ken parkhill
The rule of three
Aisling Crowe chats with Ken Parkhill whose family has bred three Cheltenham Grade 1 winners over the last three seasons, this year’s star performer being Bob Olinger
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Ken Parkhill Photo courtesy of Tattersalls Ireland
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OB OLINGER’s stroll to success with Rachael Blackmore in the Grade 1 Ballymore Novices Hurdle will, quite rightly, be remembered as part of the jockey’s history-making achievements at the 2021 Cheltenham Festival, but the six-yearold gelding was also adding to his breeder’s phenomenal record at NH’s theatre of dreams. His success was the third year in a row that breeder Ken Parkhill has celebrated Grade 1 glory for one of his graduates on racing’s greatest stage following on from City Island’s victory in the 2019 renewal of the race and that of Ferny Hollow in last year’s Weatherbys Champion Bumper. “It was some thrill,” said a delighted Parkhill of his family’s latest Cheltenham hero. “There was so much talk about him and hype over him in the run-up to Cheltenham, I wondered if it could actually happen. “The pressure was worse this year because with City Island it was unexpected and Ferny Hollow, winning was a possibility but
it wasn’t really expected in the same way that people were anticipating Bob Olinger winning; there was a lot or pressure.” Even more remarkably, Bob Olinger and Ferny Hollow were part of the same crop bred at Parkhill’s Castletown Quarry Stud near Trim in County Meath. The pair made their hurdling debuts in the same race at Gowran Park back in November when Ferny Hollow, trained by Willie Mullins, inflicted the only defeat of an otherwise blemish free career on Bob Olinger, who finished a length behind in second. This latest Parkhill Cheltenham triumph is just one on a long roll of honour that stretches back 30 years to the full-brothers Morley Street and Granville Again, who were both winners of the Champion Hurdle. Ferny Hollow and City Island come from different branches of their family, while Parkhill and his family have enjoyed a long and successful relationship with Bob Olinger’s family that reaches back even further than that. There is no secret to their success in having bred so many top-class horses and founded equine dynasties, and Parkhill believes that fortune shining favourably is a key element and one beyond anyone’s control. “Luck is the main thing really. I inherited a few good pedigrees from my parents and we try to mind the fillies and nurse them along,” he qualifies. “There’s a lot of luck involved in getting them into the right people. I can’t emphasise how important
