Apple's Jade and Bryan Cooper© Photo Healy Racing
There was a Grade 1 double and a 34th of the season overall, for Willie Mullins at Punchestown today, as Apple's Jade cemented the great impression created at Aintree when leading home her stable companion Let's Dance in the Grade 1 AES Champion Four Year Old Hurdle.
Paul Townend was in the saddle on Whiteout for David Lawlor thirty five minutes earlier, but this time it was Bryan Cooper and Gigginstown House Stud that combined with 8/13 chance Apple's Jade. Ivanovich Gorbatov kept tabs on the all-the-way victor, but the Triumph Hurdle hero couldn't go with the brilliant daughter of Saddler Maker from the penultimate flight.
Pushed out briefly to go clear before the last, Apple's Jade eventually eased home by nine-lengths from the staying on Let's Dance. She got up by a head to deprive Ivanovich Gorbatov of second place.
"She had a very hard race in Aintree, and I wondered if it would impact on her today. We let her take her chance as it's the end of the season," reflected Mullins.
"She looks very, very good. She won at Christmas but then we had an awful time as she was stiff and sore and we couldn't train her. She came back at Cheltenham and that put her right as she flew in at Aintree.
"I'd say we will leave it at that. There is a chance she could go to France for the Prix du Breil but we'll have to see."
Meanwhile Cooper said: "She's probably as good a two miler as I have ridden. Hopefully she's a filly that trains on and she's one to look forward to."
Paddy Power go 8/1 from 14s about Apple's Jade for the 2017 Champion Hurdle.
(AM & EM)
