Rachael Blackmore arriving at Fairyhouse on Sunday to ride Honeysuckle© Photo Healy Racing
It was great to see Fairyhouse attracting good crowds over the weekend for their Winter Festival. 4,000 on Saturday and over 7,000 on Sunday. High quality National Hunt racing tends to do that and the Sunday card at Fairyhouse was one of the best we have seen for quite a while.
There really is little to compare to the excitement of high-quality jumps racing and the four big contests on Sunday delivered that in spades. I was most impressed with the performance of Marine Nationale in the Royal Bond as he certainly wants better ground, missed the last hurdle and still managed to win.
Mighty Potter was another to really catch the eye and the quotes from Jack Kennedy after the race suggest this fellow could develop into a serious chaser - “I was thinking people would pick holes in his jumping but when he sees a fence he locks on and runs down to them. I wanted to get a lead today, so I was probably half sticking him to the ground, so I wasn't jumping to the front. I think in a really strongly run race you will see the best of his jumping. I was very impressed with him.”
Kennedy himself is having some season. The 23-year-old has now ridden more winners this season, 69, than ever before and we are only at the beginning of December. Here’s hoping he can stay injury-free for the remainder of the season. Elliott too is firing on all cylinders and has notched up 29 winners and 16 seconds in the last three weeks alone, including 7 wins over the weekend at Fairyhouse.
Of course, it was Kennedy and Elliott who spoiled the party on Sunday by winning the Hatton’s Grace with Teehupoo. It was a pity to see Honeysuckle lose her unbeaten record and fail to make history by winning the race for a fourth year in a row, but I suppose that’s simply racing. As this is to be her last season, I really do hope she can go out on a victory whether that is at the Dublin Racing Festival, Cheltenham or Punchestown. She and her legion of fans deserve to enjoy that victory parade at least once more.
I loved this quote from Honeysuckle’s owner Kenny Alexander after the race: “I said to Henry just after she got chinned ‘I said in the paper you were a genius and you are still a genius, just not as much of a genius as earlier this week’. It’s disappointing, but it’s not the end of the world.”
People often give out about the Cheltenham narrative running through the National Hunt season, but in many ways it is what makes this side of the sport so engaging. Yes, races like the Hatton’s Grace, Drinmore, Royal Bond and Tingle Creek are top class races in their own right, but these races and other lesser contests during the season are made all the more intriguing and enjoyable to watch when viewed through the prism of Cheltenham.
Honeysuckle losing her unbeaten record at Fairyhouse was obviously disappointing, but all is not lost if she can bounce back to win a third Champion Hurdle in March, however unlikely that may seem at this moment in time.
Facile Vega beat nothing on his hurdles debut and without the backdrop of Cheltenham it would be just another 1/9 shot winning on the bridle. Instead we analyse every step of his outing to try and gauge whether or not he is a worthy Supreme Novices favourite on the back of it.
Shishkin’s poor effort in the Tingle Creek, Edwardstone’s impressive display in the same race, Teehupoo and Klassical Dream in the Hatton’s Grace, Mighty Potter in the Drinmore and Marine Nationale and Irish Point in the Royal Bond, Lossiemouth in the Juvenile Hurdle all become more significant when viewed with Cheltenham in mind.
While the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham in 2023 is fast becoming a non-event betting wise the rest of the races are bubbling up nicely. Emmet Mullins certainly threw a spanner in the works with regard to the Gold Cup with the performance of Noble Yeats at Aintree on Saturday. The Grand National winner stormed clear of some decent opposition in the Many Clouds Chase and connections must now be tempted by a tilt at the big one come March.
On the subject of Emmet Mullins, you would have to wonder why all the top owners are not beating a path to his door. He has been punching above his weight for some time with a relatively small string of horses and you’d have thought the Grand National victory would have opened the floodgates. Perhaps these days it will take a Gold Cup win for that to happen.
