PAUL NOLAN’S exciting prospect Latest Exhibition could so easily have been racing for a different outfit after his breeder and owner Jim Mernagh received more than one good offer for him following his Navan defeat of Andy Dufresne.

Both men, however, were keen for the seven-year-old to stay in the yard and they pulled together in a bid to match the best offer. Nolan is fortunate to have some very loyal owners and supporters in his Enniscorthy base and it wasn’t long before the Toberona Partnership was formed.

Mernagh retains a 25% quarter share in the horse and the other three members are yard sponsor Jim Coffey of SoftCo fame, Dan Browne and long-time owner/breeder John Brennan. As their trainer pointed out: “All the lads know one another and get on great. They’re good pals.”

SoftCo is jointly owned by Jim’s sister Susan Spence and the software company has been sponsoring Nolan’s yard for quite some time now. Coffey has also had an interest in a couple of horses there in recent times, Quamino and Peculiar Genius being the most successful until Latest Exhibition came along.

Rathnure-based Brennan, meanwhile, has long been associated with the Nolan establishment while Colm Browne is a son of long-time stable stalwart Joncol’s Waterford owner Kay Browne. Add in Coolamurry Stud owner Mernagh and you can expect the sparks to fly should Latest Exhibition prevail at Cheltenham.

The latter, who admits he has been in the game a long time, has already bred a Cheltenham winner in Arctic Ale. Festival winners Moscow Flyer and Fota Island are just some of the other horses he sold on at various stages of their careers.

Mernagh said of Latest Exhibition: “I prefer the horse to do the talking but there were loads of people interested in him after he won in Navan. I was getting good offers and could have sold him but I couldn’t sell him out of the yard. It was important that the horse stay where he was and you won’t see the best of him until he goes over fences.”

Vindication for the new partnership came at last month’s Dublin Racing Festival when their strapping son of Oscar powered home by two lengths under Bryan Cooper in the Grade 1 Nathaniel Lacy & Partners Solicitors Novice Hurdle, a win which set up a €50,000 bonus bid, courtesy of the sponsors, for Nolan’s stable staff, should the seven-year-old win next week.

Latest Exhibition is a son of Oscar out of the blacktype-winning Supreme Leader mare Aura About You who finished third to Quevega in the Mares’ Hurdle.

“He has a nice pedigree and is out of a good mare,” Nolan said. “He came to us as a four-year-old and went back to Jim on bits of breaks.

“He was a raw individual who just needed time and, after he went away for his first piece of work on grass, we knew he was a little bit better than the norm. He got beaten in a bumper and we blamed ourselves for that but the second and third won Grade 1s after that.”

The Wexford handler, who has tasted Cheltenham success before with Jewson Chase scorer Noble Prince in 2011 and Dabiroun in the 2005 Fred Winter, knows that stamina is Latest Exhibition’s forte and finally settled on the Albert Bartlett as the right race for him after lengthy discussions with Bryan Cooper and his owners.

Nolan observed: “The further he goes, the better he’ll be and there’s no reason to think the step up to three miles won’t be a plus for him. He’s very good at the minute and I’m very pleased with him – I’m glad the owners were able to come up with the money – only for that he was gone.”

Those who witnessed the trainer’s reaction after Cloone River’s Galway Hurdle success will be watching on with apprehension at Cheltenham but Nolan offered some words of reassurance when stating: “There’s no point in saying I don’t get excited when my horse is involved in a finish but I’m always glad and relieved when the race is over. You do get cop on when you get older but I’ve had five or six placed horses at Cheltenham and they all run well there.

“I’ve been unlucky in the Martin Pipe for the last two years and Discorama was just touched off on the line in the four miler but it’s all about ammunition – when you’ve no bullet in your gun, you can’t fire it.”

The trainer, who hasn’t thought beyond Cheltenham as regards future plans for Latest Exhibition, is simply hoping that the Oscar gelding is the one to be in the frame next week.