It was a case of one, two for the Banner county in the Champion Bumper race at Prestbury Park on the second day of the Cheltenham Festival last week.
Bambino Fever which is part-owned by Kilmurry McMahon man, Declan O’Connell and his wife Corrina, triumphed on Wednesday. And Darragh McDonagh from Cratloe took second place with his five-year-old horse, Heads Up.
Mr O’Connell recalled their outstanding success with Bambino Fever to The Clare Champion: “To make it more ironic, Darragh McDonagh’s mother comes from next door, literally 50 or 60 metres down the road from us…the McDonaghs are lovely people and I am delighted for them.
“I never clocked it, until beforehand when we met them in the Owners and Trainers enclosure. Heads Up led the race up to a half furlong out when we passed it out. It gave a very impressive run for itself.”
The O’Connell-Morgan racing syndicate comprising Declan, Corrina, and Willie Morgan own Bambino Fever. It is the first horse the Carniskey man ever bought, and his friend Willie Morgan picked it out at Goffs sale in 2023.
“We bought the horse, and we sent it down to Morgan’s yard where Willie and Joe broke it in. Next we sent it to [trainer] Nicky Stokes at Fethard who did lots of work with her.”
They first raced the mare at the Stowlin point-to point race in east Galway, where she won by 40 lengths in a race of four runners with two horses falling.
However, the Morgan yard has good connections with racehorse trainer Willie Mullins, and they decided to send the mare there in 2024.
Mullins of course, is the most successful trainer in the history of the Cheltenham Festival.
“To be honest, we didn’t hear a lot from his yard until last Christmas when they decided to run her in a bumper in Punchestown. It was the last race in Ireland of 2024, on New Year’s Eve. And we won it with Patrick Mullins [Willie’s son] riding her.
Although she won well in a competitive field, Declan feels she can sometimes be lazy tending not to show how good she is at conserving herself.
Next she won in the Dublin Festival of Racing which is one of the premier racing festivals in Ireland and the precursor to Cheltenham.
“The Dublin Festival of Racing is the top festival which tees up national hunt horses for Cheltenham with a very good field of horses.
“We went into the DFR in a good field, a very competitive race with lots of horses who won at different festivals. Jodie Townsend raced her well, and won fairly easily in the end.
“At Leopardstown, Willie Mullins said to me, ‘she is the best mare in Ireland, and there is one place to go [with her] and that is Cheltenham’. I was very excited because it is the first horse we owned. “She won at the point-to-point, first at Punchestown and at Leopardstown the second time – it’s wonderful.”
“And to even get to Cheltenham, is an achievement. We are really very lucky and privileged we got there.
“There was a lot of build-up to Cheltenham. I was reading lots about it in papers like The Racing Post in the run-up, and I was very confident. I texted Willie Morgan and said, ‘I can’t see how we won’t win this’.
“Really it was unbelievable. She hit 37.8 miles per hour at one point, which is a phenomenal speed. She ran the whole race at the outside. Jodie gave her a great ride…
“We had some celebration, and afterwards we hung around. The CEO of Cheltenham told me I was the first owner in 12 years who popped the champagne cork and sprayed it…
“When I led the horse in, and it was some feeling.”
The reason they decided to call the horse Bambino Fever was that his wife was pregnant at the time as was Willie Morgan’s wife. Declan and Corrina’s baby Josie is 11 months now, and Willie and his wife have a 13-month old and a three-year-old child.
“It’s great. There will be lots of memories for the little ones.
“We are not typical Cheltenham horse owners. I am London based and I have a construction and demolition business, and Willie works for Tipperary County Council…We have been friends for about ten years now.
“It basically all started in 2022 when Corrina and I were at Cheltenham, and when we were walking out afterwards, and I was looking at everyone, and Corrina said, ‘if we ever owned a horse, how cool would that be?’ and I scoffed at the idea at first saying things like ‘it will burn a hole in our pockets’.
“Anyways, we were at a wedding after, and the girls started joking about naming the horse…the joke ran into Christmas, and Willie mentioned to me he was going to the Goffs horse sales in Dublin, so I decided to go as I was over for business.
“We saw Bambino at Goffs, but we had a small budget and were told to go home…I was back at London and Willie was half-way down to Fethard when I saw online it had not sold. So we made contact and a week later, we managed to do a deal. We were very happy with the deal.
“We have done it on a shoe-string budget. We are very lucky. Nicky Stokes is an excellent trainer, and Willie Mullins is efficient and so professional – they are the real deal.”
Home at Carniskey, Declan plans to go down to Willie Mullins’ yard this week to visit his winning mare before returning to London after what was certainly a whirlwind few weeks off work.
As for the future for Bambino Fever, they plan to race her at the Bumper in Punchestown in late April, and after that, they are looking forward to the Mare Novice Hurdle at Cheltenham.
Sharon Dolan D’Arcy covers West Clare news. After completing a masters in journalism at University of Galway, Sharon worked as a court reporter at the Sligo Weekender. She was also editor of the Athenry News and Views.