A pattern of improvement

Irish National Hunt trainers are surely missing a trick by not running more of their horses in the UK, particularly at weekends.

Take last weekend as an example when we had high value racing action at Punchestown on Saturday and Sunday, but also across the water at Haydock and Ascot on Saturday. With all the talk we hear about poor prize money in the UK compared to the government funded model in Ireland you might automatically presume that the two days at Punchestown, with Grade One contests each day, would be far more lucrative than two big UK meetings. That certainly wasn’t the case.

The Haydock card featuring the Betfair Chase had total prize money of £550,000 (€633,000) which was significantly more than the prize money at both Punchestown meetings combined (€503,500).

Even Saturday’s Ascot card, with no Grade One races, had £365,000 (€420,000) in total prize money which was far more than either of the days at Punchestown (€267,000 and €236,500 respectively).

Ascot’s racing on Saturday took place on ground officially described as ‘Good’ which would not be suitable for all national hunt horses, but when you consider that the biggest field on the day had 8 runners and there was significant prize money available to horses that simply finished races, it’s strange Irish trainers aren’t taking more advantage.

The opening race at Ascot was a handicap chase for Novices over three miles which only attracted three runners. If any Irish-trained horse had travelled over for this race and simply completed the course it would have been guaranteed £1,195 (€1,375) in prize money for finishing last. It was a similar situation in two other races on the Ascot card.

Of course, a few Irish trainers are well aware of the benefits of travelling over for big pots in the UK. The Emmet Mullins-trained Slate Lane scooped £71,188 (€81,926) by winning a handicap hurdle at Haydock on Saturday and his uncle Willie collected the not insignificant sum of £26,712 (€30,741) for his owners by supplying the second place finisher in the same race. Gordon Elliott and Stuart Crawford also picked up races in the UK last Saturday.

Slate Lane (€81,926) won more prize money winning a handicap in the UK last weekend than State Man (€72,000) did for winning the Grade One Morgiana Hurdle or Fastorslow (€60,000) collected for winning the Grade One John Durkan Memorial Chase.

In total nine Irish-trained horses travelled over to the UK last Saturday and between them won £163,385 (€188,031) in prize money. Not far off the total prize money on offer for the eight races at Punchestown on Sunday.

You’d have to wonder why more Irish-trained horses don’t go to England each weekend? It’s not as if Brexit is much of a barrier to travelling over, 50 Irish-trained horses went to the three day November meeting at Cheltenham just over a week ago and it was a similar story for the two day October meeting at the same course. Come Festival time in March almost every winner from the previous six months is loaded onto a boat heading for Cheltenham.

Each weekend during the jumps season there are potential rich pickings for Irish-trained runners over in the UK, but for some reason most don’t give it a second thought.

Changing the subject somewhat, I wonder what the IHRB handicappers and their counterparts at the BHA are making of Slate Lane. They must be feeling like they are guests at the Feast Of Cana.

Earlier this year, when trained by Paul Hennessy, Slate Lane ran in three maiden hurdle races in Ireland and those performances suggested he possessed very little ability. Beaten 36 lengths the first day, 69 lengths on his second run and 54 lengths on the third occasion, when his rider inadvertently forgot to weigh-in and the horse was demoted to last place.

Not long afterwards Slate Lane changed ownership and switched to the nearby stables of Emmet Mullins. Three and a half months after his final start for Paul Hennessy Slate Lane reappeared for his new trainer Emmet Mullins at Cartmel of all places and was backed off the boards to win in a canter.

Four weeks on from that success he’s back in the UK and wins again at Bangor, followed three weeks later with another success, this time at Newton Abbot. He then pops up on the flat in the final leg of the Corinthian Challenge series at Leopardstown, is again punted, and once again wins.

Then last Saturday he was back across the water at Haydock winning a Premier Handicap Hurdle off a BHA rating of 127. Slate Lane has now run in five races since switching from Paul Hennessy to Emmet Mullins and has won them all.

We have a horse here that has shown ‘a pattern of improvement’ which I would guess is getting close to ‘a level previously unfamiliar to experienced and long-serving handicapping officials’ (the phrase used by the IHRB to describe Ronan McNally’s horses earlier this year).

Whatever the handicappers may be saying to each other about the improvement of Slate Lane I’d say there have been a few choice words spoken in the Hennessy household as the horse was originally owned by the trainer’s wife.