The Weekend Review
By Red
After an exciting weekend of racing, including the Open at Cheltenham and a two-day event at Punchestown, we look back at some of the key performances and news to have come out of the weekend.
We start with day one of the Open meeting at Cheltenham on Friday. The heavily backed favourite La Vaticane could not land the opener and instead it was Keel Haul who hijacked the prize. He looked to struggle, but came on with a late surge to rally and keep on for the win. More of That was impressive in the second and never really had to work for it on his chase debut. He ran up the hill strongly and will be one to keep an eye out for later in the year. The most impressive performance of the day came from Shantou Village and he went straight into my tracker after bursting clear of his rivals in the Grade Two hurdle. Neil Mulholland was very pleased with his charge and so he should be. The cross country race was always likely to see a Nina Carberry and Enda Bolger combination as the winner, but Carberry gave superb ride to Josies Orders, having to cling on at times to beat Any Currency into second. The horse I was most impressed by however was Valadom. Yes, he weakened toward the end and was lucky that Dogora got rid of Katie Walsh to run into a place, but considering he was taking a massive step up in trip (over a mile further than he'd run before), he coped with it admirably. A Hare's Breath landed a massive punt having been 25/1 the night before, but backed into 4/1 by the time they went off in the penultimate race. Nine Carberry was back in the winners enclosure for the last with Knock House just holding on from Foxbridge by a neck.
Day two was the day of the Paddy Power Gold Cup and Ian Popham claimed a big race win on Annacotty and he was cheered home by the crowd and his peers after a long injury lay-off. There were quite a few in with a chance at the last, but Popham's charge stayed on strongest to win the valuable prize. A few of the more touted horses were disappointing, with the likes of Monetaire and Kings Palace finishing down the field. There were a few upsets all day, with Wolf of Windlesham winning the opener at 12/1 and top weight Vincente beating off Un Temps Pour Tout in the second. Sausolito Sunrise was made to work for it, but just managed to hold off Upswing in the third to give Richard Johnson his first winner of this years meeting (he went on to claim to more to be leading jockey). I didn't see the other races, so I'll skip them, although it sounds like Copper Kay is one to keep an eye on.
Over in Ireland on Saturday, Gitane Du Berlais was unable to carry top weight to victory under Ruby Walsh and instead it was the inconsistent Whiteout who claimed the Mares Hurdle. Outlander followed that up with a victory in the Beginners Chase for another Mullins winner, but On His Own was disappointing in the Risk of Thunder Chase, which went to Quantativeeasing instead. But the two most impressive performances there came in the last two races. Marakoush made all to win by 12 lengths over a spread out field in the penultimate hurdles race while Our Duke showed a great turn of foot from half a mile out to win by 21 lengths. I'll be keeping an eye on both those two runners to see what they can do.
Finally to Sunday's racing and the biggest shock of the weekend. Faugheen lost his unbeaten record as stablemate Nichols Canyon proved to good in the Morgianna Hurdle. I'm still not sure what to make of the performace by the Machine and Willie Mullins seems equally baffled. "That worked out completely different from the way they worked on Tuesday. Faugheen left Nichols for dead - maybe he left his race behind? I don't know." Still, the winner ran well and we'll be seeing more of him. Sizing John continued his strong start to chasing with an easy win and later on the card, both Steel Wave and Conal recovered from mistakes to win their hurdles races. Mullins had another couple of smart horses winning at Cork, Bleu et Rouge and Bellshill and both are worth keeping an eye on.
The biggest cheer of the day though, came after the Schloer Chase, where old favourite Sprinter Sacre made the most of favourable conditions to win in impressive fashion. It's still hard to say if he's back to his old self, but it was a pretty good run and credit to Nicky Henderson for rejuvenating his star. Henderson had earlier taken the opening race on the card with Altior beating of the challenge of Maputo. The latter ran impressively, but was reported lame after the race and seems to have been retired. Garde La Victorie battled on gamely to claim the second in testing conditions and he will probably want ground that is a bit better. Teenage Harry Cobden then rode Old Guard to a win in the Greatwood Hurdle, beating some really nice types and he must've had quite a day!
All in all it was a great weekend of racing and hopefully it bodes well for the rest of the winter.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them at the bottom of here, or hit me up on twitter @redgameracer
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