Un De Sceaux’s owner Colm O’Connell reveals why horse is just like Man Utd legend Eric Cantona

Colm was speaking on the latest edition of our From the Horse's Mouth podcast.

Eric Cantona

I’m excited for this weekend. There’s 34 of us going over to Ascot – and that number is rising so I’d say we’ll be closer to 40 come the race.

If Un De Sceaux keeps running as a 14 or 15 year old we’ll end up taking close to a 100!

From the get go, he’s always campaigned in either England or France – and we’ve always made it clear to Willie that we’re in racing for a day out. It’s a good distraction for us from our day to day work.

We all like to head out for the day’s racing, come back that night and go into the local and drink away. We ring the racecourse before and we’d say, look, we just want to keep everyone together – we don’t want any prawn sandwiches! Just get us tickets together, keep us all together, that’s all we want.

Un De Sceaux means so much to everyone that goes, with plenty of people that have followed him from the start.

Even six months ago I met a fella in the local bar who told me he’d love to see him race – so I’ve arranged it so he’s coming along with us.

From the very start, we knew we were never going to get another horse like him. Every day we go out, we know this is special.

People say he’s one in a million, but he’s not, he’s one in a billion.

He won’t come around again for us, he won’t come around again for anyone. These type of horses don’t just come around for you all the time – and that’s why we didn’t want to sell him.

The memories have been unbelievable, he’s brilliant, he’s great craic. A lot of people can relate to Un De Sceaux.

If you look at sportspeople, the real nutjobs are always great. The Eric Cantona’s of the world – they’re the best ones – everyone loves someone who’s a bit quirky like that. Un De Sceaux has that way about him.

There’s no pressure. He’s 12 years old, who has done enough for everyone, and we’re going to enjoy it anyway.

It’s probably going to be our last time as owners at Ascot, so we’re going to soak up everything and win, lose, whatever – we’ll be on the Guinness tomorrow!