IT has been a golden spell for racing at Ballinrobe, winning the most recent Racecourse of the Year awards at both the Horse Racing Ireland and Irish Thoroughbred Industry Employee Awards, and two of its keenest supporters have also been enjoying a terrific run.

Maiden hurdle success for homebred mare Cappacurry Ealu at Listowel last month capped a richly fruitful period for owner-breeders Tom Treacy and Sean O’Connell, directors at Ballinrobe Racecourse who took massive satisfaction from the six-year-old’s breakthrough win under Sean O’Keeffe.

Their colours, fittingly made up of the red and green of Mayo with a white cap, will be familiar to many through the exploits of their seven-time winner Cappacurry Zak in recent years, a veteran probably best known as a Limerick regular.

Treacy and O’Connell are looking forward to more days out with the same silks after Cappacurry Ealu’s game victory at the Kerry track for trainer Leslie Young two starts ago.

“Between Tom and myself, from two or three broodmares, I think we’ve bred the winners of something like 10 races in the past three or four months,” says O’Connell.

“We’ve had a fantastic run of it. Seeing one win that you’ve bred is honestly like watching one of your kids. Ealu was essentially first thought about seven years ago, and it’s taken all this time to get her through from being born to watching her grow, hoping she’ll make the track and so on.

“She was in training for nearly two years before we got to this point - you need patience and a few quid! When they do get to the track and deliver, it really is just fantastic.

Well named

“The Irish word for ‘escape’ or ‘getaway’ is éalú, and, with this mare being by Getaway, we decided to name her Cappacurry Ealu. Cappacurry is the farm where we keep the horses.

“We breed them at home, pretty much all to Coolmore stallions, try to sell the colts as young horses and keep the fillies, though we did sell a Yeats filly at the Derby Sale last month [for €38,000]. We’ve raced a few of them when we’ve gotten the chance.”

On their success with the Young stable, O’Connell adds: “Leslie is a small-time operator who has been around the game a long time and he’s always been a great trainer for us. With the material he often has, it’s hard to make silk purses out of sows’ ears and he does very well.

“We’ve known Cappacurry Ealu from day one and Leslie did tell us that she mightn’t just be push-button to start with. The day she won at Listowel, though, she was absolutely bucking - she had to go out early and nearly took the head off someone in the parade ring! We knew she was on her game from then.

“She didn’t catch fire on her previous run at Ballinrobe for whatever reason but she had put together some good runs before that. The form of her two starts in bumpers actually worked out very well.”

As well as gaining an important first success that came with a healthy €7,500 Weatherbys ITBA National Hunt Fillies Bonus, Cappacurry Ealu also received quite the pedigree boost this year.

Graded victory

Her half-brother Now Is The Hour, also bred by Treacy and O’Connell, landed the Grade 2 Albert Bartlett Prestige Novices’ Hurdle at Haydock in February for Gavin Cromwell.

At a lower level, another half-brother named Mister Bells notched a fourth career success over fences for Micky Hammond, while the same owner-breeders enjoyed following a prolific season in point-to-points for De Norderner, a half-brother to Cappacurry Zak.

“We were delighted to see Now Is The Hour sluice in at Haydock because it gave us that bit of a platform for the page,” says O’Connell.

“We always felt there were good horses there, but sometimes you need that result to give a boost to the pedigree. I’m really looking forward to seeing Now Is The Hour over fences, because he has a piece of form in point-to-points that not everyone may have seen.

“He was only beaten a neck [at Belclare] by Asian Master, a smart novice hurdler last season for Willie Mullins, and Now Is The Hour made a bad mistake at the first that saw him lose plenty of ground that day.

“The three-year-old we sold by Yeats the other day was a beautiful specimen bought by John McConnell and an owner of his. He told us afterwards that he was actually an underbidder on Now Is The Hour.”

Away from their breeding focus, O’Connell and Tracey are “Ballinrobe men through and through” with a constant push to keep improving operations at the racecourse.

“We all put in a lot of time, effort and commitment towards the racecourse,” says O’Connell, a keen racegoer in his spare time who can be found racing anywhere from Irish point-to-points, ParisLongchamp or Prague.

“We’re always trying to have some level of improvement or something new going on. Looking after everyone who comes through the gate, whether they be stable staff, punters , families or race participants, is so important.”

Game-changing programme

O’Connell is a strong advocate too for how fillies and mares are looked after in the Weatherbys ITBA National Hunt Fillies Bonus Scheme and wider mares’ programme.

“It’s such a huge thing because once upon a time you were getting a third or a quarter of the price for a filly than a colt selling as a foal or yearling,” he says.

“The mares’ programme available now is such a positive. In the longer term, it’s going to make a huge difference with mares coming through from the track with proven form. I think seven of the top eight store horses sold at the Derby Sale were all French-bred, and that’s not just because of their stallions. I believe it’s due to that race-proven element with the mares they use. They deliver the good foals.

“The Bonus Scheme is critical to the success of having a programme that allows mares to graduate through the ranks on the track before going to the breeding sheds. The increase to €7,500 for the first bonus is really welcome, and if we could win another over fences with Eadu, that would be brilliant. It’s a game changer in lots of ways, a great initiative.”

As for what lies next for their Listowel heroine, O’Connell adds: “She’s out for the summer and we’ll be looking forward to the autumn with her.

We’re thinking that with more time and a trip, as well as a bit of [softer] ground, hopefully she can step up again. Long term, we hope she could make it up to graded class.”

With the winning form of Ballinrobe Racecourse and the Cappacurry graduates in recent months, anything is possible.