No ordinary day at office for this banker

BRIAN O'CONNORtalks to the jockey who has the task of riding the novice Dunguib, who is now attracting the awe and reverence of the legendary Golden Cygnet

FOR THE non-jockeys amongst us maybe the best way to imagine the knot in Brian O’Connell’s stomach right now is to remember taking a great looking girl into a pub, introducing her to your mates, and just knowing what they were thinking.

In O’Connell’s case, there will be 50,000 at Cheltenham on Tuesday, and millions more watching on television, but it will be his mates in the jockey’s room who will be battling to curb the green-eyed monster.

There won’t be one among them who wouldn’t sacrifice a portion of their anatomy to ride Dunguib in the very first race of the festival, the Spinal Research Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.

Not since the legendary Golden Cygnet won the Supreme 32 years ago has a novice come to Cheltenham with the reputation that Dunguib has. A brilliant 10-length winner of last year’s Bumper, the lean machine from Philip Fenton’s yard is unbeaten in four starts over hurdles and last month did a fair impression of a runaway train when managing to win another Grade One prize as if it were a morning scoot up the gallops.

Dunguib has been odds-on for the festival opener ever since and it is fair to say if he gets beaten, then Cheltenham 2010 will have finished before it barely starts for many Irish fans. Certainly the racecourse management might consider blocking stairs to the top of the stands to stop the desperate trying to find something high to jump off.

And that’s O’Connell’s dilemma: Dunguib is the pouting, dazzling sex-kitten of this Cheltenham and the 23-year-old first-season professional is the one in possession. But when has the man in possession ever felt relaxed? Certainly no rider will be under greater pressure next week. For one thing, if anything should go wrong with the hotpot there will be any number of grandstand jockeys playing the blame game and wondering why the best prospect in a generation isn’t being ridden by a Walsh, Geraghty or McCoy.

Limerick-born O’Connell only turned pro less than four months ago, just before Dunguib won his first Grade One over hurdles. As a launch pad for a professional career, it was definitely more Cape Canaveral than Cape Clear. And yet the perception remains out there that the young rider is a comparative one-trick pony compared to his elite colleagues – even if that pony is exceptional.

More immediately, though, O’Connell’s colleagues are likely to channel their envy into not giving Dunguib a millimetre during Tuesday’s race. And for a horse whose A-Game plan is likely to try and settle out the back before attempting to make a late challenge, that presents obvious problems for his jockey.

The good news for Dunguib’s ever-expanding fan club, however, is that if the prospect of teaming up with the most eagerly-anticipated Irish runner of the entire festival is coming between O’Connell and his sleep then he’s looking remarkably composed on it.

“There is some pressure and stress but it isn’t going to be an ordinary day at the office. The pressure is part and parcel of all this. I know I will be on the horse to beat and it is going to get helter-skelter out there. The other lads are hardly going to let me have my own way. But it’s all good,” he says.

That’s a common refrain throughout his conversation. For O’Connell, it really is all good. Some may dissolve under the strain of expectancy but this son of a former jockey is giving all the signs of relishing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. There is also proof in the bank that getting the job done when it counts most is what he is good at.

That Bumper victory from last year was a picture postcard of quiet confidence and proved the then amateur could deliver against Walsh, McCoy and even the Irish flat champion Pat Smullen.

On that day, O’Connell saw Cheltenham for the first time, rode a 100 to 1 shot in the National Hunt Chase and then walked the track with his father, Val, and Dunguib’s trainer, Philip Fenton. Val O’Connell was a former professional jockey who never rode at the festival but got a taste of the big time when third in the 1983 Grand National on Yer Man. As the Turf Club’s inspector of courses, he is used to walking racecourses. The evidence of his son’s attentiveness was written all over his success just hours later.

“It’s quite a sharp place, Cheltenham: all ups and downs and ins and outs. It’s not a flat, galloping track all, so you need a well-balanced horse,” O’Connell remembers.

It was that coolness under pressure that no doubt influenced Fenton, and Dunguib’s owners, Lily Lawlor and Daniel Harnett, to stick with their young jockey for the horse’s first season over obstacles. Used to riding Dunguib at home, O’Connell’s familiarity with the horse has come in useful.

Dunguib is many things but a natural jumper doesn’t seem to be one of them. Originally awkward when being schooled, constant repetition ironed out flaws that, however, dramatically reappeared in last month’s Deloitte and which for many represent the one negative next to Dunguib’s credentials. O’Connell, though, is unconcerned.

“The last day his jumping was far from up to scratch but from what I’ve seen since I’m not reading much into it. The whole thing at Leopardstown was to settle him and if anything he got too lackadaisical. It was the first time he switched off in a race and in hindsight maybe he switched off too much. He has schooled well since,” he says.

It’s hardly surprising that horsemanship should be almost a given in O’Connell’s case. Bred into the game and with years of hunting with the Scarteens on the Limerick-Tipperary border behind him, not to mention a summer riding out at Ballydoyle, the riding ability was always apparent.

But after 43 winners as an amateur, and a further 49 in point-to-points, taking the leap into the professional ranks really was jumping into the deep end. Fenton, himself a champion amateur, and a Cheltenham Festival winner as a rider, didn’t miss a beat in keeping faith with his jockey.

“The fact he has done it himself helps,” O’Connell says. “He knows races aren’t straight forward. You can make all the plans you want but it’s not always going to go to plan. Philip accepts that. He knows the thing to do is to do the simple things right.”

There is nothing simple about the job O’Connell has in front of him though. Getting Dunguib to settle and then jump is one task. It’s quite another to face the prospect of navigating his way through much of the field without meeting interference.

Going wide the whole way is an option but hardly an ideal one. The consolation, however, is knowing he is on the fastest horse in the race. That gives him options.

“I want to get him into a rhythm and keep things as simple as I can. If we hunt around from the back then we will need luck in running but because he travels so easy it makes things easier,” he says.

That’s the consolation Mick Kinane had going into last year’s Derby on Sea The Stars. Even the legendary veteran felt the butterflies going into Epsom. So in reality quite how O’Connell’s tummy will be churning on Tuesday afternoon is something only a select few can really understand.