Michael O’Sullivan reckons he was barely more than a toddler, but the memory of seeing a dead horse be buried in front of his granny’s house is hard to dispel.
The horse was Lovely Citizen, owned and bred by the youngster’s grandfather Owen, trained by his uncle Eugene, and ridden by his father William to a famous win in the Foxhunters at the 1991 Cheltenham festival.
That was when Irish winners at jump racing’s greatest festival were rare. Just two years previously, there hadn’t been any at all. In such circumstances, the story of a family horse from the heart of point-to-point country in Cork winning on the biggest stage of all caught the public imagination.
So, when the old boy passed away, it was always going to leave an impression on even the youngest mind.
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“They buried him in front of the old house, my grandmother’s house. He’s [under] two big oak trees below in the garden,” O’Sullivan says, recalling how Lovely Citizen’s name was a constant growing up. “It’s all we heard, how good it was; we were sick of hearing it, wanted to talk about something else!”
Except two decades later, it’s still hard not to talk about it. The small boy is now the rising star of Ireland’s jockeys’ room, a prodigy entrusted with two of the best young horses in the country at Cheltenham next week.
Marine Nationale puts his unbeaten record on the line in Tuesday’s opener, the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle. Good Land is one of the favourites for the following day’s Ballymore. Both are owned and trained by the Dublin businessman Barry Connell, who has pinned his faith on O’Sullivan to deliver.
It is a massive opportunity for the 22-year-old from Lombardstown near Mallow, who only turned professional last year and can’t employ the 5lb allowance he’s entitled to because they are both Grade One races.
Theoretically, it means Marine Nationale and Good Land will give their opposition a couple of lengths’ head-start. But Connell is so convinced his young jockey is exceptional that he hasn’t hesitated to back him.
O’Sullivan is singular, too, in being a university graduate who hasn’t made the leap into the riding ranks as soon as it was possible.
It would be fair to say I’m analytical about things. It’s important to study the races you’re riding in
A champion young point-to-point rider, he delayed his entry into the paid ranks until graduating from a four-year Agricultural Science degree in University College Dublin.
“I stayed on campus for first year and rented a house in Goatstown for the last three. I’d a good bunch of friends. It was a normal college life. We went out and enjoyed ourselves,” he says. “I worked the odd day during the week, racing the odd day and weekends.”
Juggling studies with commuting home for the southern point-to-point circuit wasn’t a particularly normal college existence, though. Neither was regularly going to Gordon Elliott’s yard to ride out. A year spent largely studying from home due to the pandemic made it a different sort of normal too.
Adapting, though, has always been a family characteristic. William O’Sullivan now farms cows alongside his brother Eugene, who continues to train and pulled off another famous Cheltenham victory in 2020 with the 66-1 It Came To Pass, ridden by his daughter Maxine.
The latest O’Sullivan to tackle the festival does so with Grade One successes already under his belt courtesy of Marine Nationale in December’s Royal Bond Hurdle and Good Land striking at last month’s Dublin Racing Festival.
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Connell exudes confidence in their chances, helped perhaps by the cool conviction shown under pressure by O’Sullivan so far. His Royal Bond ride, delaying his challenge as late as possible, was notably cool-headed, possibly reflective of the scientific perspective that took him to UCD.
“It would be fair to say I’m analytical about things,” he says. “It’s important to study the races you’re riding in. At the end of the day planning is important and to have that mindset, to know how horses like to race, not just your own, and how they’re likely to be ridden.”
Cheltenham, however, provides a unique pressure-cooker atmosphere capable of testing even the most experienced. It can also provide scenarios that no one can prepare for as O’Sullivan knows too well.
In 2018, the teenage amateur looked set for an early success at the famous course during an autumn fixture. His uncle’s Oighear Dubh looked set to win only for the horse to duck out through a tape substituting for a rail in the closing stages. The same thing happened to Harry Skelton earlier on the card. O’Sullivan files the experience now under “learning curve”.
His meteoric success this season shows he’s a quick learner, but he will be under the microscope next week. Connell, too, is going into virgin territory. He has owned festival winners, but never trained one. It might be unspoken but he needs his punt on O’Sullivan to pay off.
Barry gives his opinion on what he thinks we should do, and then I say my part, and we’re on the same wavelength
It helps that Connell had a successful career as an amateur rider himself.
“He understands a race might not always work out the way you want it to, or works out differently to what you thought beforehand. He’s very fair to ride for, very straightforward. He gives his opinion on what he thinks we should do and then I say my part, and we’re on the same wavelength,” O’Sullivan says.
The connection was born on the point-to-point fields. The emerging rider rode a Connell-owned horse called Timewaitsfornoone to finish runner-up at Dromahane behind no less than It Came To Pass almost four years ago.
O’Sullivan rode the same horse twice more in 2021 and enough of a link was established that the student amateur jockey took time out from milking cows last May to ring the new trainer about riding a bumper newcomer called Marine Nationale at Punchestown.
“He said he’d get back to me, and then he texted to say I was riding him,” O’Sullivan says. “That’s where it started. He won and then he asked me to come in a few mornings during the summer, and it’s gone from there.”
By that time, his studies were over, so he could concentrate on fulfilling a lifelong dream.
“Being a jockey was always my primary ambition,” he says. “But with the O’Sullivans, education is important. I was always pushed by my mother [Bernie]. I knew I wanted to be a jockey and be in racing, and in terms of college I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, or if I wanted to do it at all.
“I even contemplated taking a year out after the Leaving Cert, and luckily enough my parents pushed me to go to college. I don’t think it was ever an option, I was never going to do it – but sometimes when you’re young, you try to see sometimes if you can get away with it!
“They pushed me, and I’m glad they did because it will stand to me; four years in Dublin and I’m definitely more mature and have a better outlook on life because of it. Racing is a short career and volatile, so it’s important I’ve a good education behind me that I can fall back on.”
Getting on quality horses, and the feeling they give you, it’s amazing and you can’t help but have a smile on your face
It’s not the customary route into the life of a professional jockey, but neither is it standard for a claimer to be in the position of riding a pair of top-flight novices at Cheltenham. It’s an enviable situation that comes with pressure, but O’Sullivan is determined to enjoy it.
“If you can’t enjoy them, you shouldn’t be doing it. Getting on quality horses, and the feeling they give you, it’s amazing and you can’t help but have a smile on your face,” he says.
“Obviously there’s a certain amount of pressure to deliver but you just have to do all your study, do what’s right. I’m under no illusions. A lot of people go through their career looking for a Grade One horse and I’m lucky enough to have come across two already.
“I know the horses. I have confidence in the horses and in my own abilities to ride them accordingly. There’s pressure involved but if you can’t enjoy riding these real good horses you shouldn’t be doing it.”
So, come 1.30pm on Tuesday, when Marine Nationale lines up for the festival opener, there really could be something new for the O’Sullivans to talk about.
