RACING GALWAY FESTIVAL: Brian O'Connortalks to a trainer whose recent success has allowed him surf the currently rough economic sea

THE SUN might not have been shining much recently but no one is making more summer hay than Gordon Elliott who goes into this week’s Galway Festival as very much the man in form.

Elliott has already trained 31 winners this season and not surprisingly for someone who travels throughout Britain and Ireland for suitable winning opportunities he will also be heavily represented this week at Perth.

The East of Scotland track has become almost a second home for the Co Meath-based trainer with nearly 50 winners there alone since he first took out a licence just four years ago.

In comparison the 32-year-old ex-jockey has just one previous victory to his name at the Galway Festival. But he is no doubt about the status that Irish racing’s most famous festival holds.

“It’s the Cheltenham of summer racing,” he states simply. “You need a lot of luck to win at Galway and in fairness I haven’t had too many runners there. But it’s where everyone wants to win.”

To that end Elliott plans to send up to a dozen horses to Ballybrit this week with a trio of potential Plate candidates headed by Nedzer’s Return, and Dirar leading another three-pronged attack on Thursday’s Galway Hurdle.

Not surprisingly though, while one horsebox is on its way west, another will be heading for the Larne ferry on its way to Scotland with over half a dozen runners inside.

When it comes to winning, mileage means nothing to the man who famously won the 2007 Grand National with Silver Birch before even saddling a winner in Ireland.

“The lorry is never off the road!” Elliott grins before outlining an approach to his job that has seen him make a meteoric rise to the top of his profession since starting out with a dozen horses, mostly point-to-pointers, just four years ago. Last season he had 60 winners between Britain and Ireland. He is already past halfway to surpassing that tally.

“It’s all about keeping horses in the right company. There’s no point going to Galway to come seventh or eighth when there is a chance you could win in Perth or somewhere else. Winners are what count, no matter where they are,” he says.

Elliott has been so successful exploiting the programme book with relatively moderate material that it is no surprise the quality of his string is starting to catch up with the quantity. So much so that Elliott’s landlord at the Capranny stables near Trim which will house up to 65 horses this year is already expecting to have to search for a replacement soon.

“I don’t want to lose him but I don’t think it will be long until he out-grows Capranny,” Barry Callaghan, the former Meath footballer, has said. “At the rate he is going, he is going to be champion trainer one day.”

Elliott himself isn’t thinking that far ahead, at least not publicly, but there is no getting away from the levels of success that have allowed him surf the currently rough economic sea with some ease.

“We’re going well in bad times,” he admits. “The thing is we’ve never really had any big owners, no big builders or anything like that. The thing now is to keep it going.”

To that end there is no bigger shop window than Galway and when it comes to Thursday’s €250,000 Guinness Hurdle, it could be the diminutive Dirar that pushes himself to the front.

Once owned by the Aga Khan, Dirar was tried in a Classic trial as a three-year-old and managed a flat rating that placed him in that twilight zone between handicaps and stakes company. Neither was he physically an obvious type to go jumping.

“He’s the smallest horse in the yard. You wouldn’t see him over the door. But he’s got a great heart. He’s a 15 hand horse who thinks he’s 17 hands,” Elliott says.

“At Galway you need a horse that travels. It’s a sharp track and Dirar jumps and travels very well. He’s had seven or eight runs over hurdles now so he will be experienced enough,” he adds.

The Plate is a different challenge but Nedzer’s Return will lead an Elliott team that also includes Backstage and Valerius, attempting to build on a summer campaign travelling the roads in the style of a typically busy Elliott campaigner.

“He is what he is – a summer chaser. With a bit of luck he can get into the frame and you never know what might happen after that,” the trainer says. “Backstage will run in the Plate too although it might be a little on the short side for him.”

It is three years since Recovery Man was Elliott’s sole festival winner in a bumper on Galway Hurdle day. Come the end of next Sunday it will be a surprise if that distinction still belongs to him.