'It works out well' - McConnell hails crucial autumn raids as the key to first Cheltenham Festival winner

John McConnell believes that getting Cheltenham experience into his horses early in the season proved crucial to his first festival winner last week as he reflected on his landmark success with Seddon in the Magners Plate Handicap Chase.

Seddon, along with other festival runners Fennor Cross and Encanto Bruno, won at the track in October and at the November meeting, and the Meath-based trainer reaped the rewards for those raids. McConnell has had ten winners from 48 runners at Cheltenham over the last five seasons, showing a £40.88 profit to a £1 stake.

He said: "It works out well to run the horses at the track in October and November as it gets that experience into them. Quite a lot of the horses we sent over like nicer ground, which you usually get at Cheltenham at those meetings.

"You also get to see them travel if they haven’t before, so we like to bring some of our nice horses over there to learn from the experience and then hopefully have them returning in March."

McConnell was cursing his luck on day one as his shortest priced runner, Mahler Mission, fell two fences out in the National Hunt Chase when well clear.

He added: "I wasn’t in great form Tuesday evening. When you don’t have many shots to fire for the week and you miss a chance like that it’s tough, as you feel like you’re never going to get it back. Thankfully, we got one two days later.

"On the positive side, I think we definitely had the best horse in the race. We will have to look at the Irish National with him. He took it up plenty early and probably was getting a little bit tired when he fell, but he does normally tough it out and he stays very well. He was spectacular to watch before that and it was just disappointing as he didn’t deserve it."

McConnell's fortunes changed on Thursday with Seddon's smooth victory in the Plate. The success was straightforward when the ten-year-old jumped impeccably before sprinting away by two lengths under conditional jockey Ben Harvey, who was also celebrating his first Cheltenham Festival success.

McConnell said: "Ben kept it simple and that’s the way the horse is, he is very straightforward. His jumping is so economical, he nearly hurdles fences. He could be nearing a mark of around 150 in the UK after that so you’d be looking at some of those Grade 2 or Grade 3 races for him next.

"It’s great to get a festival winner. We have never gone over there with a huge team or any short priced horses but with the progress we have made lately it was nice to take another step forward with a victory at Cheltenham."

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