O'Connell and Dunguib's Naas chance for redemption

BRIAN O'CONNORon how the ill-fated Cheltenham partnership will ride in either Tuesday's champion novice or Friday's Rabobank Champion Hurdle.

AN AVERAGE of 20,000 people a day will be at Punchestown next week but Brian O’Connell found out at an even more packed Cheltenham there are few lonelier places than in the eye of a controversy.

As if getting beaten on Dunguib in the festival opener wasn’t bad enough, the 23-year-old old jockey then had to deal with the aftermath when his riding of Ireland’s “banker” turned from a racing story into a general news event.

John McCririck’s sneering dismissal of O’Connell’s performance on the hugely-hyped Dunguib provoked O’Connell’s senior colleague Davy Russell into demanding a public apology from the Channel 4 pundit just seconds after riding a winner the following day.

On top of that, the story reached a wider audience with Ted Walsh’s own typically colourful dismissal of McCririck’s entitlement to hold an opinion of O’Connell’s performance.

In the blink of a mouse’s eye, resentments and prejudices revolved around O’Connell with bewildering speed, whether on screen, on paper or in the vast, opinionated anonymity of the web.

Not surprisingly his instinct was to keep his head down, return to Down Royal for a morale-boosting double on St Patrick’s Day and look forward to putting things right on Dunguib next time out.

Buoyed by the decision of Dunguib’s owners, Lily Lawlor and Daniel Harnett, to maintain the partnership that had looked all but unbeatable before Cheltenham, O’Connell will get his opportunity next week in either Tuesday’s champion novice or Friday’s Rabobank Champion Hurdle.

It’s a different sort of pressure on the rider now. Whatever about the rights and wrongs of the arguments about whether Dunguib was given too much to do by his jockey, or raced too wide, there seems to be little doubt the horse would still have won the Supreme if he was indeed everything the pre-Cheltenham hype had him cracked up to be.

The hype verged on the “second coming” at times and the pricking of that balloon resulted in long, disappointed bursts of hot air that no doubt will reverse back into pucker mode again if Dunguib can win impressively next week.

Already a pretty level-headed individual before Cheltenham, O’Connell’s hard-won wisdom is unlikely to let him join in with any renewed hyperbole though.

“All that stuff that happened is part and parcel of riding a high-profile horse. I can take it on the chin. You’ve just got to dust yourself off and keep going,” he says, resolutely looking forward rather than backwards.

“What happened at Cheltenham happened; that’s racing.”

Not surprisingly though, it’s hard to completely avoid the subject of Cheltenham and the sequence of events that led to Dunguib’s defeat.

Beforehand, the focus had been on the bumper champion’s jumping: afterwards, well, there was an a la carte menu of choice to pick from.

“We rode him as well as we could and it didn’t work out. The gallop slowed going past the stands and everyone bunched which caught us in a position you wouldn’t like to be in,” O’Connell remembers.

“But his jumping was fine. It stood up, and I’m not worried about it for Punchestown at all.”

Instead the pre-festival concern this time could well surround ground conditions that for the first time in months look like suiting those who like to hear their feet rattle.

The possibility of watering may prevent Dunguib missing the festival entirely, but no call has yet been made on whether the star novice will take on senior opponents on Friday.

“If he goes the Champion Hurdle route he won’t have it all his own way but it might give us a good indication about next season,” the jockey says about a talent who is already a 10 to 1 second favourite for the 2011 Champion at Cheltenham. It’s a rating that O’Connell wouldn’t argue with.

“I still have every faith in the horse, 110 per cent faith,” he says.

“It was probably an exceptionally good race at Cheltenham and he was beaten by two extremely good horses. But you could run the race ten times and get different results every time.”

If that sounds like someone with some unfinished business on his mind it is hardly surprising.

What was supposed to be a Cheltenham coronation instead turned into a serious test of character. Punchestown affords Brian O’Connell the chance to emerge successfully on the other side.