On Monday the Road to Cheltenham took me to a new destination. The Boherbaun Stables of Barry Connell.
The trainer is there as the bus pulls into its allotted parking space. It’s windy and there’s drizzle in the air but he’s ready to showcase the yard that he’s built – and the horse who has taken him to the top of the racing tree.
We’re about to talk to a remarkable man, one who never sat on a horse until he was 30 but went on to ride over 30 winners in his own silks, including two at Cheltenham.
Now he’s turned trainer and nothing is left to chance. The former Stockbroker (who still keeps his hand in), has invested heavily in this project, and not just financially.
There are three different types of accommodation for horses including a row of new open barns. They offer their residents shelter from the westerly winds as they spend their time in the open air. Others are in the courtyard, a more traditional set-up at first glance, but all have open windows at the rear. It’s about airflow, keeping horses healthy and happy.
And winning.
Marine Nationale has done that twice already at Cheltenham, in the 2023 Sky Bet Supreme and last season’s BetMGM Queen Mother Champion Chase.
He’s wearing the rug for that success as he poses for photographs and your mind immediately goes back to that moment last season. To the raw emotion that came flooding out as the horse who more than any other helped drive the career of Michael O’Sullivan forward won the day-two feature only weeks after the rider tragically lost his life following a fall at Thurles.
“The day before we went, Michael’s girlfriend came here and we sat upstairs with Jennifer Pugh who is the chief medical officer and she just wanted to spend 10 minutes in the stable with him (pointing to Marine Nationale) on her own,” Connell recalled.
“It was hugely emotional. Michael won his first bumper on him at Punchestown. I didn’t have an amateur at the time, and he rang for the ride and had ridden one horse before for me in a point-to-point.
“So, I said, ‘come in and start riding out a bit’ and we could just see the talent he had. So, I sat him down one day and said look, he’d already done his college degree and was a good age, so I said you should turn pro.
“He did. We put him on Enniskerry who won a Grade Three at Roscommon, and that was his first ride in a Graded race. Then I put him on Marine in the Royal Bond, a Grade One, and he won that and went on to Cheltenham to win the Supreme.
“When you're young and you don’t know what can go wrong it’s great, you can just filter out the pressure, but he was a tremendous talent. He ended up being champion conditional rider. His death was an incredible tragedy, but I thought racing rallied around and were very supportive of his family and I think it was great the race (Supreme) was named in his honour. But the Wednesday was a very emotional day."
Marine National is firmly on track to defend his crown next month but goes there off the back of two defeats this season.
The first came after a shuddering mistake at the second fence of the Paddy’s Rewards Club Chase over Christmas. Sean Flanagan worked miracles to keep the partnership intact that day and they went on to finish second to Solness.
But back at Leopardstown in the Ladbrokes Dublin Chase, they were never able to lay a glove on Majborough.
In deep ground, Willie Mullins’ charge ran and jumped his rivals ragged to win by 19 lengths. But Connell is ready for the rematch. And you knew he would be.
“I live near Leopardstown and I’d say in the last 25 years I’ve never seen anything like it. It was the heaviest ground I’ve seen up there that day,” he said.
“The easy thing would have been not to run him, but we needed to get a run into him somewhere and I didn’t think it was going to do him any harm, but he was never in a rhythm, in the first part of the race he was out of his comfort zone.
“To his credit when they slowed it down halfway down the back, he started to get into it again but looked like he was going to be a bad third jumping the last but stayed on and got going again.
“I think we’ll see a different horse in March and that’s not just my opinion again, it’s backed up by the formbook and what he does when he goes there every year. He’s eight, in the prime of his life, so we’re looking forward to going back.
“Majborough put in an excellent performance, I think his RaceiQ Jump Index was completely off the radar. It was 9.5. 8 is a good Jump Index, not only did he not make any mistakes but he met every fence spot on. The two soft-ground horses were Majborough and Found A Fifty, and both of them outperformed.
“And the two good-ground horses were us and Solness. He pulled-up and we got going in the end to finish second, but I’d put a line through the run."
Clearly handicappers can’t – or wont. Timeform, for example, raised Majborough’s rating to 179, the highest for any jumps horse in training and 12lb above Marine Nationale’s own perch.
But Connell isn’t convinced that they’ll need to hit that sort of figure to take their revenge.
“If we look at official ratings, Majborough is 174. We were 170 but dropped a pound to 169. So, he’s run to 174 in absolutely perfect condition for him, making no mistake on a galloping track that suits him,” the trainer continued.
“On official ratings we’ve five pounds to make up and a number of factors will come into play at Cheltenham. Assuming we get it, there’s spring ground. Then there’s the Cheltenham factor, he’s been there and done it twice.
“There isn’t that much ground to make up. On the day we were beaten 19 lengths, and you’d say 'how are we going to reverse that?' But they were extreme conditions and my horse has won on summer soft ground before, but just wouldn’t go a yard on that (at Leopardstown), and didn’t.
“I wanted to support the meeting because in the past it was a stepping-stone to Cheltenham but it’s becoming a really important meeting in itself now. When I walked the track on the morning, it didn’t walk as bad as it rode.
“But Sean (Flanagan) told me afterwards it just rode very heavy, and the horse couldn’t get any traction. But there’s no harm done and we’ve got a run into him. He won’t do much now and will just have a couple of bits of work before he goes.
“He rode out this morning which is the first time he’s had a saddle on since the Dublin Chase and he’s come back, eaten everything. There’s not a bother. So, we haven’t done any damage."
So, onto Cheltenham, the title defence and rematch. There’s confidence in the Marine Nationale camp that borders on becoming infectious.
As he circles around the yard in front us, Connell adds: “He’s a special animal. He’s not even once in a lifetime, he’s once in 10,000 lifetimes. We’re very lucky he’s landed in our yard here and they say with horses, the good ones train themselves.
“The main thing is you don’t get in their way, and you don’t do anything stupid. Luckily we haven’t. We might have done by running him the other day but the way he’s come out of it, we might have got away with it. I think we have."
And with that Marine Nationale returns to his box. The next time we’ll see him is at Prestbury Park where he’ll face all the Festival and his rivals can throw at him.
Connell has had five runners at the meeting over the years and only once has he had to 'turn right' to where the unplaced horses unsaddle.
No, he doesn’t get in their way or do anything stupid. Roll on the Champion Chase.
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