Heart or head? Limerick farmer faces enviable dilemma now he owns a highly valuable filly

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On this occasion, Martin Stevens speaks to Limerick farmer Conor O'Brien about his well-bred and exciting filly – subscribers can get more great insight every Monday to Friday.

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Limerick farmer Conor O’Brien is facing the tough choice between following his heart or his head. Four years ago this week he picked up a Wings Of Eagles half-sister to high-class handicappers Minella Daddy and Noble Endeavor at the Goffs December National Hunt Sale for €25,000. 

Since then, another half-brother – a certain Ballyburn – has emerged as one of the most exciting National Hunt talents in years, and she herself has won a Listed mares’ bumper at Navan for Emmet Mullins.

Many other small owners with a high-class half-sister to a champion, whose value is potentially a life-changing amount, would find selling her for profit a no-brainer. 

But this case is not nearly so simple, as there is more emotion involved. The now four-year-old filly was purchased by O’Brien to revive his family’s involvement in racing after his father Donie died in 2012, and she is named Churchfield Sunset in honour of the home farm.

“My parents always bred horses and kept a few,” says O’Brien. “We had the odd runner here and there on the track, but always a few point-to-pointers. We had a fair bit of success doing that. There were some nice ones who won four-year-old maidens and would have been sold on.  

“After my dad passed away, there weren’t many horses around for a few years, so I wanted to get a few back on the farm. Churchfield Sunset was the first one I bought, actually. I’d been coming to the sales for a few years looking for a filly like her. I had it in my head that I wanted to buy a nice filly from a well-bred family. I’d underbid numerous foals beforehand.”

It was one of the shrewdest foal purchasers in the business – point-to-point maestro John Nallen, who purchased Gold Cup hero Minella Indo and Grand National winner Minella Times at the same Tattersalls Ireland November National Hunt Sale in 2013 – who gave O’Brien the kick up the bum he needed to finally part with his cash.  

“I’d be good friends with John’s assistant Corky Carroll,” says O’Brien. “You wouldn’t know it to look at me now, but I would have ridden a few winners in point-to-points, so I got to know him there. Then he went to work for John and I got to know him too. John's just a great character and a thoroughly nice guy.

“John and Corky were looking at foals for themselves that day at Goffs and so I brought them down to see the filly who would become Churchfield Sunset, and they gave me their opinions, which I valued greatly.  

“But the most important thing was, just before she went into the ring, John told me he was getting a bit tired of the fact that I was coming to the sales all the time and buying nothing. ‘Conor,’ he said, ‘you remind me of a guy who used to come into my nightclub. Every Saturday night he’d pick out the best-looking girl there, and then couldn’t muster the courage to buy her a drink.’

Churchfield Sunset: exciting half-sister to Ballyburn strikes in a Listed bumper at Navan Credit: CAROLINE NORRIS

“That did it, and ten minutes later I was down €25,000 but up a foal.” 

O’Brien took the young Churchfield Sunset to Limerick, where she enjoyed an idyllic upbringing along the banks of the Shannon for her first two years. 

“My mum [Patricia] and my wife Brid helped look after her,” he recalls. “We might be a little bit unorthodox, as we usually let the young horses run with the dairy heifers so that they get the best grass and grow to be strong. It’s good, rich grassland that’s ideal for rearing stock.

“John and Corky took her off me for a month when she was two just to do a bit of pre-breaking with her, and I think that stood to her.” 

Meanwhile, in the autumn of Churchfield Sunset’s two-year-old season, her half-brother Ballyburn bolted up in a four-year-old maiden at Loughanmore on his debut for Colin McKeever. 

“There was a lot of talk about Ballyburn at that stage and so I was thinking about sending her to the store sales,” says O’Brien. “I spoke to the sale companies and asked about getting her into either the Arkle or Derby sales, and they sent out agents to inspect her, but they both said she was too small. She wasn’t accepted into either sale.” 

If that isn’t food for thought about the culture of style over substance in commercial National Hunt breeding, what is?

Churchfield Sunset stayed at home until the summer of her three-year-old season, and then she returned to Nallen and Carroll to be broken in when they had wound down from the point-to-point season. It was agreed upon by all that she would go down the bumper route rather than run in point-to-points. 

The time came to find a trainer for Churchfield Sunset, then, but her slightly diminutive stature – “16 hands if you’re buying,” says O’Brien with a twinkle in his eye – didn’t make her first pick for some people’s teams.

“I got a phone call one day from Patrick Mullins to ask whether I still had the half-sister to Ballyburn,” says O’Brien. “I said I did, and so he came down to see her. I led her up and down for him, and he said he’d come back to me.  

Ballyburn: brilliant novice hurdler and half-brother to Churchfield SunsetCredit: Patrick McCann

“He rang me a few days later and said look, we've been talking to Willie and she’s too small. I said, fair enough, but I added, can you tell me one thing? He said sure, what? So I said, tell me how tall was Quevega? He just started laughing. Anyway, that was the end of that.

“So I went to Emmet Mullins and told him the story, and I think the fact that Willie had turned her down gave him a bit more incentive to take her. But look, it’s all good sport, and Patrick’s sent me a lovely message of congratulations each time Churchfield Sunset has won. He’s a gentleman.”

Mullins, E not WP, sent out Churchfield Sunset to score in a 17-runner Cork bumper on her debut, and to finish second to Minella Hollow – trained and owned by Nallen – in a similar event at Roscommon a month later.  

The filly had tweaked a suspensory ligament at Roscommon, so she returned home to Limerick for a break. 

“She got star treatment,” says O’Brien. “I gave her the best grass I could. The cows got hungry and she got big.”

She returned to Mullins in September and made her seasonal bow in a Listed fillies' and mares' bumper at Navan last month, when she was given a peach of a ride by John Gleeson, bounding along in front on her own on the far side and never being caught. Her margin of victory was nearly five lengths. 

Hence O’Brien has arrived at his quandary, owning an inexpensively bought mare who was meant to provide fun for the family, in the tradition of his late father, and who was named sentimentally, but has also now accrued significant value.

“I suppose I set myself up for this as I deliberately bought a filly thinking it would leave my options open,” he says. “If she turned into a nice one she might have gone back up for sale as a store, if she didn’t she could still go racing. If she went into training and didn’t end up any good, she’d have had a good enough page to breed from. You have three rolls of the dice. 

“But now that Ballyburn has sprung up, and she’s turned out to be very good herself, it’s hard to know what to do.

"My heart says I’d probably spend all my life looking for another one like her, so would I not just keep her on the farm and breed from her and maybe her daughters in the future? But then my head’s saying, 'Take the money, take the money'.” 

Churchfield Sunset: "My heart says I’d probably spend all my life looking for another one like her"Credit: Patrick McCann

While O’Brien makes up his mind, Churchfield Sunset is being readied for the Dublin Racing Festival at Leopardstown in February. Assuming he keeps hold of her, there will then be another debate about whether she goes hurdling.

“She's well able to jump, she's been over the schooling strip at John Nallen’s and there was no problem at all," says O'Brien. "But I suppose the thing is, the risk goes up. I’d be nervous sending a filly who’s worth six figures or so over obstacles. 

"It might be different for the millionaire owners, as they would have another one to come along if the worst happened, but for the likes of me it's a hard decision.”

Meanwhile, O’Brien has expanded his string a little. He bought a Joshua Tree half-sister to Grade 3-winning chaser Embittered out of Con O’Keeffe’s good mare Kilbarry Classic for €16,000 as a foal from the Tattersalls Ireland November National Hunt Sale of 2021 – she is also in training with Emmet Mullins – and a Blue Bresil filly out of an Oscar half-sister to Synchronised bought for the same amount at the same sale last year. 

So, come on, what does O’Brien think will win out? Heart or head? Will he attempt to sell Churchfield Sunset, or keep hold of her?

“I think the heart,” he says. “I'll probably end up keeping her, unless someone comes with a fecking big cheque. 

“I want my own kids to go racing and point-to-pointing and have that interest. If you're not involved and you don't have runners, there's no buy-in. It’s amazing the amount of friends and family who have got into racing since she started running.

“Relations of mine from Dublin came to Navan to cheer on the filly last month, and they brought friends of theirs from the city who had never been racing. There were 50-year-old people who had never been to a racecourse before, but they came that day because they had a connection to a runner.” 

I think I speak for most Good Morning Bloodstock readers when I say I hope O’Brien ends up letting his heart rule his head. A farmer having a go with a cheaply bought filly is what National Hunt racing should be all about.

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Pedigree pick

Suzi Pritchard-Jones’ noble quest to save the Byerley Turk sire-line continues with the racecourse introduction of Captain Robert in division one of the 1m2f novice stakes for two-year-olds at Chelmsford on Thursday (5.00).

The James Fanshawe-trained colt is by the late Irish 2,000 Guineas hero Indian Haven, whose genes were so prized because he was one of the last male-line descendants of Indian Ridge, the best stallion descended from Byerley Turk in that way in recent decades. 

Captain Robert is a half-brother to winners Wannabe Betsy and Wannabe Brave out of Wannabe Special, a Galileo half-sister to Group 3 winner Wannabe Yours from the family of Cheveley Park Stakes winner Wannabe Grand and this year’s Derby runner-up Ambiente Friendly.

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