Goodwill might be intangible on a balance sheet, but it will feel very real come 4pm on Wednesday when Marine Nationale lines up for the Queen Mother Champion Chase.
The death just over three weeks ago of Michael O’Sullivan, who rode Marine Nationale to festival glory in the 2023 Supreme Novices Hurdle, makes the horse’s appearance incredibly poignant.
Both horse and jockey had the racing world at their feet in 2023: the fall at Thurles that took the 24-year-old rider’s life puts into heartbreaking perspective the outcome of any race.
But just because its immaterial in any broader context doesn’t mean this Champion Chase isn’t loaded with meaning for those closest to O’Sullivan.
His father William spoke movingly in the funeral eulogy about how much Marine Nationale meant to his son. He wished his owner-trainer Barry Connell nothing but success.
Images of O’Sullivan and Marine Nationale winning at Cheltenham are indelible. Should the horse win Wednesday’s big race under Sean Flanagan, those evocative memories of 2023 will accompany them both back to the winners’ enclosure.
Connell and O’Sullivan split professionally in November. It was over something minor that in the way of these things escalated. Personally, it was a different story, the pair forever linked through a horse.
“The whole last few weeks have been very raw for everybody. We went on journey together. He started the season (2022-23) with me as a 7lb-claiming amateur, I only had the license a couple of years. And then we found this magical creature. We both went on some journey with him. It was fantastic,” Connell says.
“I was lucky enough to spend a bit of time with Michael’s family before the funeral. The one consolation, if there is to be a consolation, is that he packed an incredible career into such a short space of time, achieving more than a lot of riders achieve in a lifetime,” he adds.
The businessman famously rode 34 winners himself as an amateur. He was nearly 40 when learning to ride.
As an owner his yellow silks became a racing staple, including through Cheltenham Festival victories for Pedrobob (2007 County Hurdle) and Martello Tower (2015 Albert Bartlett). Then he officially took out a trainer’s license himself in 2020.
The success he has enjoyed, initially as a stockbroker and a fund manager, allowed the 62-year-old from Carrickmines to build a state-of-the-art premises from scratch near Nurney in Co Kildare.
His emphasis on investing in quality rather than quantity quickly paid off in spades when the young Marine Nationale arrived in the yard.
He and O’Sullivan were unbeaten in six starts including that Supreme victory, which looked a prelude to future championship glory. A first success over fences was followed by a flop at last year’s Dublin Racing Festival (DRF) that quickly got him written off as a busted flush.
“The whole media cycle is turbocharged now. It’s very intense, and then two days later it moves on to the next thing,” Connell believes, trying to put sense on how fast that dismissal was.
A suspensory problem was discovered shortly after that DRF. He returned to action under O’Sullivan at Naas in November, finishing runner-up to Quilixios. At Christmas, under Flanagan for the first time, he was third to Solness. At last month’s DRF he was runner-up to the same horse but closed the gap to two lengths.
“He’s probably improving 10lbs every time he’s run this year. And if you look back at him over hurdles, it was pretty much the same thing. He improves in the spring, and he goes back there with two advantages.
“He’s a course winner on the old course. I know it’s fences rather than hurdles, but course and distance form is a massive plus. You either take to Cheltenham or you don’t. And the second thing is his temperament. You could put a child on his back.
“He doesn’t pull, he’s a rider’s dream, they can put anywhere in a race, and he has so much speed,” Connell says.
Victory in a Champion Chase would be the realisation of a long-held dream for the Dubliner.
“I’ve been going to Cheltenham since I was a student in college, going with schoolfriends, staying in Stratford, in the early 1980s.
“I remember being there for Viking Flagship, Badsworth Boy, Remittance Man, all those horses. To me the best race is the Champion Chase. If you gave me a choice of it or the Gold Cup, I’d pick the Champion Chase any day of the week. I think it’s the pinnacle of the sport.
“It’s pure speed and accuracy and athleticism. Horses don’t really get tired in the Champion, whereas the Gold Cup is all about stamina and sometimes it turns into a slogging match,” he adds.
The last few weeks have the most dreadful slog for so many within racing. Victory for Marine Nationale would be bittersweet. But very apt too.
