JIM BOLGER IS going racing for the first time since 2019 on Saturday, the pariah back in the parish.

He seems neither sure nor bothered what the reception will be, either for him or Poetic Flare – should the last-named win the Champion Stakes at Leopardstown.

No longer a member of the Irish Racehorse Trainers’ Association (IRTA), he incurred the disdain of many peers this year by going on record about drugs in Irish racing. Unsubstantiated and repeated claims prompted a sequence that involved Horse Racing Ireland, the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Body and the IRTA wheeled in front of an Oireachtas Committee (metaphorically, as it was done on Zoom, with much of the comedy that entails).

Bolger predictably and wisely stayed at home, as did any evidence that drugs are any major issue in racing. Many are firm that he is right; that cheats are getting away; that the authorities are happier to supervise the wheel turning as it ever has.

One wonders will he be greeted at Leopardstown like Father Ted in the pub when everyone had him down as a racist, perhaps without any eggs to spoil the Wexford man’s immaculate attire. It’s 35 years since he won the Champion Stakes for the first time.

The winner that day was Park Express. Later nurturing her final foal, her blindness compelled him to wear a bell so she knew where he was.

That foal became New Approach, Bolger’s only Epsom Derby winner. New Approach sired Dawn Approach, Bolger’s most recent English Guineas winner – or at least until that one’s son, Poetic Flare, took the race at the start of this year.

Bolger powers on but in 2021 Galileo entered the next world, having had more influence pound for pound in this one than perhaps any horse in the history of European racing.

“When Park Express won the Champion Stakes, Tipp won the All-Ireland the same day, and after racing this Saturday, I’ll be going to Croke Park hoping that Mayo might win the football,” Bolger told The42.

“I remember 1986 very well. Some Tipperary fellas turned up at the races afterwards. I really liked Park Express’s chance, even though a horse came over from France that was highly touted.”

I point out how remarkable it is that there’s such a clean link between his winner 35 years ago and Poetic Flare on Saturday, when she takes on the might of Ballydoyle (St Mark’s Basilica) and Tarnawa (Dermot Weld).

“It’s even better than that. Galileo was very unpopular in his third and fourth years as a sire. Nobody wanted to know him.

“I’d suggested to the owner Seamus Burns to send Park Express to Galileo, which he did and got her in foal. He was in the yard one day and was talking to Pat O’Donovan. I wasn’t there. ‘That bloody boss of yours sent her to Galileo,’ he was saying. He wasn’t one bit pleased. She was carrying a Derby winner.”

That Derby winner, New Approach, was welcomed back to the Epsom winners’ circle with qualified applause, as Bolger had famously ruled the horse out of the race, re-entered him and fell asleep before alerting the world to same. Catherine Tate comes to mind.

Bolger has a unique way of being at once self-deprecating and the opposite – or not, depending on how you read him. We’re talking about good writing and he mentions Eamonn Dunphy.

“He wrote a piece about his father bringing him to the Munster final. He recounted the whole journey, before and after; it was a brilliant piece. I met him years later and I don’t know how many times I’ve asked him to dig it up for me.”

Dunphy’s debut book, I point out, that rather kicked off his career as a journalist, chronicled the life of the journeyman.

“Well I can empathise with that,” he adds.

Bolger is anything but a journeyman but he’d endured relatively lean years before a dramatic revival in the middle of the last decade, when Teofilo came along. He was named after the Cuban boxer. His trainer knows how to spar.

“Teofilo, New Approach and Lush Lashes were all around in the same year. Then I was supposed to have a blank period until now, when in actual fact I’d a Derby winner (Trading Leather) and a Guineas winner (Dawn Approach) in between. They don’t count apparently!

“Fair enough Trading Leather wasn’t a top horse, and I suppose he didn’t capture the imagination that way; he was a long way better than some of the things that Aidan won it with.”

Aidan, of course, is Aidan O’Brien. I point out that Bolger’s former pupil is expected to run just St Mark’s Basilica against Poetic Flare in Saturday’s extravaganza.

“You’re very naive if you think Aidan is only having one runner.”

Bolger’s 80th year has been perhaps his most remarkable. Whatever about the drugs issue, he’s had an Irish Guineas winner (Mac Swiney, named after the hunger striker) and Poetic Flare (named after Bolger’s daughter), who has already run in five Group 1s.

“I expected Mac Swiney to win a Classic but I thought it would be the Derby. He doesn’t stay the Derby trip but he’ll run in the Mile race this weekend and he’s in terrific form.

“What’s different about Poetic Flare? His talent and his robustness. I’ve trained nothing as hardy as him. We always knew he was good but he always took his work very well; we were inclined to think he was extraordinarily hardy.

“Ascot was spectacular. That was my favourite of his races all year. We knew by then it was his ground; he had won the English Guineas on good to firm.

“My preference is always for good ground. It’s safer, they last longer and jockeys falling on it don’t get concussed to the extent they would otherwise.

“I am hopeful that he will get the ten furlongs. We won’t know until it happens. I’m not sure. At the end of a mile he’s certainly not stopping. I just hope he stays.

“I’d say we’ll go back to the mile race at Ascot and we’ll make an entry for the Breeders’ Cup and see what happens.”

This the competition Bolger has long ignored because of America’s drug issue? When did he even have a runner in it, I ask?

“Oh a long time ago.”

He’d make an exception for him?

“I don’t have to think about it just yet.”

He says Poetic Flare is his best chance Saturday, Mac Swiney his second-best, and he also gives juvenile Manu Et Corde “a big chance unless it’s soft. Hopefully he’s a Derby horse”.

Whether he admits it or not, he’s looking forward to going racing again.

“The Champion Stakes is a proper race and certainly this year. Just to indicate the strength in Irish racing, it’s a hugely exciting race and all the runners are trained here.

“I’d more happy than confident. I am happy to be going there: I haven’t been racing in nearly two years. I haven’t been missed. It’ll be my first time since Christmas of 2019.

“They moved away from me.”

Will he be a pariah?

“You’d want to ask others that. That won’t cause me to lose any sleep. I was never one of the highly-wanted types.”

Will the other trainers shake his hand if Poetic Flare wins?

“Sure we’re not shaking hands at the moment.”

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