‘This Is For Michael’: Emotions Run High as Marine Nationale Storms Champion Chase

[Wandering Eyes]

CHELTENHAM, UK — Look to the stars. A reflex action for Sean Flanagan as he passed the post in front on Marine Nationale (Ire) (French Navy {GB}) to win the G1 BetMGM Queen Mother Champion Chase.

Any win at Cheltenham is emotional for those closest to the horse, but this was one heavily laced with poignancy, coming less than a month after the death of Marine Nationale's former jockey Michael O'Sullivan at the age of 24. Two years earlier, Marine Nationale had provided him with his first victory at the Festival in the G1 Supreme Novices' Hurdle, and later that day Jazzy Matty (Fr) (Doctor Dino {Fr}) became his second. On Wednesday, those two horses gave repeat performances – different races, different men in their saddles, but winners again on the biggest stage of all. 

“All the jockeys in the world have been under a cloud for the last couple of weeks,” said Flanagan as he began the lead in from the track to the cauldron of the winner's enclosure and a hero's welcome. “I'm only the man that steered him around, Michael's the man who made him what he is and he'll never be forgotten.”

Marine Nationale's trainer, Barry Connell, who had played such a key role in the early years of O'Sullivan's life as a professional jockey, was visibly moved by the sorrow of recent weeks, and admitted that it was still “very raw”. 

He said, “It's been absolutely horrible – horrible. My thoughts and prayers are with the family, his friends – Charlotte, his girlfriend, is here, she was with us saddling up the horse. Everybody in racing, it's a great community, and everybody has come together for Michael.”

O'Sullivan's last ride aboard Marine Nationale came in November when they were second to Quilixios (GB) (Maxios {GB}) in a Grade 3 chase at Naas after nine months off the track. Thereafter he has been the mount of Flanagan following a parting of ways between Connell and O'Sullivan, and it was the last-fence fall of Quilixios in the Champion Chase which left the path clear for the eight-year-old to claim his second Festival success. 

Connell, himself a dual-winning jockey at Cheltenham, continued, “I've been coming racing here since the 1980s, since I was a student, and it's the one race I always wanted to win, because it's pure, unadulterated, on-the-edge speed; the horses finish quickly, they don't finish tired like in the Gold Cup. It won't sink in for a long time.

“Michael and I went on a journey with this horse; he rode him in all his races in his novice season over hurdles. He started as a 7lb claimer with us and we asked him to turn pro. He ended winning three Grade 1s as a claimer, was leading rider on the first day [in 2023], and then leading conditional. I've asked racing historians and I don't think they can find anyone who did all that. It is a tragedy that he's left us, but it's a record that he can be really proud of. He's achieved more in a lifetime than a lot of riders who have been riding a lot longer can ever achieve. So I'd like to dedicate this win to Michael and his girlfriend Charlotte.”

 

Sean Flanagan and Barry Connell with the Queen Mother Champion Chase trophy | PA Media

 

A former stockbroker, Connell trains a small string near the Curragh and was represented on the opening day of the Festival by the Supreme Novices' Hurdle runner-up William Munny (Ire) (Westerner).

“This is a magical creature and he landed in our yard,” he said of Marine Nationale. “We've only 16, 17 riding out at any one point in time, so to get one like him and, yesterday, to get another one, you pinch yourself. Look, we're only guardians of these horses and our only edge, being a small operation, is to just try to give them as much time as we can.”

In another feature race laden with drama, Jonbon (Fr) (Walk In The Park {Ire}) had started favourite but a bad mistake at the ninth fence scuppered his chances as he dropped out to last place before rallying up the hill to take second, some 18 lengths adrift of Marine Nationale. Last year's winner Captain Guinness (Ire) (Arakan) held on for third. 

Just 40 minutes later, thoughts turned once more to O'Sullivan after a rejuvenated Jazzy Matty, landed the Debenhams Johnny Henderson Grand Annual Handicap Chase in the hands of Danny Gilligan. His victory of two years ago was chalked up to Gordon Elliott, but the six-year-old joined the stable of Cian Collins last spring and duly gave the trainer his first taste of Cheltenham Festival success, having previously won twice for him earlier this season. 

“It's unbelievable,” he said. “We were very hopeful coming here today, but it's Cheltenham and we needed a lot of luck on our side. We had that. I said that that – Marine Nationale and Jazzy Matty winning – doesn't happen often. This is for Michael.”

The card started with the sole British-trained runner of the day when rising star The New Lion (GB) (Kayf Tara {GB}), bred by the late Robert Chugg and his wife Jackie, prevailed in a battling finish with the The Yellow Clay (Ire) (Yeats {Ire}) to take the G1 Turners Novices' Chase for the trainer-jockey brothers Dan and Harry Skelton. The six-year-old was also the 80th Cheltenham Festival winner for dominant jumps owner JP McManus. 

Through the afternoon another three winners came the way of Willie Mullins to add to his first-day double. The only surprise perhaps was that the outsider of his three runners in the G1 Brown Advisory Novices' Chase, Lecky Watson (Ire) (Valirann {Fr}), was the one to come out on top when a jumping error put paid to the chances of favourite Ballyburn (Ire) (Flemensfirth). Lecky Watson, like The New Lion, was another to pay a posthumous tribute to a much-missed breeder in Ronnie O'Neill of Whytemount Stud. O'Neill also bred, owned and trained his dam Anno Whyte (Ire), and owned and trained granddam Anno Mundi, herself a Red Ransom half-sister to the Champion Hurdler Annie Power (Ire) (Shirocco {Ger}). Both Valirann and Lecky Watson's damsire Stowaway (Ire) were former residents of Whytemount Stud, making it a proper homespun affair. 

O'Neill, a former amateur jockey for Willlie Mullins's father Paddy as well as being a trainer and breeder, died last October. 

Jody Townend, whose brother Paul is the leading rider at the Festival, ensured that he is not the only member of the family on the roll of honour when winning the G1 Weatherbys Champion Bumper aboard the unbeaten mare Bambino Fever (Ire) (Jukebox Jury {Ire}). The result gave Stowaway, the stallion in whom O'Neill had placed such faith, his second Grade 1 victory of the day as broodmare sire. 

 

The post ‘This Is For Michael’: Emotions Run High as Marine Nationale Storms Champion Chase appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

View the full article