Barry Connell: five to note for the 2025/26 Jump season

Marine Nationale’s brilliant victory in the Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham in March was the high point of the 2024/25 season for Barry Connell, no question.  The owner/trainer’s faith in his horse vindicated once again.

Then the French Navy gelding went back to Ireland and was just as impressive in winning the Punchestown Champion Chase.

It seems like Marine Nationale has been around for a long while, but he is still only eight and he has raced just 12 times in his life, and just seven times over fences - there could still be much more to come from him.  His trainer referenced Badsworth Boy after he won at Cheltenham and at Punchestown, the triple Champion Chase winner.  It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility.

But last season wasn’t only about Marine Nationale for Barry Connell.  William Munny won a Listed novices’ hurdle at Punchestown and ran a massive race in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, and he has assembled a select team of young horses with whom he has much to look forward to this season. 

He’s in savage order. We took him away for a racecourse school in Punchestown last week, he jumped seven fences and he went really well.

I thought that he improved from Cheltenham to Punchestown last season and I think that he’s better now even than he was then. He went out on grass at the end of last season in a great frame of mind, he hadn’t come off the bridle in either of his two races.

He’s in a great place physically and mentally. If anything, I think that he will improve again.  He has a couple of more bits to do now before his seasonal debut, which will be in the Fortria Chase.

After that, his season maps itself out. Leopardstown at Christmas for the Grade One chase, back to Leopardstown for the Grade One chase at the Dublin Racing Festival in February.  Then Cheltenham, then Punchestown. We still haven’t seen the best of him.

He did really well last season, his first season over hurdles. He was running his races back to front initially. He was too keen at Leopardstown and at Fairyhouse, so we had to run him at Punchestown in February. He settled way better at Punchestown, he jumped better, and he was impressive in winning.

He ran a big race in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle to finish second. That was a hot renewal and plenty of things went wrong for him. We put him away after that with this season in mind.

We considered the option of going chasing with him, but we’re going to stay over hurdles. I think that he can take his place among the top two-mile hurdlers. Also, if we did go over fences, he would be targeting the Arkle this season and the Champion Chase next season, and I wouldn’t want him taking on Marine if he was going for his third Champion Chase.

He'll probably start off in the Morgiana Hurdle and we’ll go from there.  As is the case with Marine Nationale, his programme maps itself out after that, all going well: Leopardstown at Christmas, Irish Champion Hurdle at the Dublin Racing Festival, Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham.

He ran twice last season, in bumpers, and he ran well on both occasions. He finished second in both races, but he was still a little keen. 

We left him off after he finished second to Kaiser Ball at Punchestown in February with the intention of going over hurdles this season. We had Galway’s race on Saturday in mind for him for a little while. We hoped that he would win there and we were delighted when he did. He was never really a bumper horse, he loves jumping hurdles, and we always thought that we would see a much better horse over hurdles.

He had to make his own running at Galway, which wasn’t ideal, but he did it well.  He will come on a lot for that too. We’ll have a look at the Royal Bond Hurdle now at Fairyhouse or the Monksfield Hurdle at Navan, but I think that Fairyhouse might suit him better.

Winner of his only Point-to-Point for Donnchadh Doyle, he won his bumper for Willie Mullins at Gowran in March and he’s a lovely horse to get from Tim O’Driscoll.

The ground was heavy when he won at Gowran and he handled conditions well, he was impressive in winning. He ran no race on better ground at the Punchestown Festival in May, so he’s waiting for a bit of soft ground.

He’ll probably start off over two and a half miles, or over further than two miles at a stiff track like Naas or Navan. He could turn into a good staying novice hurdler this season. I’d say that he’s about three weeks off a run, but we’re looking forward to him.

He is by Bande, who is starting to get a few winners in France, and we like him. He’s only four and we usually don’t run them until late in their four-year-old season at the earliest, but he could be one for Leopardstown at Christmas. He has shown us plenty, he’s a lovely big horse, 16.3hh, tall and athletic.

He had a lot of work done before we got him.  We did a little bit with him in the spring with some of ours and we liked him. Then we put him out for the summer. He’s back in now and he’s doing well. We’re looking forward to seeing how he goes.