Connell’s loss is Newland’s gain as Re rules
Two months ago the popular owner took the decision to withdraw dual Grade 1 winner The Tullow Tank from the Neptune Investment Management Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham due to the ongoing case against trainer Philip Fenton for alleged possession of anabolic steroids. A month later Connell saw the potentially brilliant Our Conor suffer a fatal fall in the Champion Hurdle. Connell didn’t have a horse in Saturday’s Crabbie’s Grand National an Aintree yet the race brought more woe as 25/1 shot Pineau De Re, a horse he had owned and Fenton had trained, won the world’s most famous steeplechase for trainer Dr Richard Newland and Dublin-born jockey Leighton Aspell.
Explaining the sequence of events that led him to persuading John Provan to buy the horse, Dr Newland, who intends to keep to his quota of training just 12 horses at a time, recalled: “The horse was entered in the May sales at Doncaster last year just after he’d won the Ulster National and I rang Barry Connell about him and he took the view the horse was a bit high in the handicap in Ireland and would struggle.
