THREE men walk into a field in France. It sounds like the opening line to a joke but it is, in fact, a key moment in the life and career of Envoi Allen, the Cheveley Park-owned, Gordon Elliott-trained seven-year-old who is unbeaten in one point-to-point and 11 racecourse appearances, and is a scalding-hot favourite to bring his Cheltenham Festival tally to three by winning the Grade 1 Marsh Novices’ Chase.

Elevage Allen is a farm situated just outside the small village of Souvigny in central France. The increasing proliferation of Allen names winning on our tracks bears testament to the ability of Bruno Vagne’s mares to throw quality, and class.

Walter Connors is the nexus between the Gallic nursery and the zenith of this success. The Dungarvan vet has made a name for himself by sourcing foals in France with his right-hand man Séamus Murphy, attending to their every need for a few years and then selling the majority of them as unbroken stores. No more than four or five might be put in training to have their value enhanced by form.

Bacardys, Angels Breath and Getabird are some of his better graduates. Gold Cup winner Don Cossack was actually found in Germany. Remarkably, however, two of Sluggara Farm’s magna cum laude alumni were minding their own business in the same paddock, accustomed only to the French language, when Bruno Vagne brought his Irish visitors down for an appraisal.

Connors had had some luck already with Celebre D’Allen, who went on to win a listed chase in Auteuil for trainer Louisa Carberry, wife of Champion Hurdle-winning jockey Philip. He liked the pedigree.

“So from there, we went back and that year we bought three foals and it’s just a pity we didn’t come home after buying those three!” Connors exclaims.

Espoir D’Allen, who won nine out of 10 races for J.P. McManus and Gavin Cromwell – including the Champion Hurdle in 2019 as a five-year-old at the same Cheltenham Festival that Envoi bagged the Champion Bumper – before being fatally injured in a freak accident coming back to his stable after doing a morning’s work, was one of the trio.

Envoi Allen was another.

“To have two horses like that in a man’s field, that only had seven or eight foals. That was some achievement for him, much more of an achievement for him to breed them than for me to buy them.”

Connors does a fine line in self-deprecation and dispels any of the notion he is some sort of maven. Of course, the nature of the business means that plenty of those invested in wouldn’t trouble Mr Ed, but it isn’t all fortune that he and Murphy select good stock that thrive in the west Waterford air.

“We stick with the bloodlines we like and if we get a straight, correct horse after that that looks reasonably athletic, we’re happy enough to start with that. But if you said to me, did I know when he was a two-year-old that this horse was better than any of them in the field? No, I did not.

“We’d a horse who was Envoi Allen’s work companion the whole way through, Shadow Rider. He won in Knockanard a few weeks after Envoi won in Ballinaboola. He got two little knocks in February both years after and then was ready when racing was shut down. His first run was in Navan (in November).

“And then he won a maiden hurdle at Limerick in Christmas. He could still be a high-class horse and they like him but two little things at the wrong time and it’s taken him until now to win a maiden hurdle.

“So how can you say then that you could see it in them in a field galloping around?

“All we do is try and have a look at them as they’re coming along and see how they’re developing. But when did I know he was a good horse? When he jumped the second last in Ballinaboola.”

Again, he plays down the astuteness of keeping Envoi for point-to-points.

“The main reason was his pedigree. While it was a good pedigree, we thought that Muhtathir at the time wasn’t recognised as a jumping stallion. I thought we mightn’t get on that great at the store sales.

“I could tell you there’s loads of science in what we pick out to break and what we don’t, but the reality is I often went into the shed to catch one to break him and couldn’t catch him, so we broke the fella I could catch!”

Envoi was sent to Colin Bowe but while the reports from the Kiltealy guru were positive, it wasn’t blow-you-away kind of stuff. Just as we have become accustomed to.

Flash horse

“Once he got to the front in the piece of work, he dropped the bit and that would be that. He was never this kind of flash horse that would run away from the others in a bit of work over a mile a and a quarter.”

Recounting that four-year-old maiden triumph on February 4th, 2018, sparks plenty of laughter. Connors is friendly with Pat Doyle, like Bowe, a guru of educating future champions. He has sent him plenty of horses over the years. Doyle had one he was convinced was pegged for future stardom. He ended up being beaten 11 and a half lengths but Doyle wasn’t wrong. Appreciate It was second in the Champion Bumper 12 months after his old nemesis had won it, having also won the Goffs Future Stars Bumper at the Dublin Racing Festival along the way and is among the leading fancies for novice hurdle glory this March.

“It probably was the best four-year-old point-to-point that was ever run. I was only talking to Pat Doyle the other day. He was saying, ‘F*** it anyway, that I didn’t turn left instead of turning right and go to Belharbour where I go every year.’ Sure Appreciate It would have won any other four-year-old maiden 500 yards. And the only reason he was third that day is he tried to beat the other fella. If the other horse wasn’t in the race, Appreciate It would have won hands down.

“I was hearing it for three or four days during the week how good he was,” Connors adds with a chuckle, “because he was telling me he didn’t care where he went, he’d win wherever he went. ‘I’m going to win wherever I go,’ he said, ‘but I’m probably going to Belharbour ‘cos Rob James will be there.’ Then Rob wasn’t going to be able to ride him. Derek O’Connor would normally be in Belharbour too but he was riding Edwulf in the Irish Gold Cup in Leopardstown, so he was able to take in Ballinaboola. So that was the reason Pat went there.

“He rang me going up the road home. ‘I couldn’t go over to you and talk to you at the races.’ He said, ‘You’re some f*****, you didn’t tell me what you had!’

“‘Did it ever cross your mind that I didn’t know?’”

Cullentra arrival

The electricity was palpable as the lorry pulled into Cullentra House. They are accustomed to equine royalty there but Tom Malone had forked out £400,000 to acquire Envoi Allen for the Thompson family to run in their Cheveley Park colours. Gordon Elliott was selected to oversee the transition of potential to superstardom.

Séainín Mahon was among those watching the strapping bay being led down the ramp. She liked him immediately.

Though from very close to Downpatrick Racecourse, Mahon did not grow up around horses, but when she was brought racing by her father Roy, and uncle Tony, she fell in love. Riding lessons followed, as did jobs with Christopher McCartan, Brian Hamilton and Colin McBratney.

Ambition led her to approach Mary Nugent and Karen Morgan, who she got to know through racing, about the possibility of getting into Cullentra House. She started in 2015 and before Envoi Allen – or Allen as she knows him – General Principle’s victory, in one of the most dramatic Irish Grand Nationals ever in 2018, was her greatest day as a groom.

“Envoi Allen is in a different league,” Mahon states understandably. “He just knows he’s better than everybody else. If he sees a camera, he’ll always look at it. And he takes it all in his stride. He holds himself in that way like he knows he’s special and kind of floats across the ground.

“When he’s in the stable even, there’s a presence about him. Even to look at him, he stands out.

“He’s always happy and playful. If you walk up the barn and call his name, he sticks his head out the door. He’s always watching everything. He has a ball in his stable he plays with because he gets bored being inside. It has a handle on it so he used to lift it up, shake it around and throw it out the stable door, to try get somebody to play with him.

“He’ll start playing with the zipper in my coat if I stand close to him. He’s just such a character.”

You wonder about the pressure of looking after a horse with such a prodigious price tag.

Adores carrots

“You have to remove that from your head. You’ll probably spoil him a bit extra but really, every horse is the same. They still need to exercise, the same feed, they all get the same attention. But you have that in the back of your mind that he is a bit special and he will get an extra treat.

“He adores carrots. He’s not a huge fan of apples. We’ve tried the odd polo, but definitely carrots are his favourite.”

Not uncommonly for youngsters, there were some unruly tendencies early on. Davy Russell was Envoi Allen’s regular partner throughout his hurdling campaign. A broken neck suffered in October, 19 days before Allen’s chasing debut at Down Royal, meant that the two-time champion jockey had to look on as Jack Kennedy got to experience the thrill of piloting the star on three victorious occasions in all over fences, including the Drinmore Chase, a remarkable fifth Grade 1 triumph for the son of Muhtathir.

“At one stage, he was getting a little bit difficult to get on him. Séainín was of the opinion that if you stood him still it would be easier. I’d be an awful lot happier getting on when the horse is walking, but he’d get a little bit of a run on you if you were doing that, so Séainín got the idea of stopping him still and you could get on him very easy then.

“If he got a run on you, and you landed on the wrong part of the saddle and gave him a little bit of a fright or whatever, he’d take you on. He was a little bit odd at the start but Séainín would be a big help to him.”

Mahon reveals that the excitability is pretty much under wraps but while Russell emphasises the importance of the groom’s role in this process, she modestly attributes the development to growing up.

Chilled out

“He’s not too bad this year. He’s quite chilled out. When he was running in bumpers and over hurdles, he was fairly fresh. I think that was just immaturity. He was always buzzy before the races but now he’s taking it all in his stride. But even when he was a bit wired up at the start, once he got going, he switched off. When you need him he’ll just kick into gear.”

Connors was struck by this trend on his former charge’s racecourse debut in a Fairyhouse bumper on December 18th, 11 months after his previous public outing. Ridden by Jamie Codd, Allen accounted for Port Stanley by four lengths. Jason The Militant, Assemble and Diol Ker filled the next three places.

“I said to Jamie after, ‘you were a long way back turning in there’,” Connors recounts. “‘I thought for a staying horse, maybe you were giving him plenty to do’.”

“But he said he never ever rides in a race but that you’re in complete control of it, wherever you are.’ That was very early on. The riders probably had a better idea of him before any of us on the ground did.”

Codd and Envoi concluded that season by scoring in the Champion Bumper. It is marginally the favourite of the two Cheltenham successes for Mahon, because it was her first at the Festival. The Ballymore was memorable too though.

“(That) was the scariest to watch,” Mahon admits. “Davy hadn’t asked him to go yet and I thought, ‘He’s got 10 lengths to make up here’. I was thinking, ‘Russell, what are you doing?’ As soon as he got to the last, Jack Madden, who’s a very good friend who helps me lead him up, he started strangling me and hitting me. ‘He has it, he has it, he has it! Go get him, go get him, go get him!’

“It was a blur and you had to go home to watch it after to see it properly.”

Had she been sitting where Russell was, the stress would have been eradicated.

“He can be a bit boisterous early on in a race, and through the middle part of the race he shuts down,” explains the Youghal man. “And then he finishes a race in a couple of strides and then he minds himself coming home.

Builds momentum

“He doesn’t give you that immediate burst. D’you know when you’d be driving a fast car and you’d sink the shoe and wang it out and she’d burst away? He doesn’t do that as such. He just builds up a momentum, a head of steam, and it’s all over then, d’you know what I mean? Other horses have to work awfully hard while he’s building up that speed and when he’s done it, he just eases off the throttle himself.

“Being honest with you Daragh, however confident you can be going on a horse, I was never as confident going out on a horse at Cheltenham. Never.”

Not even a smidgin of a worry when The Big Getaway and Easywork moved six or so lengths clear after the penultimate flight?

“No. None.

“They say he came off the bridle. He didn’t really. The boys were motoring away down the hill. Maybe they were trying to stretch his stamina, I don’t know but I was never really under any pressure.”

The reunion before coming back down the chute is always emotional. Codd and Russell both thanked Mahon, which she was grateful for. Their understanding of the work the grooms put in and appreciation of it, is priceless.

“They both gave me a big hug,” recalls Mahon. “The tears were streaming down my eyes.”

And now, they’re back for more.

Gold Cup

The Marsh is registered as the Golden Miller Chase, in memory of the luminary who won five Gold Cups in succession. When David Thompson gave the green light to his son Richard to set about building a select but powerful team of National Hunt horses, it was the blue riband that was his target.

Sadly, Thompson senior died early in the new year, aged 84, but it would be fitting if Envoi Allen were to realise his dream – of course A Plus Tard may well beat him to it this year.

It might strike some as unusual to campaign a horse over no further than two and a half miles, with three miles, two furlongs his apparent destiny. Even his point-to-point was over that intermediate trip. Is there any doubt about him going the distance?

Connors reared a Gold Cup winner in Don Cossack, who prevailed when also under the stewardship of Elliott in 2016. His father Nicky bred the 1992 champion, Cool Ground. He doesn’t question the stamina nor the route to a tilt at the ultimate prize in 12 months.

“Envoi’s mother (Reaction) was a cross-country mare. Three mile plus. I’d hope he’d stay but again, there’s horses get three miles very well and they don’t get the Gold Cup trip. It’s a unique race.

“You need pace to win these Grade 1 chases. Kicking King was able to win an Arkle but you don’t want to bottom them out too early. In recent years, the Sun Alliance has been run on better ground but when we were growing up, winning the Sun Alliance would often finish them.

“For a big horse, he’s still only going on seven. He’ll have more maturing to do and the record proves Gordon has handled him absolutely exceptionally well to here so there’d be no point questioning what he’d be seeing.”

Russell also points to the conditioning that will benefit the considerable frame. Unfortunately, due to his injury, he can only attest to the calibre of Envoi Allen’s jumping and cleverness in front of the boards on the visuals, though he is hopeful the partnership will be restored.

Shocking accurate

“I’d say he could do anything. He could stand off – he’s unbelievable scope. And then he’s the brain to go in and have a look and see what he’s doing in close. At the moment he’s shocking accurate with what he does.

“You don’t have to ride him any particular way. Nothing fazes him. You can do whatever you want on him.”

Mahon says she won’t sleep for three days before the Marsh and will torment Keith Donoghue, Allen’s regular work rider, with persistent enquiries as to her charge’s wellbeing. Meanwhile, his relentless success has turned her parents into racing acolytes.

“They love going racing now,” relates Mahon. “They never miss a meeting at Downpatrick and they were at Cheltenham last year for the first time. They love it.”

So does the team at Sluggara Farm.

“For us it’s some thrill for him to be winning like that,” observes Connors, who you won’t be surprised to hear has two three-year-olds and three two-year-olds who were born at Elevage Allen at home now. “We wouldn’t think we were in any way good judges to have had him. We just say we were lucky that we found him to buy him and that he was through our system.

“And that our system didn’t wreck him!”?