De Name Escapes Me (left) clears a fence under Niall Madden© Photo Healy Racing
Backed into 13/8 favouritism from 2/1 on track, and bigger earlier, De Name Escapes Me delivered under a confident Niall Madden in the Grade B Foxrock Handicap Chase at Navan.
Madden had to engineer a passage on the J P McManus-owned and Noel Meade-trained De Name Escapes Me around the bypassed final fence.
He had Solomn Grey to pick up at that stage, and that he did in the end by half a length.
Rated 23Ibs below his hurdles mark, De Name Escapes Me, with this performance, prompted Meade to say: “He’s just not the same horse over fences as he is over hurdles. He backs away from them but it suited him with the last fence out of it.
“He ran too free here the last day. I was hoping he wouldn’t do that today but I suppose the fences will slow him down anyway.
“It looked like he was well handicapped but every time we ran him in a chase before we didn’t know if he was going to do it at all. He’s had plenty of problems too but he seems to be in a better place now.
“Christmas might be a bit soon now but we’ll see how he is.”
Owing to damage in the previous race, the Stewards granted permission for the omission of fence 1 (final fence) from this race.
(AM & EM)
