How misspent afternoons at Kilbeggan gave Cathal Ennis an Aintree hero

Nearly all of us will have fond memories of run-of-the-mill horses that we’ve cheered on at our local racecourse.

For such a link to form a chain leading us to an epoch-defining Grand National is the stuff of dreams, so County Westmeath breeder Cathal Ennis’s description of being "beyond over the moon" as the man behind Minella Times is probably pitched about right.

Ennis, who combines the duties of keeping 20 broodmares at his family’s Quill Farm with a role in advertising at the Sunday Business Post, could not resist buying Minella Times’ dam Triptoshan when he visited Liam Norris’s Woodfield Farm Stud some 15 years ago.

"Liam had a whole load of young horses down there and was going through them, he said 'that’s an Anshan, a daughter of a mare called Triptodicks'," he said.

"Triptodicks used to regularly run and win at Kilbeggan, I’m literally a mile from the racecourse, and I’d follow her the whole time and back her when I was younger. The first mare my father ever bought was by Sheer Grit, Triptodicks was by Sheer Grit. I immediately had a personal connection and we did a deal.

"We couldn’t race her, she had an environmental allergy, COPD, but she was a great jumper herself and funnily jumping is Minella Times’s big asset, isn’t it."

There had been a couple of false dawns from Triptoshan’s progeny, with both Black Gerry and Cruisaweigh doing no more than winning once in Britain.

Ennis had been also enduring a spell which had included one valuable mare badly injuring herself in an accident in a horse box and another foal out of his black type-earning Appy Days having to be rushed to Troytown Equine Hospital on Thursday after being born three weeks prematurely. It explains his measured expectations about Minella Times, whom he had sold as a foal to John Nallen.

"I didn’t want to jinx it," he said. "I was worried about his stamina, then you’re not sure if he’s good enough but the one thing - I wouldn’t say I was confident as confidence and me don’t go in the same breath, I’m a glass half empty man - but I was cautiously optimistic that he was a brilliant jumper. It helped him into the race."

Breeding racehorses has been Ennis’s introduction to Quill Farm, which he has converted from his father Stephen's piggeries. He has learned by trial and error but has refined the system, leasing some of his fillies to trainers and breeding the likes of Identity Thief, whose crowning glory came in the Stayers Hurdle at Aintree three years ago and Beer Goggles, who won a Long Distance Hurdle for the late Richard Woollacott.

Cathal Ennis with Minella Times' sister L’Attendue and her latest foal

"I also bred Sempo, who was fancied for the Irish National and finished fifth - he should win a big one one day," he said.

"Actually the best luck I’ve had in breeding in general has been with Oscar. I noticed that Any Second Now was unlucky in the National, he rallied to finish third, and he’s an Oscar like Minella Times. He was never a great sales sire but always a good and tough sire."

Triptoshan was a treasured mare for Ennis who survived several emergency colic surgeries over a three-year spell before succumbing. She has left a Flemensfirth filly to preserve her legacy, while the can-do breeder also sought out L’Attendue, Minella Times’ full-sister and a winner for Phil Kirby.

"She wasn’t a star but a gorgeous looking mare, would you believe it I bought her back 18 months ago," he said. "Triptoshan died after having the Flemensfirth filly two years ago, and L’Attendue had a Doctor Dino colt on Thursday afternoon. There won’t be too many of them around."

Incredibly, there was also good news about the foal of Appy Days. No wonder Ennis was hoping that the Business Post might give him a Monday off work from what he promised was no more than a small and quiet Covid-secure family celebration.

"On Thursday they told me he wasn’t going to make it, but after all that, we collected him on Saturday, so maybe my luck was in," he reported.

"What a week. It’s an awful tough game so I’m just going to enjoy this one."

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