Marine Nationale still en route to Champion Chase

Barry Connell remains keen to pursue the Queen Mother Champion Chase dream with Marine Nationale following his third place finish at Leopardstown on Friday.

The seven-year-old looked a superstar in the making after maintaining his unbeaten record in the 2023 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham, but he has won only one of his four subsequent starts.

Marine Nationale made a fine start to his career over fences at Leopardstown last Christmas, but disappointed in the Irish Arkle and missed the remainder of the campaign.

He kicked off this season with a runner-up finish to Quilixios in a Grade Three at Naas and again had to make do with minor honours when returned to Grade One level in the Paddy’s Rewards Club Chase, this time picking up the bronze medal behind surprise winner Solness and the hot favourite Gaelic Warrior.

Owner-trainer Connell was far from disappointed with his stable star’s performance, though, and is confident he will continue to improve as the season progresses.

“Obviously he has to catch up experience-wise because he missed a good part of his season last year, but I was delighted with the way he jumped and he finished the race out great,” he said.

“He finished beside Gaelic Warrior and ran to the line and he’s improving away all the time. I’d say that will leave him spot-on for the two-mile race at the Dublin Racing Festival and then hopefully on to Cheltenham.

“There’s no doubt it was a step forward from Naas. Gaelic Warrior is the standard bearer in Ireland and we finished alongside him. Obviously we’d had a run and he hadn’t, but he had a lot more experience from last year, so I’d be confident enough going back there.

“We’re going the right way and we should be hoping for a big improvement again.”