“TO breed them and train them and to have them win, when you’ve seen them from day one, is very special,” says Claire O’Connell, reflecting on Noble Name’s win in a mares’ bumper at Sligo last month.

For O’Connell, who trains a string of 10 in Co Meath, alongside boarding mares and pre-training, the win was made all the sweeter by the young man aboard - her son Dara John O’Sullivan, for whom it was a first success in the saddle. “It was unbelievable,” O’Connell comments.

“Dara’s been helping me all summer here, riding them and helping in the yard at weekends all the time, since he was a little nipper, so it was a very special day.”

Noble Name, who previously won a mares’ maiden at Oldcastle, could almost be considered part of the O’Connell family, considering her own family history. “The mare is from a family that we’ve had about six or seven generations of,” her trainer explains.

“It goes back to a horse called La Gamberge, who my dad trained, and she won the Naas November Handicap and the Leopardstown November Handicap on the flat. Another man owned her with my dad, and he got the first two mares out of her; Graceful Flyer and Graceful View. I think that was in the 1970s.”

Worth waiting for

O’Connell wasn’t just a keen observer when her father, Al, was training, either, she continues: “Myself and my brother John were getting rides on the grandam of Noble Name back when we got our amateur licences and we were terrible riders, falling off her all the time. She was so crooked, calling her pigeon-toed would be kind.

“We got jocked off after a couple of seasons of trying to win on her, and she did win her point-to-point then. We bred off her and then she had Born Noble. Jamie Codd won at Tattersalls on her and he said she was the best filly he’d ridden that year. She had legs of glass; it was so hard to keep her sound.”

From Noble Flight’s career (she won her point-to-point as a 10-year-old) to the tender handling of her daughter Born Noble, it’s clear that the O’Connells are blessed with more patience than most. The bloodstock market is more inclined to use the motto ‘time is money’ and the pedigree’s lack of precocity has led Claire O’Connell to retain fillies. It can make for expensive business, especially when Noble Name’s dam has produced five fillies and a single colt.

“We found it best to keep them and try to get a bit of value on them ourselves,” O’Connell explains. “My husband used to go mad about having all these fillies, he used to go ballistic. He used to say ‘don’t put that mare in foal again’ and I’d be sneaking off to stud and then hiding the fillies when they arrived.

“It is expensive, for sure, but the scheme helps pay some of the vet bills; there’s nothing cheap about getting mares in foal now.”

Noble Name was awarded €7,500 through the Weatherbys ITBA National Hunt Fillies’ Bonus scheme when winning her bumper, which carried a first prize of €6,600. That alone makes registering for the scheme a no-brainer, O’Connell confirms. “The bonus makes a huge difference,” she says. “It’s really appreciated and I’ve recommended it to a few other owners because it’s a massive help, for sure.”

All positive

The scheme, along with an improved mares’ programme, has boosted the appeal of National Hunt fillies and their numbers in training, but the bonuses remain perfectly winnable, O’Connell says. “I think it’s a very fair scheme and the fact that the Irish-bred gets an extra bonus helps.

“It also helps that there’s a lot of them during the summer, when maybe the big trainers kind of ease off a little bit on their top horses, and you’re not taking on a French machine that William Mullins bought for huge money, you know?

“If you look at the summer racing, you see every different trainer can have a winner whereas come the winter, at Punchestown it could be five winners for Willie Mullins, and at Navan it could be five for Gordon Elliott.”

The number of races in the Bonus Scheme is another plus, O’Connell adds: “I know there’s even a handicap chase coming up in the bonus scheme. So, they do seem to try and vary it, with their maiden hurdles and the chases and the bumpers.”

Noble Name will now take to hurdles and it comes as no surprise that her intended target comes with a possible bonus. “We mapped out one or two; there’s one at Fairyhouse that Born Bright won last year, but she wasn’t eligible for the bonus, and we’ll hopefully aim for that one in October.”