‘I’m Still On Cloud Nine’ – McKeever Riding High with Cheltenham Hero The Mourne Rambler

[Wandering Eyes]

Christopher McKeever, the man responsible for last week's Champion Bumper hero The Mourne Rambler (Well Chosen), has spoken of his disbelief in the aftermath of the success that saw him join a select group of Cheltenham Festival-winning breeders, achieved with a horse trained by his great friend of 60 years, Noel Meade.

“I was here at home with the dog, my wife and a friend of mine,” McKeever told TDN Europe on Tuesday, having watched the race not at Cheltenham but in County Meath, where he lives just a stone's throw away from Meade's Tu Va Stables.

“I got two phone calls before he'd even pulled up and I had to go outside. I just couldn't believe it. I was amazed. To be honest, it's only sinking in now, but I do know that the whole parish and the local towns all backed him. Here, when you hit on a good horse like that, everybody owns him.”

He continued, “I didn't back him because I don't gamble, although all breeders are gamblers and dreamers, really. We gamble to get the right foal and we dream of getting a Grade 1 winner. All breeders are the same and I'm no different from anybody else. I'm just very, very lucky. That's what I am. I'm extremely lucky and blessed to have a mare like Lobinstown Girl.”

Lobinstown Girl, the dam of The Mourne Rambler, was also trained by Meade during a racing career which saw her fail to win in eight starts under Rules. She went close on her penultimate outing at Punchestown, however, before getting injured at Wexford a few weeks later to leave her syndicate of owners, including McKeever, in something of a quandary.

“She ran in Punchestown and was second, so everybody was on a high, but then she ran at Wexford and got injured,” McKeever recalled, before revealing the modest sum it cost him to take outright ownership of the daughter of Luso. “Syndicates here can fall asunder very quickly when things are going bad, so I bought her from the syndicate and I gave them €350 for her.

“I was a couple of months off retirement. I had another mare, Miss Audacious, whose progeny won races for Philip Hobbs and Alan Jones. I intended to have two mares as a hobby, just to give me something to do when I retired. I was always involved in horses, but I had drifted away for 20-25 years because it just wasn't paying me. There was no financial gain in it at all and I had mortgages and children and that kind of thing. The rest is history.”

Even before The Mourne Rambler came on the scene with his maiden bumper win at Leopardstown on Boxing Day, Lobinstown Girl had proven her worth as a broodmare as the dam of three black-type performers from four runners. They included Sixshooter, who ran one of his best races when finishing third in the G2 Galmoy Hurdle, and G3 “Monksfield” Novice Hurdle runner-up She's A Star, the product of the first of many matings with Kedrah House Stud's Well Chosen.

“My brother [point-to-point trainer Colin McKeever] had trained a horse by Well Chosen that had gone to Henrietta Knight. He suggested Well Chosen, so I rang Tom Meagher [of Kedrah House Stud] in 2011,” McKeever said of how he settled on Well Chosen for Lobinstown Girl's maiden cover.

“I thought Tom was a straight-talking guy and he punched proper. I looked at Well Chosen and thought he was a smashing horse. To tell you the truth, he was in my price range at €800. That foal, She's A Star, came from an €800 stallion and a €350 mare!”

He added, “I kept going back to Tom and Sixshooter is another full-brother [to The Mourne Rambler]. Noel bought him off me in November and She's A Star won her point-to-point then in February. Noel did tell me to hold on to him but, to be truthful with you, it wasn't feasible. There's no point saying otherwise, money was very tight. As a small breeder, it can be very much a struggle now.

“Tom Meagher has been a huge, huge help to me over the years. There's a thing I have called loyalty. If I am treated right, then I will treat people right. Tom Meagher is one of the people that has been with me from the start. We both started from the very bottom, with Well Chosen and the mare, and look at what has happened.”

At the age of 27, Well Chosen's stock has arguably never been higher given what happened at Cheltenham last week, with the success of The Mourne Rambler being his second at Grade 1 level in the space of two days, following that of Old Park Star in the previous afternoon's Supreme Novices' Hurdle. It's still early days, but Old Park Star is potentially the most exciting runner yet for a stallion who has done things the hard way.

“Back at the time when Well Chosen bred She's A Star, he wasn't covering very many mares,” said McKeever. “Well Chosen does not breed commercial foals. That was his problem. He wasn't throwing sales horses, but he was throwing racehorses. He just wasn't what they wanted and I couldn't understand it because his record was fantastic.

“They wouldn't have been fancy, good-looking horses but, by Christ, they could run. The Mourne Rambler is a good-looking horse, but he's not exceptional to look at. If you were going to give €100,000 for a horse, I don't think you'd have given it for him before he won.”

 

The Mourne Rambler as a foal with Lobinstown Girl | Christopher McKeever

 

The proof is in the pudding, with The Mourne Rambler by no means topping the bill on the two occasions that he was offered at public auction. He first changed hands for €32,000 when consigned as a foal by Kedrah House Stud, on behalf of McKeever, at the Tattersalls Ireland November NH Sale.

“I sold him in Tattersalls and he ended up in Wexford,” said McKeever. “I didn't know where he went and I like to try and follow where they are. When they're in training, I probably bombard the trainers. I used to text Philip Hobbs and Alan Jones, as well as Lucinda Russell when she had runners that I'd bred.

“Then, he came back to Goffs for the Arkle Sale where he didn't make a lot of money. I think he made €45,000 and I was amazed at that, to be honest. I thought he would make a lot more. But he was bought by a guy in the north who my brother would know well, Paddy Turley. Paddy is a very, very shrewd operator, a young man with a great future.

“So, he was with Paddy and it was amazing how he went to Wexford, to the north, and then back down to us at home here – he went round the block! I don't mean this in a disrespectful way but, if he'd gone to Willie Mullins, or some other trainer down the country, or to the UK, I probably wouldn't even see him again. But I was down there with him on Saturday morning and it's just an amazing story. I really have to say it is now. I'm still on cloud nine.”

A near-three-length winner at Cheltenham in the hands of leading Flat pilot Colin Keane, The Mourne Rambler was sporting the red and black silks there of Philip Polly, a neighbour of Turley's in Downpatrick, County Down. Turley had saddled the gelding to finish second in a point-to-point at Portrush in October last year, before Meade then sent out the 8/1 chance to win his bumper by over three lengths at Leopardstown.

“I'd been getting all of the right vibes from Paddy Turley, but Willie can win a bumper by 25 lengths and you'd be up against a Grade 1 horse,” said McKeever. “Noel would always tell you that he was a good horse, but we didn't really know what we had.

“The ground drying out [at Cheltenham] was a huge help to our lad. She's A Star won on the Flat at Dundalk and was second at the Curragh to a horse of Aidan [O'Brien]'s. She had a right bit of toe, but not as much as this guy. I'm not saying that it will happen, but I would imagine that Noel may run him on the Flat at some stage. I don't tell Noel what to do with any horse. I have horses in training with him and I leave it all to Noel Meade.”

He added of their friendship, “We go back 60 years together. We hunted together and shared ponies as children. [Gold Cup and Grand National-winning jockey] John Burke, Noel Meade, James Halpin, my brother and myself, we were the crew that went round together.”

Fittingly, Meade has trained each and every one of Lobinstown Girl's progeny to have made it to the racecourse thus far, with the promise of more to come from a mare who is said to be still going strong at the age of 21. Indeed, Meade has already taken charge of the four-year-old Islria, again by Well Chosen and subject to positive reports from McKeever, with a debut run looming on the horizon.

“I think he is a stronger horse [than The Mourne Rambler],” McKeever said of Islria. “He's a very different model, a chestnut like Sixshooter and a big, strong horse. I had him in training with Noel last year as a three-year-old. Noel then had a client call me and I sold him in February. He's a cracking horse and I think he'll run in the near future.”

He continued, “I still have She's A Star and she's in foal to Poet's Word. She's only about 15hh, but she won five races and finished second in the Grade 3 in Navan. She's already bred Colcannon. I'm not down as the breeder, but I bred him as well and he's a Grade 2 winner.

“Lobinstown Girl is in great order as well. You wouldn't think she was 21 now. She slipped her foal this year, unfortunately. I want to get her checked out with the vets and, if they're happy, she'll go to Rich History [at Kedrah House]. She started with Tom and she'll finish with Tom.”

Whenever that story should end, it will certainly have been quite the journey for the McKeever family, the long and winding road which led them to their crowning achievement at Cheltenham last week, courtesy of the foal dubbed 'Pfizer' when he was born in April 2021 at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Should I give up now when I'm in front?” joked McKeever, still very much savouring the moment. “Actually, a friend of mine said to me yesterday, 'What the hell would you give up for? You need to go for the Melbourne Cup!' It's like I said to you earlier, breeders are dreamers and gamblers. That's the bottom line. None of us make a fortune out of it, particularly in National Hunt, but the fulfilment I've had is just amazing. I can't put it into words. If it works out, it's great, but it's a lonesome road if it doesn't.

“Listen, it's been a wonderful, wonderful journey. I never would have expected it, because I've had my own issues as well, health issues and things like that over the past few years. It's just been a huge, huge lift. Everybody around me seems to be so happy and it's just a wonderful story. I just can't believe at times that it happened to me, but it has.”

The post ‘I’m Still On Cloud Nine’ – McKeever Riding High with Cheltenham Hero The Mourne Rambler appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

View the full article