Connor King
It’s not easy watching them. Standing in the stands and watching your horse run. Powerless, responsibility abdicated. Different to riding them.
Like, last Sunday, as Oscars Brother charted his way around Navan’s steeplechase course in the Grade 2 Ten Up Chase, Connor King was a spectator, a stakeholding spectator, a deeply invested spectator. All his work had been done. The weeks of preparation, the months of preparation, and then, for the seven minutes that it took his horse to run the three miles and jump the 15 fences, he was someone else’s responsibility. Standing behind the sideline after months of training, watching the game unfold on the other side of it.
He’s getting better at it, he tells you. It’s a while since he has ridden in a race. And it helps that the someone else, the person to whom responsibility was abdicated for those seven minutes, is his brother. But even so, he couldn't really appreciate the detail of Sunday’s race as he was watching it live. It was only afterwards that he could see it in its wholesomeness. It was only on watching the replay, relaxed in knowing how the story ended, that he could appreciate how impressive his horse was in winning.
It was another step forward by Oscars Brother. Another career-best.
“We were hoping that he would run well all right,” says Connor now. “The way he was at home, we knew that he was in good form going into the race. You’re just hoping that he’ll jump a clear round.”
Oscars Brother did jump a clear round. Daniel King sent him to the front from flagfall, and he didn’t see a rival until he was pulling up after passing the winning post.
“He’s an uncomplicated horse,” says his trainer. “You could put him anywhere in a race. But Dan knows him well, he knows how he feels, and he was happy to let him bowl along.”
Sunday was different too, because it was Oscars Brother’s first race since he was acquired by JP McManus. It was the first time that Daniel King was wearing the famous green and gold silks as he got the leg up on him. It’s a happy match-up: the most significant owner in National Hunt racing with one of the smallest trainers in numerical terms. Oscars Brother has just one stable companion.
“It’s brilliant for us to have Mr McManus as an owner in the yard. I was so proud to see Dan coming out of the weigh room wearing those colours. They are the most famous colours in racing. There was no added pressure or anything, any pressure that I was feeling was coming from me. I just wanted it to go well. It was a good opportunity to get off to a good start.”
It was Connor’s father Richard who first spotted Oscars Brother at the Tattersalls Ireland Sale in May 2021. Then an unnamed three-year-old, a son of Malinas and out of a King’s Theatre mare who hadn’t troubled the judge in three runs, Richard King liked the horse as an individual, and a bid of just €8,000 was sufficient to secure him.
“Dad had been to just one sale before,” says Connor. “And he loved it. He just really enjoyed being at the sales, seeing the horses, talking to the people. So he said that he’d go again and see if he could pick something up.”
He had to wait for him for a little while. Oscars Brother was Lot 201.
“Dad’s not from a racing background, but he always loved it. He used bring us racing when we were kids, he’d bring us to point-to-points, and there’d always be racing on the television at home. And we’d follow the local trainers around us in Kilbrin.”
Oscars Brother ran in three point-to-points, and he finished second in all three. He finished second in a maiden hurdle too at Cork in January 2024 on his first run on the racetrack, before he went to Limerick two months later and won.
Damian Murphy trained Oscars Brother through the spring of 2024, until Connor completed the trainers’ course and was able to take out his own licence. The Malinas gelding continued his progression under the tutelage of his new trainer, he won a listed novices’ hurdle at Cork and he finished third in the valuable Bective Stud Handicap Hurdle at Navan in December 2024, beaten by two short heads.
“That was a tough one to take,” says Connor slowly. “It was such a valuable prize, it would have been brilliant to win it. But he was just beaten by two good horses in Flicker Of Hope and Backmeorsackme, so we knew that he had taken another step forward.”
For as long as he can remember, Connor’s ambition was always to be a jockey. He was seven when he started going into Eden Hill Racing School, just across the road from Cork racecourse. He hunted and he did pony club and he went pony racing. He rode six winners at Dingle in 2011, the Cheltenham of pony racing, and was crowned champion jockey.
He was in big demand too as an apprentice. It was through Billy Lee that his connection with David Wachman was made, and he was crowned champion apprentice in 2013, his first full season with a licence, and, after losing out to Colin Keane in 2014, he was champion apprentice again in 2015.
A career as a jockey was never going to be a realistic option in the long term however. Physics dictates. He just wasn’t able to do the weights.
He worked with Joseph O’Brien in 2019 and he spent two years as assistant trainer with Paddy Twomey, where he still rides out.
“I have learned so much from my time spent with different trainers,” he says. “My time with Billy Lee’s parents was brilliant, I learned lots there, and with David Wachman, and during my time in the UK, in Malton. And Joseph and Paddy have been great to me.”
He has two horses now at his base, just outside Cashel. Oscars Brother’s only stable companion Grey Jude won his maiden hurdle at Cork the day after Oscars Brother won the Grade 2 Florida Pearl Chase – that was some weekend – and he finished second in a novices’ hurdle at Naas last Saturday, the day before Oscars Brother won the Ten Up Chase.
It's a family operation. Connor and his brother Daniel, and their dad. Their brother Rory is there at weekends. Connor’s girlfriend Julia, a qualified vet, is based in Scotland now, but she’s deeply involved. She led Oscars Brother up at Navan on Sunday.
Immediate plans for Oscars Brother are not set in stone yet. He has options. He holds an entry in the Brown Advisory Chase at the Cheltenham Festival and, intriguingly, he also holds an entry in the Aintree Grand National.
“He would have to have one more run before would be qualified to run in the Grand National,” says his trainer. “So we’ll see. It’s one option. The horse is well, that’s the main thing. He has come out of Sunday’s race well.”
He’ll be looking to step forward again.
© The Sunday Times, 15th February 2026
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