TRAINING your first winner is always special, but for it to be in blacktype company, ridden by your brother and owned by your family, must be particularly priceless. That’s how Connor King, twice a champion apprentice in the saddle, broke his duck as a trainer, when his sole horse in training, Oscars Brother, won a listed novice hurdle at Cork last month.

The progressive six-year-old aims to follow up in today’s Listed Bective Stud, Tea Rooms & Apartments Handicap Hurdle (1.42) at Navan, with Connor’s brother Daniel aboard once again.

“We had this race pencilled in all the way along and after he won the last day, it was the definite plan,” Connor King told The Irish Field. “He came out of the race great and five weeks between was ideal.”

That win came on good ground, but as his young trainer points out, his maiden hurdle win - by 13 lengths at Limerick last season - came on heavy, so Storm Darragh isn’t a worry. “In fairness to him, he’s very versatile,” his trainer adds.

Oscars Brother’s last win came at a price of 5/1, and wasn’t a surprise to his trainer either. “I knew he was in great form and that he’d come on from the last day, but the fact that I’d never trained a winner was my only worry,” King explained.

“If he was trained by someone else and I was riding him out, I’d have been very confident about his chances.”

King, as it turned out, had no reason to doubt himself. “It was nearly too good to be true. It’s been a dream over the last few years to train a horse that Daniel could win a good race on.”

Oscars Brother is owned by the Mak King Racing Syndicate, which is made up of Connor’s father and aunt. Bought by his father Richard for just €8,000, the bay is King’s sole horse in full training, with another to hopefully race in the new year.

King currently concentrates on riding out for Paddy Twomey, but on whether training full-time is the ultimate dream, he says: “I suppose, ideally, in time, I’d like to focus on training. At the moment, that seems a long way away, but hopefully I can build up to it, little by little.”