I’VE been fortunate enough to have been involved with winners before but to own a winner of a feature race at the Galway Festival was special, writes Mark Phelan.

Coeur D’or is owned jointly by myself and Stephen O’Connor. Both of us are in the insurance business and we both have a lot of clients in racing and bloodstock.

I’ve known Stephen for 25 years. We shared a horse before and we were looking for something decent when Dermot Weld suggested Coeur D’or. The horse had been off for a year when we bought him in 2022 but Dermot felt he had potential.

He won his first race for us at Laytown last September when rated 72. Dermot believed he could go much higher and he has been proven correct. With each race this year, Coeur D’or has shown how strong and brave he is, and he is improving all the time.

Chris Hayes gets on particularly well with the horse and gave him a great ride to win at Leopardstown in June. The horse got 10lb for that win. Last month he finished third in a premier handicap at Leopardstown but he had a wide draw and the race was run on the inside track, making it difficult for him to make ground.

After that race, Dermot confirmed Galway was the plan and the horse came on a ton in the meantime. We told everyone he was a great each-way bet but it’s fair to say we were all concerned about the soft ground. It actually dried up on the day and the going was changed to yielding before the race, which was a massive help to us.

Chris was far back in the early stages but we weren’t too worried. His priority was to get Coeur D’or into a good rhythm, which he did, and once he pulled wide into the straight we were happy enough that he would finish strongly.

We were watching on the big screen in the parade ring. Barbara White of Horse Racing Ireland was standing behind us and recorded us during the closing stages. I didn’t even recognise myself in the video, I was that excited!

Brian Gleeson of RTÉ Racing did a lovely interview with us afterwards. I was so happy for Dermot. He had planned this for a long time and I think it meant a lot to him. He’s still the King of Galway to me. The race sponsor, Colm Quinn, is actually a client of mine and his team gave us great hospitality, both at the track and at the g Hotel that evening.

Hopefully there is a bit more improvement in Coeur D’or to come. He has run well at the Curagh before and the Irish Cambridgeshire is the plan.