One Safe Bet For Jump Racing’s Spectacular 

Venturing fearlessly into jumps territory this week, this correspondent would never be so bold as to offer tips or predictions for the Cheltenham Festival. There is only one safe bet to be had, and that is that Keeneland's indefatigable European representative Ed Prosser will be up with the larks to cook the finest Full English for his housemates, and at some stage over the next four days will serenade us with his inimitable version of Rhinestone Cowboy.

The Prosser baritone is certainly much easier on the ears than the newly released 'Roar-Remix'. In a rather unlikely development, the Jockey Club has gone clubbing in collaboration with someone known as DJ Cuddles. A less cool name for a DJ it is hard to imagine, but this pairing of the tweed brigade with the TikTok generation has, we are told, led to “a dance anthem like no other”.

The actual roar, which will be let out around at around 1.30pm on Tuesday as the tape pings back for the Sky Bet Supreme Novices' Hurdle, will be followed, in all probability, by victory for the first favourite of the week, who has a stronger claim to the Cheltenham winner's enclosure than most other horses. In fact, Facile Vega (Ire) (Walk In The Park {Ire}) already has one Cheltenham crown to his name thanks to his victory in last year's Weatherbys Champion Bumper. But he still has a long way to go if he is to emulate his celebrated mother, Quevega (Fr), Queen of the Mares' Hurdle.

The tiny daughter of Robin Des Champs (Fr) scampered up that hill to glory six years in a row. Yes, she was sparsely campaigned in between, but boy did she come alive at Prestbury Park. It is hard to believe that Quevega is already 19, but in Facile Vega, her second foal, she has written yet another chapter to her captivating story. 

There are still a lot of boring old Doubting Thomases out there when it comes to the Mares' Hurdle but one really couldn't ask for more than what is on offer in this year's race. Honeysuckle (GB) vs. Epatante (Fr). There's a corker of a prize fight if ever there was one. The two mares have won the last three Champion Hurdles and, both now nine, are appearing at what may well be their final Festival before perusing the stallion books in a kind of equine Tinder-fest. Swipe right for Blue Bresil (Fr) or Getaway (Ger). 

Before that they will of course have to do battle with last year's Close Brothers Mares' Hurdle winner Marie's Rock (Ire) (Milan {GB}). The eight-year-old is another wonder for the successful cross-code Middleham Park Racing syndicate. She went on to score at the Punchestown Festival and her only outing so far this season ended in triumph at Cheltenham on New Year's Day.

Those cribbing the expansion of the mares' National Hunt programme in Britain and Ireland have clearly never stood outside a box on a sales ground on a cold winter's day and tried to sell a filly foal. It matters that jumping fillies and mares have just as much of a clear pathway to the top as their Flat counterparts, and great work has been done on both sides of the Irish Sea in improving this situation. Yes, once they get near the top we want to see the mares mix it in open company, and the best of them have done so. Witness the fact that four of the last seven Champion Hurdles have been won by a mare, a run started by Annie Power (Ire) in 2015. But you have to scroll back to Flakey Dove (GB) in 1994 to find the last female winner before this mighty trio. Alas, we have no mare in the seven-strong Champion Hurdle this year, which surely is a coronation for the mighty Constitution Hill (GB) (Blue Bresil {Fr}). 

It is an increasingly rare thing these days to see homebred runners in the major National Hunt races, which is what makes Edwardstone (GB) (Kayf Tara {GB}) a little extra special, aside from his extraordinary talent. In last year's Arkle Trophy, he provided one of the feel-good stories of the week, and was a much needed early home winner in the auld battle of England vs. Ireland, which has been so lopsided in the favour of the raiders of late. Edwardstone is currently favourite to add Wednesday's Queen Mother Champion Chase to his record and to give his small breeders, the Abrey and Thurtle families, another big day in the spotlight. 

Similarly, there would be much joy attached to a win for Queens Gamble (Ire) (Getaway {Ger}) in the Weatherbys Champion Bumper, which rounds off Wednesday's card. The part the five-year-old mare has played in helping her trainer Oliver Sherwood through his tortuous battle with cancer has been well documented and she represents the brothers-in-law Alex Frost and Ed Galvin, who bred her at Galvin's Ardmulchan Stud in Ireland. Frost has of course been busying himself in recent years with rebooting and revitalising the Tote. He deserves a day off from those endeavours, and hopefully it will be one spent celebrating a special homebred winner at the track not far from his Wiltshire-based Ladyswood Stud.

It now appears to be the law of the bloodstock sales calendar that no week can pass without an auction taking place, whether online or IRL (I'm told that's what the kids say).

Those still standing by the end of Thursday's action who have no wish to spend an hour trying to exit the car park may as well stick around for what has now become a regular fixture on the boutique jumps sales calendar. 

There can be no more aspirational venue for those in love with jump racing than to stage a sale in the winner's enclosure at Cheltenham. Brian Sheerin spoke to Jamie Codd last week about his twin role during the Festival as both crack amateur rider and a driving force behind the Tattersalls Ireland Cheltenham Festival Sale. 

If you missed that interview, you can read it here, and in the meantime, please forgive us while our attention is temporarily diverted from all things Flat to quite a few things National Hunt over the next four days.

The post One Safe Bet For Jump Racing’s Spectacular  appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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The Sweet Roar Of Success For Cheltenham’s Golden Girls

CHELTENHAM, UK–There are horses, and then there's Honeysuckle (GB). Thought it may seem like sacrilege to compare the superstar hurdler to the greatest racehorse of the modern era, there has been no better winning sequence on the turf since Frankel (GB) stepped off it to the breeding shed a decade ago, and Honeysuckle isn't stopping yet.

The daughter of Sulamani (Ire) is now a dual Champion Hurdle winner, a treble Irish Champion Hurdle winner, unbeaten in 15 starts under rules, plus her debut triumph in a point-to-point at Dromahane at the age of four. It was that romp of a maiden win when still a raw frame of a filly that pricked up the ears of Peter Molony, who manages the racing and breeding interests of Honeysuckle's owner Kenny Alexander and bought the mare at the Goffs Punchestown HIT Sale on his behalf for €110,000.

Visibly emotional as Honeysuckle was led in from her third consecutive victory at the Cheltenham Festival, Molony admitted, “I looked at her pedigree and I wasn't interested. But I was working for Goffs and I thought I had better go and have a look at her. And to do what she did in her point-to-point when she was just such a big frame of a horse was quite something. Then I just had to persuade Kenny.”

It is an understatement to say that Alexander will be glad that he did. For there is currently no bigger star in National Hunt racing than Honeysuckle. The mare's lustre is enhanced immeasurably for her unbreakable partnership with Rachael Blackmore, who owned Cheltenham last year with her six Festival wins. All that was missing then was the famous roar, but boy did she and Honeysuckle receive one this time around.

With the crowds returned to Prestbury Park two years on from the world coming almost to a standstill as the pandemic took its grip, those who packed the tiers that make up the heady amphitheatre surrounding Cheltenham's winner's enclosure gave it their lusty best as the golden girls returned triumphant again.

“It was incredible, walking back down there,” said Blackmore. “I've never felt an atmosphere like that. There wasn't a moment's silence. People here, it's just an amazing crowd, an amazing atmosphere. It's easy to say that when you're winning, but it's a very special place and to hear those cheers this year was very special.”

She continued, “Part of me was thinking that I should have been more nervous before the race, but I actually do have a lot of confidence in her. It would be weird if I didn't, because she's never let me down. She's incredible. Henry [de Bromhead] gets her to the races every day in the form he does, and that's an extremely tough feat, to train a horse to win all those races in succession.”

While Blackmore was happy to put her faith in her faultless mount, Molony confessed that the nerves had been getting to him.

“To be honest, the weeks leading up to her races, it's torture,” he said. “But it's first-world torture, and we'll enjoy it now looking back.”

He added, “She's eight now and we're probably looking at next year being her last season.”

Whenever Honeysuckle does eventually retire she will become an important foundation mare at Alexander's New Hall Stud in his native Scotland, a farm made famous by the Thom family, breeders of Group 1 winner Donna Blini (GB), who went on to greater fame as the dam of Japanese superstar Gentildonna (Jpn).

Alexander, who predominantly races mares with a view to establishing a formidable National Hunt broodmare band, has the majority of his horses in training in Ireland, and the British-bred Honeysuckle, a graduate of Dorset-based The Glanvilles Stud, has been a huge credit to her trainer Henry de Bromhead, whose annus mirabilis in 2021 included landing Cheltenham's holy trinity of the Champion Hurdle, Champion Chase and Gold Cup, and then adding his first Grand National success to the mix. 

Four of the last seven runnings of the Champion Hurdles have been won by mares, the last two by Honeysuckle, who on Tuesday was chased home by Epatante (Fr) (No Risk At All {Fr}), the 2020 winner. The latter's trainer Nicky Henderson has had plenty of success in that race over the years, with his eight wins stretching back to 1985, and though he had to settle for second in the day's feature race, he will have returned to Lambourn a happy man on Tuesday evening. 

Henderson drew first blood at Prestbury Park during the afternoon, sending out Constitution Hill (GB) (Blue Bresil {Fr}) and Jonbon (Fr) (Walk In The Park {Ire}) to finish first and second in a fiercely competitive running of the G1 Sky Bet Supreme Novices' Hurdle. He then struck again in the G1 Close Brothers Mares' Hurdle with Marie's Rock (Ire) (Milan {Ire}) for the Middleham Park Racing team. 

“We had four runners today and if you'd have told me this morning I'd have had all four finishing in the first two I'd have said it was going to be a good day,” said Henderson, the most successful British trainer of all time at the Festival with 72 wins. “In golf you're meant to play to your age, so when you're 66 you've got to go round in 66 and so on. I'm 71 so the first winner this week took me to that and we've put one in the bank for next year just in case I don't last.”

With 23 horses set to run at Cheltenham this week, Henderson is the best represented among the British trainers but his team pales into relative insignificance against the amassed troops from the Irish stables of Willie Mullins and Gordon Elliott, who have 71 and 68 potential runners respectively. 

Mullins had to wait until the last race of the day for his first win in the Ukraine Appeal National Hunt Challenge Cup with Stattler (Ire) (Stowaway {Ire}), ridden by his son Patrick. As an acknowledgement of the grave troubles beyond the bubble of the Cheltenham Festival, the six runners in the finale all carried saddle cloths in the colours of the Ukrainian flag, while the jockeys bore armbands in blue and yellow throughout the day. 

Edwardstone A Homegrown Star

Prices for the top National Hunt horses may have skyrocketed past the reach of many owners but there is still the odd fairytale to be written, even at Cheltenham. And it will be hard to find a more heartwarming result all season than that of Edwardstone (GB) (Kayf Tara {GB}) in the G1 Sporting Life Arkle Trophy. 

Bred by his owners Robert Abrey and Ian Thurtle, the 8-year-old has been the star turn this season for Alan King, who in the last 12 months has been represented by the dual Group 1-winning stayer Trueshan (Fr) (Planteur {Ire}) and Group 2-winning juvenile Asymmetric (Ire) (Showcasing {GB}). Such results are testament to his all-round skills as a horseman, but it is the jumps world with which King has been more readily associated over the years, and in Edwardstone he looks to have a prospect to rival former stable stars such as Voy Por Ustedes (Fr), My Way De Solzen (Fr) and Katchit (GB).

Abrey and Thurtle, two old friends based in Norfolk, currently have only Edwardstone's dam, the 17-year-old Nothingtoloose (Ire) (Luso {GB}), in their paddocks. She is soon to be joined by Midnightreferendum (GB) (Midnight Legend {GB}), the Grade 2-placed four-time winner and daughter of their late broodmare Forget The Ref (Ire) (Dr Massini {Ire}). Both the latter and Nothingtoloose were campaigned in the point-to-point field by the pair before retiring to stud, and are now both black-type producers.

Edwardstone, already a treble winner over hurdles, has been one of the revelations of the season since going novice chasing and, after being brought down on his debut over fences in November, hasn't looked back, remaining unbeaten in his last five starts. 

Hailing the result “a dream come true”, Robert Abrey said, “The adrenaline is running a bit at the moment. We were just trying to breed a nice horse and this fella turned up.”

He added, “We're just a couple of amateurs. We looked down the list even in our bumpers and thought 'what are we doing here?'. Alan got him going and the horse could be quite bullish as a youngster. It's really all credit to Alan and his team at Barbury Castle for all the work they have put into this horse over the last three or four years.”

With Nothingtoloose heading to Ireland to visit Walk In The Park (Ire) this season, the mare is set to be represented by another runner in the coming days as Edwardstone's full-sister Nothingtochance (GB) is entered to make her debut in the bumper at Southwell on Monday. 

As James Thomas outlined in Tuesday's TDN, the numbers are stacked against British breeders in the National Hunt division but the opening day at Cheltenham was one to savour in that regard, with three Grade 1 winners carrying the GB suffix. And, as also referenced, top-class jumpers are often not that far removed from top-class horses on the Flat. 

A reminder of that was delivered by Brazil (Ire), winner of the G3 Boodles Juvenile Handicap Hurdle to give trainer Padraig Roche his debut Festival victory with his first runner. This time last year, the 4-year-old son of Galileo (Ire) was still under the care of Aidan O'Brien at Ballydoyle, where his full-brother Capri (Ire) was also trained to win the St Leger for the Coolmore partners. Capri, bred, like Brazil, by Lynch Bages Ltd and Camas Park Stud, is now ensconced at Grange Stud and has been presented with a rather nice update by his brother as he embarks on his career as a National Hunt stallion.

The post The Sweet Roar Of Success For Cheltenham’s Golden Girls appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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