. If he were to go and win a Coral Gold Cup, then we’ll look at the Grade 1s with him. I think most likely we will end up in the Grand National again, though. He seemed to be loving it last year and just unluckily unseated Mark. But until then, he was jumping and travelling unbelievably and looked very comfortable.
GG: Is it the case that he’s actually a very good jumper, but is prone to having one fence that he completely misses out, as was the case in the Grand National?
Guerriero: Yeah, the days he jumps well, he jumps really well. And he is a good jumper, he just doesn’t concentrate. I think it’s just more a concentration thing. He’s always been the same at home, always found everything too easy and probably just not really concentrating on the game, on his job. He’s just a bit of a lad and he’s just not always concentrating.
GG: How big has it been having the support of JP McManus over the last couple of years? And are you hopeful that relationship will continue beyond the current contingent?
Guerriero: Yeah, it’s been massive for us to allow us to train horses of that calibre. We don’t have many owners that can spend that sort of money. It’s so hard to compete at that level without buying lots of those expensive horses to give you a chance because they’re the best models and best form horses. So, for JP to trust us with those type of horses has been incredible and been massive for our yard. It’s taken us to levels that we couldn’t have got to before with both of them winning at the Cheltenham Festival and obviously being Grand National horses. JP’s been very loyal to us. We’ve got two new ones for him now that hopefully we can repay him with.
“The day Billytherealbigred took on Jagwar, and was second to him, he’d only just turned five.”
GG: One horse who isn’t owned by JP but was on a similar trajectory to Jagwar a couple of seasons ago is Billytherealbigred. Is he coming back this season and where could he potentially end up if you were targeting the spring?
Guerriero: He’s back in full work. He’s probably three weeks off a run and doing lots of work, but he seems really good. The amazing thing with him, when he was running over fences, he was still a four-year-old. So he’s still relatively young. The day he took on Jagwar, and was second to him, he’d only just turned five. So he could easily and naturally have improved from those days physically. We’ll just give him a couple of runs, get his eye back in. He does need deep ground; the deeper the ground, the better. I think he’s a real stayer in the making and he could be the type of horse that ends up in a Midlands National, Welsh National, that type of race. He was always quite keen, but he’s relentless, and now he’s relaxed. I think we can step him up in trip. If it was a really wet Cheltenham, we could definitely look at something there as well.
GG: You mentioned that Iroko and Jagwar have been your two Cheltenham winners. How satisfying has it been to have those when a couple of your contemporary yards are still searching for their first at the Cheltenham Festival? Does it drive that hunger for more, or are your aims more along the lines of a Grade 1 breakthrough this season?
Guerriero: To have one Cheltenham Festival winner was incredible. To have two…the satisfaction with Jagwar was massive. With Iroko, it felt like it could have just been a fluke and we got lucky, but to then have Jagwar, we worked back from there and it all came together. The plan came together to go back there and have another Cheltenham Festival handicap winner. It was a great experience. It gave us a lot of satisfaction and obviously it drives you to want more. You need the right type of horse and it all needs to fall right. We would love to now have a Grade 1 winner, though, that’s definitely an aim.
GG: I was speaking to Johnson White recently, who works in partnership with Philip Hobbs. What’s the dynamic between yourself and Ollie like? You’re in your fifth season training together. Is it the case that you do two different jobs to combine as joint trainers, or is it more a case of sharing the responsibility across the board?
Guerriero: We obviously share a lot of the responsibility across the board, but we do have roles that we do the majority of and are more in control of. The first couple of years was pretty difficult as we were both trying to find our feet as to who did what. It caused plenty of arguments along the way, which still happens sometimes now! But we definitely found our areas and we stick to our own jobs. We get the final say in the areas we each excel at.
“Dan Skelton’s just a very good trainer, an unbelievably driven person.”
GG: There’s been a lot of talk about Dan Skelton and his record chasing. Is that an inspiration for you that a British yard is beginning to rival the power and strength of the Irish yards that have dominated in recent years? Or is it a concern that it could create a further imbalance of Skelton and Mullins versus the rest?
Guerriero: It’s good for racing in a lot of ways. Everybody else has to aspire to be better, to try and get closer to that. Dan started where all of us did, it’s not like he just suddenly got there with all these horses. He’s just a very good trainer, an unbelievably driven person. You can’t take that away from someone just because they’re getting bigger and more powerful. He probably is going to dominate for however many years now, but Paul Nicholls was dominating for however many years and Nicky Henderson: it’s happened in the past and it’ll keep happening. Sometimes you might think it gets boring seeing Dan win everything! But fair play to him, he’s just a very, very good trainer and operator.
GG: Are there any newcomers to your yard to look out for this season? And are there any existing or well-known names from your yard who have done particularly well over the summer and we haven’t seen the best of yet?
Guerriero: Billytherealbigred probably heads that list because his form was so good. Another horse we have called Judicial Deference won a few hurdle races for us last year. He’s just very tough. He looks like he should be a much better chaser. Among new recruits we’ve got, JP actually bought Iroko’s half-brother, a four-year-old that was second in a bumper in France. He looks very, very nice. We’ve also got a young horse called Onehellofalaugh who seems to do everything very nicely. He won an Irish point-to-point. We have a few of that profile that could be all right, but they’re probably two that stand out.