Trainer Profile

County Of Origin: Limerick

Date of licence: 1973

First winner: Ramrajya - Limerick, March 17, 1979

Final winner: Rising Dust (Danny Mullins), Listowel, June 1, 2024

Significant horses (selected): Beef Or Salmon, Dorans Pride, Tropical Lake, Hi Cloy, Mr Cracker, Church Island, A New Story, Deep Bramble, Amberleigh House, Ballygowan Beauty, Anusha, Dancing Tornado, Inis Cara, Native Performance, Rockholm Boy, Mossbank, King Carew, The Gatechecker, Give Me A Break, The Job Is Right, Hash Brown, The Crafty Butcher, Turf War, Tell The Nipper, Court Melody, For William.

Did you know:  

From Patrickswell, County Limerick, Michael Hourigan started out in racing in 1962 as an apprentice jockey on the Curragh for Dermot Weld's father Charlie. He rode as an apprentice and then as a National Hunt jockey, riding 14 winners, before taking out his trainer's licence in 1973.

It took Michael six years to saddle his first winner and it came at his local racecourse, Limerick (Greenpark) on St Patrick's Day, 1979 where Ramrajya finally got him off the mark. His tally was up to five before the year was out and seven more winners arrived before the end of 1980. A moderate beginning to a training career that would yet boast Cheltenham Festival and 22 Grade 1 wins.  

Michael is best known for all that he achieved with chasing star Beef Or Salmon and the 1995 Stayers' Hurdle winner Dorans Pride. The latter also won the Irish Gold Cup and the Lexus Chase at Leopardstown in 1998 having taken the John Durkan Memorial Chase at Punchestown a year earlier. He was also a Kerry National winner in 1997 and these wins over fences came on the back of a high-profile career over hurdles that saw him win the Stayers' Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival and the Grade 1 Hatton's Grace Hurdle in 1995 and the Grade 1 Christmas Hurdle at Leopardstown in 1994.

Beef Or Salmon was a 10-time Grade 1 winner and his notable wins include the Irish Gold Cup in 2003, 2004 and 2007 and the Lexus Chase in 2002, 2004 and 2005. 

In Britain, Michael also won the Melling Chase with Hi Cloy in 2006, the Whitbred Gold Cup (bet365 Gold Cup) with Church Island in 2010 and the Glenlivet Four-Year-Old Hurdle with Tropical Lake in 1994. Along with Dorans Pride's Stayers' Hurdle victory, he won the National Hunt Chase with Deejaydee in 1999 and the Cross Country Chase with A New Story in 2010 at the Cheltenham Festival. 

Michael finished runner-up in the Irish trainers' championship on two occasions, losing out ot Aidan O'Brien in the 1993/1994 season and to Noel Meade in 2002/2003. In all, he trained close to 1,000 winners in a near 52-year career. Michael announced his intention to retire in late February, 2025 saying, "Now is the right time, I'm just at that age. Racing has been very good to us, we've had a great time, myself and my wife Ann. We met a lot of friends and had wonderful owners."