Kansas City Chief has luck on his side

Luck can often play a vital role in novice chases and the point was certainly exemplified as Kansas City Chief gained a fortuitous win in the Jimmy Neville Memorial Beginners Chase at Thurles. Hurricane Darwin took over after 6/4 favourite Fine Article made a mistake at the penultimate fence, and Adrian Heskin’s mount looked sure to score travelling well about three lengths clear when falling at the last.

His exit caused both Fine Article and So Young to be hampered, and the big beneficiary of all the mayhem was Kansas City Chief who was left in front.

Andrew Lynch kept the 7/1 chance right up to his work on the run-in to beat the rallying So Young by three quarters of a length, with Fine Article the same distance further back in third.

In an ironic twist of fate, Hurricane Darwin benefitted from the last flight fall of Union Dues to land a maiden hurdle on his previous outing here last month.

Winning trainer Mary Louise Hallahan said, "He was probably lucky but Andrew still thinks he wasn't done with and might have stayed on for second.

"He got a nice round of jumping there and stays very well. We'll look for a winners of one on a bit of nice ground over a trip. We'll keep going for another bit but he won't race during the height of summer."

(TW & AM)