DE Bromhead, Mullins, Mullins, Elliott, Elliott, Elliott, Mullins, O’Brien, Elliott, Elliott, Meade, Mullins. That is how the roll of honour for Grade 1 races in Ireland read for the 2025/’26 season before last week at Naas, where a new name joined the top table standings.

What a result it was for the Declan Queally team to register a first Grade 1 success, courtesy of the tough-as-teak I’ll Sort That in the rescheduled Ballymore Novice Hurdle - made all the more special by Declan Jr being in the saddle for what is a family-run operation.

If he didn’t already have the respect of everyone, I’ll Sort That is fully entitled to it now, and it will be fascinating to follow what path connections take with him. Should we face a wet build up to the Cheltenham Festival and conditions were on the testing side, he would surely make it quite an ugly stamina test for anything out to lower his colours in the Turners Novices’ Hurdle. Last year’s winner of this Naas Grade 1, The Yellow Clay, got within three-quarters of a length of completing that top-level double in second. It can be done.

Different test

On the other hand, some have pointed to the winner’s racing style, and experienced profile, as being suitable for the Albert Bartlett over three miles. There is a difference, however, in being a strong stayer at two and a half miles - as he proved at Naas - and crying out for three miles up the Cheltenham hill.

As a very broad and inexact example, the Ballymore Novice Hurdle at Naas was won in a time of 5m 5.1secs, and when I’ll Sort That won the two-mile For Auction Novice Hurdle at Navan on his previous start, he did so in 4m 5.09secs.

In stark contrast, the last three runnings of the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle have been won in a considerably longer 5m 57.13secs (Jasmin De Vaux), 6m 24.4secs (Stellar Story) and 5m 59.49 secs (Stay Away Fay). It is a whole different ball game. These are all high-quality problems for them, at least.

Aside from the obvious personal satisfaction this would have given the Co Waterford team, the victory was noteworthy for plenty of other reasons too.

Value purchase

Seeing a yard outside the top brass managing to scoop a Grade 1 in the most competitive National Hunt jurisdiction possible has to send out a positive signal to everyone else in the sport that it can be done. And it wasn’t done by spending mammoth sums either.

I’ll Sort That, bred by Liam Walsh, was sold from Beechlane Stables to Pat Crowley for €3,500 at the 2023 Tattersalls Ireland May Store Sale, with Crowley also pre-training the subsequent dual graded winner. As Jane Mangan pointed out on X in the aftermath of last week’s Naas success, the Sandmason gelding was the first pattern level winner from his pedigree in four generations. Talk about being worth the wait! It’s been a theme with some of the Queallys’ best horses that they have been bought for reasonable sums too. Last season’s Galmoy Hurdle winner and Stayers’ Hurdle fourth, Rocky’s Diamond, was sourced for €20,000 as a three-year-old at the Goffs Arkle Sale. That all gives encouragement to those without big budgets to play with at the sales too.

There was noticeable market confidence behind the Naas feature winner, and well-backed Queally winners have been becoming more and more common under rules over the last couple of seasons.

Bookies’ respect

As pointed out by on-course bookmaker Brian Keenan on this week’s episode of The Racing Edge podcast (hosted by The Irish Field): “This is a yard that has come on my radar, and plenty of others’ radars - especially in the betting ring - in the last 18 months. They had a well-documented Limerick-Ballinrobe double and they took Listowel by storm; you saw that with the way they backed Carrigmoornaspruce and I’ll Sort That.

“I remember [last July] at Kilbeggan there was a horse called Bal Kauto. They punted it like defeat was out of the question and he won accordingly; these guys are no mugs. They know exactly what they have. It’s just great that they can do it at the next level up... They’re just very, very clever.

“Some of these guys come and go; I have a feeling the Queally operation is here to stay. They were taught by the best and I don’t think they’re going anywhere any time soon. Their trajectory is going the right direction and they’ll certainly be getting respect from me in the future anyway.”

To pick up on two strands Keenan touched on, firstly, the emergence of Queally’s success under rules feels like it has been driven by a move away from trying to trade point-to-pointers.

Change in emphasis

As Declan Jr explained to The Irish Field in The Big Interview around this time last year: “Our ability to produce horses to win first time out was second to none and we brought a lot of horses to sales. Plenty were sold, but the game started to dry up for us because some of those horses weren’t going on for their UK trainers. I felt people started to go off us at the sales.

“I remember hearing back that agents on the ground at sales in the UK were suggesting they didn’t feel a horse would be improved out of our place. It was also pointed out to me, though, that if those boys are beginning to get afraid of you, the upside to that is we must be able to train.

“I came back from the last sale at Cheltenham and felt we should pull the stopper on the selling game and focus more on being a public training yard. That was the end of 2023/beginning of 2024. It got me a small bit down at the time, but I picked myself up and I encouraged owners in the yard to come down that path of buying horses to race on the track, rather than sell.”

Flagbearer

That switch is clearly paying off now, and, to hone in on a second point from Keenan, the ability to land on a flagbearing horse truly has the potential to help take the yard to new heights. There is no shortage of highly capable trainers up and down the country, but often it feels like finding - and keeping - those shop-window horses is the difference between those who can break into the top end and those who don’t.

Gavin Cromwell is another example of what can be done as a self-made trainer in Ireland, but how important did Jer’s Girl turn out to be when he sold her to J.P. McManus as their first horse together?

The Jeremy mare was bought on the week of the Fairyhouse Easter Festival by the champion owner, got vetted on Good Friday morning and was declared to win the Grade 1 Mares Novice Hurdle on Easter Sunday. The rest, including a Champion Hurdle and Cheltenham Gold Cup win for the trainer-owner combination, is history.

Sometimes, it only takes one horse to change everything, and I’ll Sort That is doing his part to properly propel the Queally name up in lights.