In short, John Durkan was a successful amateur rider and, subsequently, assistant trainer to Oliver Sherwood and John Gosden, who died of leukaemia in January 1998, aged 30. He is commemorated by the John Durkan Memorial Chase, run at Punchestown in December and thus renamed in the year of his death.
Born in February 1967 and raised on the family farm in Glencullen, County Dublin, John Durkan was the son of Bill Durkan, who was credited as the trainer of the remarkable mare Analogs Daughter, winner of the Arkle Challenge Trophy at the Cheltenham Festival in 1980. As a jockey, John Durkan rode 93 winners rules, including Run And Skip and Brown Windsor in hunter chases, before becoming pupil assistant to Charlie Brooks, in Lambourn, Berkshire in 1986.
Fast forward a decade or so and, after two years as assistant trainer to Gosden, Durkan decided to take out a training licence in his own right. By that stage of his career, he had already acquired the historic Green Lodge Stables in Newmarket from the retiring Harry Thomson ‘Tom’ Jones and bought Istabraq for 38,000 guineas on behalf of owner J.P. McManus.
Oliver Sherwood said of his former assistant, “If he can’t make it as a trainer, no one will.” Sadly, those words proved improvident, because Durkan fell ill towards the end of 1996 and Istabraq – who would, of course, win the Champion Hurdle three years running, in 1998, 1999 and 2000 – was transferred to Aidan O’Brien.
