JOHN A MISSION McConnell’s hopes for Mahler in National
AS A QUALIFIED vet, John McConnell is well placed to know when an animal is fit and ready for the challenges ahead.
And he believes his Mahler Mission is all set for the unique test of running in the Randox Grand National.
Having had winners at the Cheltenham Festival, the Grand National meeting and also the Punchestown Festival last season, Mahler Mission will be McConnell’s first contender in the Aintree showpiece.
He said: “It will be my first National runner. I actually had a first reserve about three or four years ago that didn’t get in so it was a big anti-climax. So hopefully we will get there in one piece. It’s very exciting to be going there with a horse and maybe a horse with a chance as well.”
McConnell, partially urged by his parents, went to university and studied to be a vet, but all the time his passion was horse racing. He had wanted to be a jockey and rode out for a local trainer but weight issues curtailed any hopes of making a career in the saddle.
He decided to become a trainer instead, and after university, he originally took out a restricted licence with just one horse in 2001 — while still working as a vet, which he did for around eight years.
Originally based at Two Mile House in Kildare, he had to wait until 2005 for his first winner, when Grand Lili, ridden by Brian Byrnes, won at Bellewstown on June 30 that year.
Successes
But in recent seasons he has had some notable successes.
McConnell said: “I worked for six or seven years in various aspects of it (being a vet). But I always wanted to train. I was a bit too heavy to be a jockey so it is the next best thing.
“It took a lot of time to get going but we have got some brilliant support from owners. Last year has taken us up a bit and hopefully this (the Grand National) can catapult us on again.
“When I grew up, my parents had three or four mares they were breeding from, it was just more like as a hobby than anything else. We would also watch the racing every Saturday with my dad.
“Then a trainer moved in beside us called Michael O’Brien and he was a great trainer. We used to ride out for him and it all combined to really me wanting to do it as a living.
“The veterinary was kind of a stepping stone towards that.”
He added: “It (the Grand National) has always been my favourite race and my first memory was probably Last Suspect (winning) in 1985.
Ambition
“I was gripped by it and have been gripped ever since. When I started training my ambition was to have a runner in it, let alone have a winner. So hopefully we can fulfil that ambition in a few weeks.”
As the winners began to come McConnell moved to his current base, Rockview Stables in Meath and slowly the stable has been landing more and more victories. He has been especially good at sending the right horses over to England — he had 12 winners from 30 runners in Britain back in 2017 and he has had more success ever since.
He landed a first victory at the Cheltenham Festival last year when Seddon — who had already won at Prestbury Park earlier in the season — took the Magners Plate Handicap
Chase under Ben Harvey.
The following month Fennor Cross — who had been 11th in the Grade One
Supreme
Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham
— gave
McConnell his first winner at the Grand
National
Festival when, again ridden by
Harvey, the sixyear-old stayed on well to secure victory in the
William Hill
Handicap
Hurdle on
Ladies’
Day.
Seddon doubled up back in Ireland to score in the Fitzwilliam Sports Handicap Hurdle at the Punchestown Festival to provide McConnell with winners at all three of the big spring festivals on either side of the Irish Sea. Although he couldn’t add to his haul with his three runners at the Cheltenham Festival, he has notched almost 20 winners from around 70 runners in Britain so far this season.
His Aintree hope Mahler Mission, though, is not one of them but he has shown some top form in the right races to appear to have the right attributes to be a factor in the modern Grand National.
The eight-year-old, who fell at the second-last fence when going well in the National Hunt Chase at the Cheltenham Festival last March, has run just twice this season. Being kept fresh for his date with destiny at Aintree. Mahler Mission, who is owned by Colm Herron and the Rockview Racing Syndicate, was last seen finishing second to Datsalrightgino in the Coral Gold Cup at Newbury in December, having also been runnerup on his seasonal return in the Listed Colin Parker Memorial Handicap Chase at Carlisle the previous month.
Despite not having raced since the back end of 2023, McConnell insists he didn’t need a prep run and after a racecourse gallop at Navan three weeks before the big day he is ready to head to Merseyside. McConnell said: “It’s all going well and if he gets there in one piece, he ticks a lot of the boxes so you would be hopeful he would put in a good show.
“He has the sort of quality of form to be competitive, I suppose. He is a high-class horse. We definitely won’t be taking anything for granted. You obviously need a lot of luck and you need to avoid any trouble. But he is certainly good enough to run well in it.
“At the minute he’s still a little bit short of Gold Cup class so you have to go for one of the big, big handicaps and the way he jumps he looks like Aintree should suit him.”
Replicate
He added: “We are happy with the way the horses are running. It is very hard to replicate the year we had last year. We wouldn’t have the biggest spend budget. But we are happy with what we have. We have some lovely young horses coming along and he is certainly one of the major flag-bearers of the yard. The form of the horses is good, they are running well.
“And where he (Mahler Mission) is at the minute, he is on course for Aintree.”
Conditional jockey Harvey, who has partnered Mahler Mission on his two starts this season, will again be in the saddle at Aintree.
It will also be a first ride in the race for Harvey, but having partnered those Festival scorers for McConnell he is up to the task of trying to follow some of the most recent debut winners of the world’s greatest steeplechase like Ruby Walsh (Papillon, 2000), Niall ‘Slippers’ Madden (Numbersixvalverde, 2006), Liam Treadwell (Mon Mome, 2009), Ryan Mania (2013 Auroras Encore, 2013), David Mullins (Rule The World, 2016) and Derek Fox (One For Arther, 2017).
On Harvey, McConnell added: “Ben will ride. It is a big thing for him as well and we are all looking forward to it.
“The next few weeks are biting your fingernails, but if we get there in one piece, it will be great.”