EDDIE O’Connell, the Co Cork businessman who owned top chaser Un De Sceaux, died on Monday after a long illness. He was 73.

Based in Glanmire, O’Connell ran a successful transport and warehousing company which sponsored races and a local hurling team. Racing was his passion, flat or jumps, and he had winners with Michael Hourigan and Enda Bolger before he introduced himself to Willie Mullins.

It was Mullins who sourced Un De Sceaux for O’Connell and the horse went on to carry his well-known blue and orange silks to 21 wins, 10 of them at Grade 1 level.

From 2013 to 2020, there were unforgettable days at Auteuil, Ascot, Cork, Fairyhouse, Sandown, Punchestown and of course at Cheltenham, where Un De Sceaux won an Arkle Trophy, a Ryanair Chase and a rescheduled Clarence House Chase.

Almost a tearaway in his early days, the powerful front-runner also scored a notable victory in the Grade 2 Hilly Way Chase at O’Connell’s local track in Cork in 2017, a race his company had previously sponsored for 10 years.

His son Colm told the Irish Examiner: “To go to Mallow and win the Hilly Way Chase was like the Gold Cup to Eddie. We sponsored it a year when Beef Or Salmon went and won it and I remember that day, it was magic to be able to have a horse that could win it.

“Eddie would have gone to Mallow all his life so whether it was a flat meeting or a normal National Hunt meeting, he just went, he loved going racing. And it wasn’t about having a bet, it was just about going out there and meeting people.

Circuit

“Eddie always used to say that racing people were like GAA people. In the summer time they go to GAA matches and when the GAA winds up in the middle of October, you’d see the same people at National Hunt meetings until the end of April. He felt it was like a circuit, that’s what he loved about it.”

Sadly, O’Connell missed many of Un De Sceaux’s later wins as he developed Alzheimer’s Disease.

He is survived by his wife Catherine (Kay) and their four sons.