‘Onwards and upwards’ for Ellis and O’Connor
The pair spent time together on the point-to-point circuit at home where Elliott was moderately successful and O’Connor has habitually been the star of the show and crowned champion rider year after year.
Elliott’s star has burned just as brightly since turning his attention to training horses and O’Connor believes his old sparring partner could one day emulate the likes of Willie Mullins and Noel Meade.
“Without doubt,” said the star amateur after his stint around Prestbury Park. “He hasn’t got the calibre of horse at the moment to do it but he will have the numbers and he will do it. Have no doubt that he will do it. He is a very, very good trainer. An exceptional trainer.
“His rise through the training ranks is phenomenal. The man is a genius. What he can do with horses is beyond me. He is gifted. He has a great knowledge of horses. He was able to tell me what that horse was going to do even before the race and that takes a great knowledge of your horses. It’s a great presence of mind.”
Elliott broke cover as one to watch with Silver Birch’s Aintree Grand National win in 2007 but yesterday’s events have surpassed even that golden moment in the Meath man’s affections.
Carlito Brigante provided him with his second festival winner less than three hours after Chicago Grey did his first and sandwiched in between them was the second-placed finish for Jessies Dream in the RSA Chase.
A far from loquacious individual, Elliott did go as far as to say that the stable was just “starting off” and that it was “onwards and upwards” from here on in. Not even Plan A’s fourth-placed finish in Fred Winter could deflect from that.
By then, there was precious little that could have possibly rained on his parade. Chicago Grey’s win had been accompanied by a bear hug from David Pipe whose father had given Elliott his first step onto the trainer’s ladder.
“I didn’t appreciate Silver Birch,” said Elliott after the first win. “I was probably half drunk before the National even started. This is great. Great for everybody in the yards, especially the owners. They are with me since I started training and they are from Galway.”
The owner in question is a Mr John Earls who, like Elliott and O’Connor, was basking in the glow of winning his first ever race at the Cheltenham Festival — not that it had been for the want of trying.
“I have a couple of brood mares there and I also buy some foals and that kind of thing,” he explained. “I have been involved in the horse game for the last 20 years and it was only the last couple of years that things started to work out for us as regards winners and that.
“I had two festival winners in Galway at the July meeting there (Chicago Grey being one of them) and since that myself and a great friend of mine, Tom Howley, had 16 or 17 winners between us in about three and a half months so thanks be to God that Gordon did such wonderful work on the horses. Things are going very well for us at the moment.” That they are. He must have brought Chicago Grey to Cheltenham with some confidence. The eight-year old won at Prestbury Park last October and came an impressive second behind Time For Rupert at the same track two months later.
Add Derek O’Connor, who Earls described as a “wonderful” jockey, to the mix and the ingredients were all in place for the owner whose first taste of victory in these parts outside of March was a controversial one for Hoopy and Jason McKeown in 2008.
“It was amazing,” said O’Connor who, like Earls, is from Galway. “I am very friendly with the owners so to ride an Irish horse in Cheltenham with people you are friends with and to carry the Irish flag into the winner’s enclosure is the best feeling in the world. It is my first winner. I was always confident. Without being cocky about it I was always confident about it and luck was on my side.”
