Bungle, breeze times and bittersweet celebrations, Con Marnane tells all

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Here he talks to Con Marnane about his Bansha House Stables and its excellent run of form - subscribers can get more great insight from Martin every Monday to Friday.

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Ascot racecourse staff had better ensure the winner’s enclosure is able to withstand some raucous celebrations, as Con Marnane says there are “seven or eight” graduates of his Bansha House Stables good enough to run at the royal meeting next week. 

Two of those, Marble Hill Stakes winner Givemethebeatboys and impressive Tipperary scorer Supersonic Man, have been trained by Jessica Harrington for Con Marnane and his wife Theresa so far but are available to be bought and have their ownership immediately transferred at the Goffs London Sale in Kensington Palace Gardens on Monday. 

The Marble Hill is ‘only’ a Group 3 but the scenes at the Curragh were reminiscent of when Different League carried the Marnanes’ familiar yellow silks with black cross of lorraine to win the Albany Stakes at Royal Ascot six years ago: the family and other connections wreathed in smiles, punching the air, and shedding the odd tear. 

A few weeks later, Con reveals that there was a bittersweet edge to those celebrations. 

“It was all a bit emotional, as we’d learned only a few days before that Theresa had a bit of cancer back again,” he says. “It was all a bit raw still, but it’s been found early and away we go again. 

Givemethebeatboys stikes in the Marble Hill StakesCredit: Patrick McCann

“The atmosphere at the Curragh that day moved us as well. We had all our friends there, there was a good crowd there that day, and it seemed as though everyone was happy for us to have had a go and beat the millionaires. It was like having a winner at Cheltenham.” 

Con is not one to dwell on setbacks for long, and he is far more comfortable bantering about his horses – especially the good ones, which both Bungle Inthejungle colts Givemethebeatboys, an €11,000 Goffs Autumn Yearling Sale purchase entered in the Coventry Stakes, and Supersonic Man, a 22,000gns Tattersalls Somerville Yearling Sale buy who could run in the Norfolk or Windsor Castle Stakes, appear to be.

“The Bungle Inthejungles weren’t very fashionable last year so we bought a couple to race over the summer rather than breeze,” he says. “My daughter Olivia is in college in Dublin and rides out at Jessica Harrington’s – she went for one morning and has stayed there three years, but they look after her very well – and my other daughter Amy picked them out, so it’s been their project, really. 

“We first saw Givemethebeatboys at the Goffs UK Premier Yearling Sale and thought he was the nicest horse in Doncaster that week, but he got a hoof abscess and ended up being withdrawn. We were gutted but he came up in one of the lesser sales at Goffs later in the year and we managed to buy him there. 

“He was bred by Airlie Stud, who of course are excellent producers, and they sold him as a foal to the Brickley brothers of Ard Erin Stud. I must say they do a super job in looking after the horses and they’re very nice people to do business with.” 

Supersonic Man was meanwhile bred by Con’s good friend David Hodge at Llety Stud in Carmarthenshire, whose graduates include this season’s highflying first-season sire Soldier’s Call. 

“A proper breeder!” exclaims Con. “He does it every year. Now this one is a very good horse but I did notice he has a small lump on his neck – probably an old bite mark; it might have happened here for all I know – but I’ve been telling everyone who sees it that there’s a golf course besides David’s stud in Wales where he was born. The last person I said that to looked at me funny, and I burst out laughing.” 

Bungle Inthejungle: Con Marnane has a fine record with the Rathasker Stud stalwartCredit: Caroline Norris

Con might be having fun with Givemethebeatboys and Supersonic Man but his record with Rathasker Stud’s fine budget option Bungle Inthejungle is serious business. 

Among the sire's other progeny he has had through his hands are Funny Money Honey, who was bought as a yearling for €11,000 and sold to Bonne Chance Farm for 165,000gns after she won a Listed race at Dundalk, and Bunglejungleparty, who cost €12,000 as a yearling and was sold to race in Qatar for 125,000gns after running third in a Listed race at Vichy. 

And that’s not all: the Bungle Inthejungle two-year-olds Gotta Skedaddle (bought for €30,000) and I Wanna Be Likeyou (€11,000) have been sent out by Florian Guyader for the Marnanes to win at Marseille Borely and finish third at Longchamp respectively this season. 

“Nearly every Bungle Inthejungle I’ve had has been a stakes horse, or rated at that level,” says Con. “I just tend to have so much luck with them. They’re not show horses, as they don’t walk that well, and so a lot of agents wouldn’t look at them at the sales. But those walking races would be very, very boring, I’d say. 

“I’ve always managed to buy them at the right money, and I think I have five or six mares in foal to him here now as well.” 

Phew! Rathasker Stud owner Maurice Burns must be looking after Con, seeing as he has advertised his stallion so well? 

“Jesus, I barely get a cup of tea off him,” he replies with a giggle. 

Prospective purchasers of Givemethebeatboys and Supersonic Man would do well to check out the vendor’s track record at the Goffs London Sale. In 2019 he sold Cecil Frail Stakes winner Forever In Dreams for £430,000, only for her to finish runner-up in the Commonwealth Cup four days later, and Listed scorer Real Appeal for £265,000, before he went on to win two Group races. 

Bansha House Stables graduate won the 2016 Norfolk StakesCredit: Mark Cranham

“We’ve a good track record at Royal Ascot generally,” says Con. “We had Prince Of Lir win the Norfolk Stakes, Different League score in the Albany, Sands Of Mali just beaten in the Commonwealth Cup, and the runners-up in the Queen Mary twice. 

“For small little farmers in Bansha we’re doing okay.” 

Con is also doing okay, to say the least, with his breeze-up graduates – most recently American Sonja, who made all to win the Prix Volterra at Longchamp on Sunday. The Tasleet filly was bought for £30,000 and resold to Peter Trainor on behalf of Mark Dobbin for 95,000gns at the Tattersalls Craven fixture. 

“She’s seriously talented and will eventually be a Group 1 filly I’d imagine,” he says. “I always loved her and I remember seeing her for the first time as a yearling at Newmarket. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, I thought she was the nicest horse in the sale. 

“She was consigned by Castledillon Stud, so is another one who came from a good home, and her owner Mark Dobbin is a good new guy in the game. He’s had two horses off me: Ladies Church, who was in foal when I sold her dam Rioticism [another former Goffs London Sale offering] and now American Sonja.”

American Sonja’s catalogue page as a yearling showed that she was from the first crop of an inexpensive sire in Tasleet, and out of a non-winning mare who had produced only the modest handicapper Kodi Dream. But Con has never prioritised paper over physique.

American Sonja: Longchamp Listed winner recently

“She had an ordinary pedigree, but she was a beautiful model,” he says. “Mind you, Tasleet might be a cheap sire but go back through his races, and you’ll see he was second in all the top Group 1 sprints and if he’d won any of those he wouldn't be standing for the money he does. We’ve had a few by him and loved them all.”

Reveiller, a son of Soldier’s Call who won a Salisbury novice stakes on his debut for Archie Watson by three lengths last month, is another Bansha House alumnus. His yearling price was relatively punchy for one of Con’s breezers, at €62,000, and he didn’t provide much of a reward when selling for £50,000 at the Goffs UK Breeze-Up Sale in April.  

“He was the standout at the Goffs Autumn Yearling Sale,” says the vendor. “I even said to the press that day, this is the sort of horse you need to buy if you want to go to Royal Ascot, and I was right. Unfortunately I didn’t get so much as a cup of coffee out of him but fair play to the lads who bought him, as I’ve heard he’s been sold now.

“Archie has another nice Soldier’s Call filly that we bred called Heed The Call, who was very impressive when she broke her maiden at Kempton – really efficient and speedy. She disappointed a little in France the other day but I don’t think the race panned out for her.”

Ado McGuiness is also reaping the benefits of buying Bansha House breezers, as he has sent out Rush Queen (an Ardad filly bought for 50,000gns from the Craven sale) and Tiger Belle (a daughter of Cotai Glory who cost £70,000 at Doncaster) to win this season.

Con says: “Rush Queen is a nice filly who looks as though she might do well over slightly longer distances later on, and she’s in the Albany Stakes, and Tiger Belle won well on debut and then finished second to Supersonic Man, and is in the Queen Mary. 

“Fair dues to Ado, there weren’t many Irish trainers who came up to the breeze-up sales, and look at the results he’s got.”

The consistent success of Bansha House Stables is all the more commendable for the fact that it consigns fewer two-year-olds to the sales than it used to, as Con became disheartened by the ever increasing importance of timings in the sector.  

“I had a talk with myself about it about a decade ago, wondering whether I needed to change my approach,” says Con. “But then I thought why should I when I’m producing good racehorses every year? I just don’t want to drill the two-year-olds to make them do a time.

Con Marnane in action at the salesCredit: Patrick McCann

“Breeze-up consignors do an incredible job and the standard of racehorse coming out of those sales is amazing, but I tell you, a lot of the fast ones that do those headline times won’t be seen for a long time.

“What really taught me a lesson was Amadeus Wolf and Palace Episode. I couldn’t get a bid for the two of them at the Craven Sale in 2005 but by the end of the year they’d won two of the three Group 1s for two-year-old colts in England. I stood over the product, and the product was right.”

Warming to his theme, he continues: “I won’t be ruled by the clock, although mine will do lovely fast times in the last two furlongs of their races – where it counts. They’re not pushed to do sharp times, and when the trainers get them they’re able to train them. That’s more important to me than having whizz-bang two-year-olds.  

“We’ve over 130 Listed and Group horses that have been through our hands already, and we’re well down on numbers from where we used to be, so we’re making it even easier for people.”

Indeed, Bansha House youngsters might not pass the test of time in their breezes, but they certainly stand the test of time on the track.

It will no doubt be a similar story for Goffs London Sale entrants Givemethebeatboys and Supersonic Man, who weren’t breezed but received the same expert, unhurried preparation.

What do you think?

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Must-read story

“Even by its own lofty standards this is an outstanding catalogue for the London Sale with some truly mouthwatering lots featuring 16 Royal Ascot entries,” says Goffs CEO Henry Beeby as entries for the eve of Royal Ascot auction are announced.

Pedigree pick

Look out for the beautifully bred Classic Times when she makes her debut in the three-year-old novice stakes over a mile at Newbury on Thursday (2.50), even though it looks a hot race.

Trained by Roger Varian for breeder Allan Belshaw, she is a Lope De Vega full-sister to Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf and Just A Game Stakes heroine Newspaperofrecord and half-sister to Cecil Frail Stakes winner Classical Times and useful Daily Times.

The siblings are out of Sceptre Stakes winner and Cheveley Park Stakes runner-up Sunday Times, a Holy Roman Emperor half-sister to Question Times, the Listed-placed dam of Irish Derby victor Latrobe and Oaks runner-up Pink Dogwood.

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Goffs London Sale

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