NOT only did Ronnie O’Neill stand the great Stowaway at his Whytemount Stud in Kells, Co Kilkenny, but he also bred many of the best runners by the sire. Now he looks as though he is planning the same route to success for one of the three sires he currently houses, the Group 2 Prix Chaudenay winner Valirann.

To say that Valirann possesses all the credentials needed for success at stud would be somewhat of an understatement. He had the looks, pedigree and performance on the track to suggest he would do well, and now his first runners are proving it. His first crop are just four-year-olds and one of them is making waves.

Knappers Hill was bred by Ronnie O’Neill and sold as a foal to M J Walsh for €20,000. He reappeared at the Goffs Land Rover Sale last year from Springhill Stud and he made quite a splash. Only three horses sold for more money, and he was purchased by Tom Malone for €155,000. The gelding joined Paul Nicholls.

Knappers Hill made his racecourse debut in October at Chepstow in a bumper and won as he liked, finishing seven lengths clear. He was kept under wraps until last weekend when, appearing to be the Nicholls second string in the race, he beat his stable companion and race favourite by a length. Significantly, the Ascot race was a listed bumper, and afterwards it was clear that Nicholls holds the gelding in the highest regard.

The trainer said: “There isn’t much between them and the idea with Knappers Hill would be to go to Aintree for the Grade 2 bumper at the Grand National meeting and not do anything in between. I think they want three bumper runs and then go hurdling. He’s schooled already and does everything nicely.”

With four racecourse winners and three-point-to-point winners under his belt already, Valirann is garnering plenty of attention from astute breeders. Support is growing and the numbers of mares he is covering is rising as word gets out about how good his stock are. This year he covered almost 110 mares, and it would look as though that number will be much greater in 2021.

Valirann is a son of Nayef (Gulch), a four-time Group 1 winner and a proven sire of sires. Out of the stakes-winning Linamix (Mendez) mare Valima, Valirann was the best three-year-old stayer of his year in France where he raced in the colours of his breeder, HH Aga Khan. Valima’s three stakes winners also include the Group 1 classic winner Valyra (Azamour).

Valirann’s third dam bred the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup winner and sire Val Royal (Royal Academy), is grandam of the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes winner and sire Valixir (Trempolino), and third dam of the Group 1 winner and emerging sire Vadamos (Monsun).

Knappers Hill has quite the pedigree on his dam side of the family too. She is the King’s Theatre (Sadler’s Wells) mare Brogella and she was purchased in 2012 by Ronnie for just €10,000. Sold in foal to Windsor Knot (Pivotal), she had been a multiple winning mare when trained by James Burns and Frances Crowley.

A three-time winner on the flat, Brogella was even better over hurdles and her four victories in that code included a Grade 2 at Killarney and a Grade 3 at Punchestown. On her penultimate start she was third behind Brave Inca in the Grade 1 Hatton’s Grace Hurdle at Fairyhouse. Given these performances, you might have expected her to sell for a lot more.

Brogella

However, her first foal was never named, her second was unraced and she was, at the time of her sale, rising 13 years of age. The next few years have seen quite a transformation however. Knappers Hill becomes her third blacktype winner from four successful offspring. He was preceded by Swamp Fox (Windsor Knot) and Rene’s Girl (Presenting).

Swamp Fox won the Grade 3 Liam Healy Memorial Lartigue Hurdle at Listowel and he was runner-up in the Galway Hurdle. He missed out on that big race win by just a neck. It was two lengths back to Rene’s Girl when she too missed out on a big race success, chasing home Finian’s Oscar in the Grade 1 Big Buck’s Manifesto Novice Chase at Aintree.

Knappers Hill, Swamp Fox and Rene’s Girl are far from being the only, or even the best, runners under National Hunt rules in the immediate family. Brogella is one of four winners from her dam Metroella (Entitled) and she too was one of four from Boldella (Bold Lad). The latter mare also had a non-winning daughter called Farinella (Salmon Leap) and she left her mark on racing by producing the outstandingly popular Beef Or Salmon (Cajetano).

Sold 20 years ago at the Goffs Land Rover Sale for only IR6,500gns, he won a point-to-point, a couple of bumpers, flat races and hurdle races, but it was over fences that he excelled, his 13 victories including nine at Grade 1 level – the Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup three times, the Champion Chase at Down Royal twice, the Lexus Chase twice, the John Durkan Punchestown Chase and the Punchestown Gold Cup.

Another fox

Keep an eye on Knappers Hill’s three-year-old full-brother Sionnach Eile (Irish for another fox). He is trained by Joe Murphy, who had Swamp Fox, and he was an eye-catching third in a mile and a half maiden at Tipperary on his debut in September. The first two home, trained by Donnacha and Aidan O’Brien, were sons of Galileo, as was the fourth!!

Ronnie O’Neill has a yearling full-sister to Knappers Hill at home, as well as a two-year-old filly and a filly foal by another of his sires, Affinsea, a winning son of Sea The Stars (Cape Cross) whose first crop are about to turn three. Affinsea covered more than 200 mares this year.