Strange as it sounds, training was never on Katie McGivern's agenda. A daughter of Joanna Morgan, one of the most successful women on the Irish racing circuit, the thoughts of emulating her mother's achievements in the saddle or with a training licence never got McGivern going.Instead, it was the sales ring that made McGivern tick. But sometimes life has a different plan and, after becoming a Listed-winning handler with her own vastly improved sprinter Kendall Roy (Twilight Son) at Cork last month, McGivern is eyeing further big-race success with another family-owned runner in Temperance (Churchill) this weekend.“I'm aiming for black-type with her this year and she is well up to that,” McGivern explained. “She has been off the track for a long time for no other reason than the fact she had been running below-par so we gave her a break and she has come back looking great. We have a couple of options – the main aim is to get black-type and we did it before with So Majestic (Siyouni). She was only rated 70 when she finished third in a Listed race at Naas at 150-1 but she always showed that level of ability. With those sprinters, it can just take them a bit of time before they learn how to do it and you have to be patient and it will click eventually. I can remember Chris Hayes saying about So Majestic, 'no, no, go for the handicap instead, she'll win.' But I went against everyone that day and thankfully it paid off.”She added, “Kendall Roy is a similar story and he is turning into a proper sprinter now. He had an unfair run last year. He took a few runs to get fit and then there was a disagreement in the partnership and he had to be sold. Literally, we only got a chance to start training him properly in the middle of last season and, while his form doesn't look that consistent, he's actually ultra-consistent. When you tee this horse up right and run him over five furlongs, he rarely lets you down. He won his Listed race at Cork as easily as he won on his handicap debut off 57, I thought. When he switched leads, he flew past them in a couple of strides and it looked easy. We're very excited about him.”Make no mistake, the breeze-up arm of this operation is and will continue to be the bread and butter. Under her Derryconner Stud banner, McGivern has sold some classy runners like Nobody Knows (Wootton Bassett), Azizam, (Havana Grey), Carla Ridge (New Bay) and Adrestia (Havana Grey).However, after enduring a nightmare season at the breeze-ups with many of her most expensive juveniles missing their intended targets after a virus wreaked havoc in the stable during the spring, McGivern is preparing to roll the big dice with an army of well-bred youngsters that would be the envy of some of the best trainers in the country. Kendall Roy | Racingfotos.com“It all coincided with Kendall Roy coming back from Bahrain,” she recalled of the horror spring spent fighting sickness in the stable. “My horses left for the Craven at six in the morning and he arrived in the yard at 10. Everything in the yard was sick the following Monday. Now, I mean proper sick. It completely wiped us out for three weeks and we missed a whole heap of sales. It didn't do me any favours now and I am on course to have a very poor year. Anything I brought to a sale, they sold well. But I have really nice two-year-olds by St Mark's Basilica, Lope De Vega, Havana Grey and then I also have a Starman going for the Goffs Classic Breeze-Up Sale. They were all hit the hardest. So it will be plan B for a lot of them, which means throwing on the silks, and that's not ideal because I love having the summers to relax and spend time with the kids. The plus side of it is there are some very nice horses in the yard now so we just have to put the head down and reap a few quid back by getting them to show what we think they are capable of on the track. I think they are all up to winning their maiden so it's definitely not the end of the world. There are trainers who would absolutely love the stock that I have to run so we're concentrating on the positives.”She added, “I never wanted to be a jockey and I never wanted to be a trainer. I absolutely loved the sales from the very start and that's why I got into the breeze-ups because it all felt quite natural for me. I don't want to sound ungrateful but I never wanted to be tied or trapped and, at times, being a trainer can be a very unthankful existence. If you look at So Majestic's form as an example, I don't know how I would explain some of her runs to an owner. I think she won on her ninth start for us off a mark in the 60s but, look, we got there in the end. To be fair, I use Chris Hayes quite a lot and he rides work for me on the Curragh. We usually work out a plan together and, the way I look at that is, the two of us can't be fools together. Okay, it might look ridiculous running in big races at times, but I do believe that I won't disgrace myself. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I'm just in a lucky position that I am not training for owners so, when it doesn't work out, I don't have to say sorry or try to explain why it went bad. I just have to take the saddle and walk away and go again.”It seems a long time ago now when Kendall Roy helped to put McGivern's name in lights as a trainer by making light work of an opening mark of 57 at Naas. A further six victories have been recorded with the five-year-old, who is owned in partnership with husband Tom Hore and fellow well-respected breeze-up handler and pinhooker, Shane Power of Tradewinds Stud. Kendall Roy's emergence as a genuinely exciting sprinter is a timely one and he will bid to cash another big cheque in the Group 2 Sapphire Stakes at the Curragh next month. There is also the option of the Coral Charge at Sandown while it is likely that he will receive some big-race entries for the back-end. Before all of that, McGivern will be back to the day job at the Goffs Classic Breeze-Up Sale on Saturday where she offers a Starman filly who posted one of the nicest breezes of the entire catalogue at Naas on Monday. She said, “To be fair, the Starman filly might do it for us. We actually couldn't believe we bought her for what we did [€24,000 from Tally-Ho Stud] but she just fell my way. There's never usually a gap with Roger O'Callaghan! I haven't made money yet so I won't jinx it but she was a really powerful yearling and she grew a lot after I bought her. She was meant to go to Donny but I ended up getting the virus in the yard and I couldn't go there even if I wanted to. It ended up being a blessing because she grew and luckily Goffs took her for this sale. She's a real quality-looking seven-furlong filly so fingers crossed. It's an incredible catalogue on paper, so hopefully the buyers show up.”McGivern concluded, “I still have all of my expensive horses at home and I am hoping that one will get me out of trouble. I do believe that it will all work out but it is a longer route and it's tying up cash a little longer than is ideal. It is what it is. Thankfully I have had an amazing few years so we are just taking this year on the chin and we're going to get past it. We'll be grand. At the minute, Kendall is paying the bills for us and I hope there will be an even bigger pot to be won with him further down the line. We just can't help ourselves in this game though, can we? It's definitely a drug. Despite the fact that you'd be paid double per hour in almost every other industry, we keep on coming back for more, year in and year out. What else would we do?”The post ‘Kendall Is Paying The Bills’ – McGivern Balances Breeze-Up Woes With Success On The Track appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.