'It's more like they're pets' - familial streak prevails with Dysart duo

Eleanor Manning is in little doubt as to the architect of her being the owner-breeder of a brother and sister with independent chances of victory at the Cheltenham Festival. The clue is in the name.

Dysart, a tiny village close to Ireland’s geographical centre, is where Manning lived until she left for university in Dublin and later a career in IT.

Dysart Dancer, her broodmare, represents a living link to her childhood and teens, when she would go riding and watch point-to-points on weekends, often with some of the Kiernans, a big local horsey family.

Not only have Dysart Dancer’s first two foals been black type-winning mare Dysart Diamond, a not unimaginable contender for the County Hurdle, and the phenomenally exciting and unbeaten Supreme runner Dysart Dynamo, she has a pretty astonishing backstory of her own.

"I think the beginning is the best bit," Manning says keenly.

"Dancer’s dam was called Judys View. She was owned by a lady called Elizabeth Kiernan and when I was a child I went to see her racing. I saw her at her first race in Gowran Park, she came in third, and then saw her win a bumper in Navan.

"In my eyes, she was extraordinary. There was a huge buzz about her, and I think high demand after winning that day.

"Suddenly, time goes on, I hadn’t seen Elizabeth in years, but just like that I saw her and we were having a conversation. It was so many years later that I asked whether Judys View was still alive. She said, 'You wouldn’t believe it but she died only a few months ago', and so on. I said, 'Have you anything left out of her?' And she said, 'Just one little filly'.

"For whatever reason she’d put her in the sales to sell her but, between jigs and reels, she wasn’t sold and had gone back home. My husband [Shane Broadberry] was the person who jumped in and said he’d buy her; he knew about the history, and all the rest. It was a pure chance meeting, just pure chance. I suppose, like everything else, that’s how these things happen, isn’t it?"

Dysart Diamond has made her presence felt in top company alreadyCredit: Patrick McCann (racingpost.com/photos)

The Mannings’ spur-of-the-moment purchase went into training first with Seamus Lynch and, a few months after she had been bought, was an encouraging sixth in a competitive fillies’ bumper at the 2010 Punchestown festival.

Eleanor continues her narration, saying: "She came back in the winter and was going great guns. Then she ran in a schooling race and basically, we don’t really know what happened, but she broke her cannonbone very badly.

"It was a very big break, they didn’t really know until they went in [what would happen]. On the x-ray it looked good but it could have splintered. Anyway, it turned out to be a great success.

"We had no intentions of ever running her again, we were just trying to save her, but Claire Hawkes, the vet from Sycamore Lodge who operated on her, was insistent she would be absolutely fine given time.

"She was put out in a field with a friend, left to do her own thing. and heal. Then Claire encouraged us to try to run her, at which point she went to Willie Mullins. Willie’s always very clear and precise. He asked what the story was and said if Claire was happy, he was happy."

Dysart Dancer did not merely return to the racecourse as a recovered outpatient, she won her first four races for her new trainer and might very well have won more but for being pulled up on her fifth outing at Kilbeggan and then retired.

"Being honest, even say the first time, we were expecting absolutely nothing other than going round okay, so when she did what she did we were flabbergasted," says Manning.

"Every time she’d be entered, we’d think, 'Oh my God, should we really run her' - so after Kilbeggan we said that was absolutely it.

"She’s just incredible. She would want to lead, run out of steam, be beaten and something would pass her, but she just wouldn’t give up, she would come back and come back and get them on the line. That was the mentality - just anything to win.

"Patrick Mullins believed that the reality was that she really got the game, he said, 'She understood exactly what was going on'.

"I think in the tight finishes she’d be listening for the noise from the crowd and know she was coming near [the line]. And I presume she’s bred some of that into the offspring."

Manning had no inkling of the journey that was to come. A self-confessed animal lover, her first priority was just to keep Dysart Dancer alive, but it was decided that breeding from her was a logical step.

When her Shirocco daughter Dysart Diamond won her fourth and fifth starts at Limerick and Tramore she was delighted, but when she scored again at Leopardstown’s Christmas meeting in 2020, it was almost overwhelming.

"Every time I’ve got more and more surprised," says Manning. "Obviously she started slowly but she’s not a big mare, heavy conditions were never really going to be her thing. St Stephen's Day is practically the biggest raceday in Ireland.

"It was a handicap hurdle, there were 20 in it and she started slowly, wasn’t jumping brilliantly, but David Mullins kind of let her find her way. She was stone last with about five furlongs to go, it looked like he was going to pull her up, but she won by three and a half lengths.

"To win anything on Stephen's Day is a miracle, but to win like that is off the Richter."

With due respect to Diamond, her year-younger sibling is a different proposition altogether in both size and potential. Dysart Dynamo has become more imperious by the race and the ease in which he brushed his rivals aside in the Moscow Flyer Novice Hurdle almost defied belief.

Dysart Dancer overcame a broken cannon bone to win four times for Eleanor ManningCredit: Patrick McCann

"He’s a big, big, big boy, and everything else out of her is absolutely ginormous," says Manning. "Real National Hunt chasing horses, huge, and when I say huge, I mean huge.

"You only know when they start getting work put into them about how strong they are, how able they are to cope with it, but he’s always gone forward. He loves his work, as does the mare. They’re always looking to get out to do it.

"He really gets the game, too. You know when he goes to the track he knows exactly what’s going on and, genuinely, most of the time he’s actually having a laugh.

"I think in the last race that the rest were gone at maybe five furlongs, he was easing down a bit I think, then he went off like the clappers again. I think we’re nowhere near seeing his full potential - well, nothing has come near him so it’s very hard to know. It’ll be interesting."

Manning’s disbelief and gratitude at the situation she finds herself in should be transparent, and she is diligent to remember everyone to credit along the way, from the whole Mullins team to the "truly extraordinary" Peter and Sandra McCarthy, who have overseen Dysart Dancer's breeding career.

She says: "So many amazing people are involved in so many different aspects of each horse’s care, development and success, including the day-to-day routine, getting to the track and then actually winning a race. It’s totally astounding."

It is perhaps why, when she is standing in the paddock this week, that she reckons there will be no nerves.

"Not with him [Dysart Dynamo] at all," she says. "He just really knows what he’s at. Let him off, and see what he does."

'A big, big, big boy' - Dysart Dynamo stretches his legs at Cheltenham on Sunday morningCredit: Edward Whitaker

The slightly confusing alliteration will also continue, by the way. Dysart Dasher, by Flemensfirth and "a big unit once again", could begin racing by the autumn, with Dancer producing two further colts by Flemensfirth and Walk In The Park and carrying a Westerner full-sibling to Dynamo.

Photographers and journalists had better get used to remembering their finer details, as Manning intends to keep them all.

She says: "In my mind, if anything that she had has even a grain of her determination… If she can breed any little thing, they’re going to be winners.

"We’re in it for the fun and it’s not like someone who has hundreds. It’s the interest, the animals themselves. We’ve known them since they were foals, their behaviour, their shenanigans. It’s more like they’re pets."

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