'He's my bet' - Marine Nationale's unorthodox breeder throwing in his lot with an out-of-the-box sire

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On this occasion, Martin Stevens speaks to Marine Nationale's breeder John O'Connor following his emotion-charged Queen Mother Champion Chase victory – subscribers can get more great insight every Monday to Friday.

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This is the fourth time that John O’Connor of Ballykelly Stud has appeared in Good Morning Bloodstock. I make no apology for featuring him so often, though, as he is a fascinating character with an awful lot going on. 

To refresh your memory, he formerly worked in the aerospace industry until he sold his business to Arnold Weinstock in 1994 and since then has worked with governments in Africa and South America on setting up infrastructure projects such as mining ventures or renewable energy schemes. 

He calls himself an industrial diplomat, but what exactly it is he does isn’t quite clear. His friend Paul Webber, who trained his homebred Cheltenham Festival winner Indefatigable, was probably closest to the mark when he once described him as “an international man of mystery”. 

O’Connor bought Ballykelly Stud in County Tipperary from John Magnier – he thinks he is probably the last person to have purchased a prime piece of farmland in Ireland from the Coolmore supremo – and has bred numerous high-class horses on the Cashel property. 

Best of the bunch is undoubtedly Marine Nationale, an eight-year-old son of former Darley Club stallion French Navy and the useful, multiple-winning Definite Article mare Power Of Future.  

O’Connor retained him and sent him into training with Sam Curling with the intention of advertising his ability to potential purchasers in point-to-points, only for Covid to hit and racing between the flags to be cancelled.  

Instead, the horse was sold privately to Barry Connell, who sent him out to win the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle two years ago, when he was partnered by the much-missed Michael O’Sullivan, and to record an emotional second victory at the Cheltenham Festival in the Queen Mother Champion Chase under Sean Flanagan on Wednesday.  

On the first occasion that the always eminently quotable O’Connor appeared in this email he was making mercy dashes to war-torn Ukraine to deliver much-needed supplies under the Irish tricolour.  

“The idea is for Ireland to have a bit of a presence and to make it felt, because the Ukrainians will remember who was there when they needed them, and who were the Johnny Come Latelys who arrived when it was safe,” he said. 

A few months later he stood aside so that his highly valued stud manager John Fitzell could take the spotlight. Fitzell suffers from multiple sclerosis, but doesn’t let the illness stop him, as he runs the farm and rears all the stock from a wheelchair and specially adapted Jeep.  

When I asked O’Connor whether he was ever worried that onlookers might think he employed Fitzell as an act of charity, he replied without hesitation: “I’m the net beneficiary of our relationship. There’s no doubt about that. I couldn’t have done anything at Ballykelly Stud without John Fitzell.” 

The last time I interviewed him in this space he explained how he bred the magnificent Marine Nationale, and came out with some crackerjack lines. 

O'Connor says of French Navy: 'I just love hard-knocking stallions like him'Credit: Darley

“I just love hard-knocking stallions like French Navy, and I like sending them mares who have a bit of class about them, even if it’s close up in their family and they didn’t show it on themselves, so I thought Power Of Future would be ideal for him,” he related. “I suppose you could say my ideal mating is Rocky Marciano meets Helen Mirren’s sister, and that’s what this was.” 

O’Connor’s latest out-of-the-box innovation, discovered when I rang to congratulate him on Marine Nationale’s heroics at Prestbury Park this week, might end up being another one for the greatest hits. 

He has identified a little-used sire as the one who will deliver him a capable athlete both on the Flat and over jumps, as Marine Nationale was intended to be, and supported him strongly with his small broodmare band. 

“My version of Royal Ascot is a horse who’ll run at the Galway Races on the Monday, in the amateur handicap, and again at the meeting at the end of the week, in the Galway Hurdle: that’s what I’m trying to breed, a tough dual-purpose horse,” he says, outlining his ambitions. 

“In fact, when I bred Marine Nationale what I was trying to do was produce a bumper winner and dual-purpose horse. So now he’s just got to win the Irish Cesarewitch in order to prove me right. 

“The stallion I’m leaning on to achieve that is Tosen Stardom. He’s a Japanese horse by Deep Impact and is a lovely, big, loose-walking individual who raced a lot of times over multiple seasons and won a couple of Group 1s in Australia. He was a tough, tough horse, a French Navy type of horse. He’s my bet.” 

Tosen Stardom, who struck in the Toorak Handicap at Caulfield and Emirates Stakes at Flemington at six, first arrived in Ireland two years ago. He stands with Tom Wallace at Zenith Stallion Station in County Westmeath, and covered 32 mares in 2023 and another 24 last year.   

O’Connor is sending him three of his mares this season: Caraboss, a winning Cape Cross half-sister to Australian Group 1 hero Kingdom Of Fife descended from Elizabeth II’s blue-hen mare Highclere; Tap Dance Way, a winning Azamour half-sister to stakes scorers Charleston Lady and Live Concert; and Twice Certain, a winning Lawman half-sister to Prix Saint-Alary second Epic Love. 

Tosen Stardom is being supported by John O'ConnorCredit: Woodside Park

Tap Dance Way has a yearling filly by Tosen Stardom and Twice Certain was covered by the sire last season. 

“Tap Dance Way’s yearling is really lovely, and encouraged me to go back,” reports O’Connor. “Twice Certain is from a good family that has done well in Japan, with Epic Love producing the champion two-year-old Danon The Kid and another high-class horse in Mikki Brillante, by Deep Impact's son Deep Brillante. So it made sense to go to another son of Deep Impact, and luckily there was one on my doorstep.  

“Caraboss was bought from the Royal Studs. She’s got a really nice yearling colt by Shaman, who needs to pull his socks up as he hasn’t set the world on fire, but you’d have to hope that his stock will be better at three than at two. 

“Those are three middle-aged, middle-distance mares who should suit Tosen Stardom and might give me a decent dual-purpose performer. I know he’s not all that popular and the foals won’t be commercial, but I like him and I’ll be more than happy to race them myself and maybe get them sold later. He’s my idea of another Rocky Marciano to introduce to Helen Mirren's sisters.”

O’Connor also has belief in connections of Tosen Stardom. 

“I first met Tom [Wallace] when I sent a mare to him a couple of years ago and I just thought to myself that he was a real grafter, and that this was the sort of smaller operation I enjoy supporting,” he says.  

Among the more commercial Ballykelly Stud mares are Catwalk, a winning Pivotal half-sister to Flying Childers Stakes scorer Sir Prancealot, and Young And Fun, a winning daughter of Lope De Vega and Crimson Rosette, who in turn is a Listed-winning Teofilo half-sister to Gold Cup hero Courage Mon Ami. 

“I bought Catwalk because I always wanted a Pivotal mare, and she’s from a really fast family," says O'Connor. 

"She has a lovely yearling filly by Inns Of Court, who’s no longer considered commercial and now stands in Italy, but I kind of don’t care, as I’ve always wanted to have a horse by a fast sire out of a Pivotal mare that I can go racing with, and now I’ve got one. 

“Young And Fun has gone to Dark Angel, and we’ll find out next week if she’s in foal. She’s from an absolutely beautiful Hascombe and Valiant Studs family, and is probably my one genuinely red-hot commercial mare." 

Dark Angel: covered O'Connor's Young And Fun, 'probably my one genuinely red-hot commercial mare'Credit: Patrick McCann

Marine Nationale’s dam Power Of Future died from a severe form of laminitis in the year of his birth and both of her only daughters, Perfect Summer and Ballinderry Moth, were sold. But O’Connor has maintained an association with the family through Arnemviden, an unraced daughter of French Navy and Ballinderry Moth, thus closely related to this week’s Cheltenham victor. 

It’s only a tenuous grip on the pedigree, though, as he explains: “We just couldn’t get her in foal last year, we tried everything, and until Wednesday she was on her way to a riding school in Wales for a new career.  

“I really was at the point of giving up with her, but seeing Marine Nationale bound up the hill at Cheltenham I said to myself maybe she’s worth holding onto and giving another spin. She’s got to be worth persevering with, as a three-parts sister to him, even if it takes until June to get her in foal. 

“I don’t know what stallion I’ll use. I think it'll just be the most fertile one I can find, regardless of who he is and what he’s done. I’m even thinking of sending her off to run loose with Irish draughts. I know from speaking to other people that it’s worked before. Once you’ve got them in foal that way the first time, you can then revert them into a thoroughbred herd.” 

Linguists, history buffs and even dog racing fans might have noticed that O’Connor takes great care over naming his equine charges, drawing on a range of sources before making his registrations. 

Marine Nationale is, appropriately, the French navy, while Arnemviden was a sea battle fought in 1338 that was the first to use artillery, to continue the theme. Ballinderry Moth was meanwhile a brilliant greyhound of the 1970s trained by O’Connor’s father Barney – “beautiful, bouncy and just too fast for her own good,” wrote Monty Court at the time. 

No doubt about it, O’Connor is an original thinker who takes satisfaction in doing things on his own terms. He has had to rely on others’ help a little more this year, though, due to circumstances beyond his control.  

“All the broodmares are being boarded with other people in various parts of the country now,” he reports. “The problem is simply that the staffing situation is so dire, especially here in Cashel as we’ve got Coolmore and Aidan O’Brien on the doorstep, and one of Sheikh Mohammed’s studs across the road, so the really good people get spoken for very quickly. 

“I’ve therefore had to outsource the breeding. I’ll still pick the matings but I can’t look after the actual conceiving – dealing with vets, getting mares in and out of stocks, putting them to a teaser and so on – or the foaling process any more, without the right kind of assistance.  

“They’ll come home when they’re weaned and then I’ll give them what I call the Ballykelly treatment: wintering them out and feeding them hard. 

"I don’t bring any of my young horses in, they stay outside, on the basis that if my horse and another horse that’s been mollycoddled all its life turn for home together at Cheltenham, and there’s a blizzard like we've seen this week, I know which one is going to come out on top.” 

O’Connor’s right-hand-man isn’t retiring any time soon, despite the need for outside help this season. 

“Oh John Fitzell is flying,” he says. “He was in uproarious form when he rang me after the race on Wednesday. We’re always arguing, as ever. If he was in the peak of health we wouldn’t board the mares out, but he’s not, that’s the way it is, and we’ll work around it. There’s always a way.”

I was on the phone to O’Connor for only half an hour but he still managed to fit in a disquisition on the British royal family, extensive quoting of political theorist Isaiah Berlin and some ruminations on the nature of atheism. 

It’s a breeder interview, Jim, but not as we know it.  

“I don’t think along conventional lines, and I hate following the herd,” says O’Connor when it is put to him that he’s not all that much like other mare owners. 

“It’s the same when it comes to breeding. I do what I believe will create an equine athlete. I think more about what will produce an athlete than what will hit in the sales ring, probably to my cost.” 

Good Morning Bloodstock endorses free thinking like that. After all, it was by being unorthodox that the likes of Boussac, Tesio and Bolger helped shape the breed. 

For that reason, don’t be surprised when O’Connor features in the email for a fifth time – perhaps for an update on those Tosen Stardom foals.

Crystal Ocean at Coolmore

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Good Morning Bloodstock is our unmissable email newsletter. Leading bloodstock journalist Martin Stevens provides his take and insight on the biggest stories every morning from Monday to Friday