February 8th Leopardstown Post-Racing Notes

There were four Grade 1 contests at Leopardstown on Sunday and all carried festival pointers in some form or another; Willie Mullins had well-fancied favourites in all of them and although he managed to win two, it was not with the favourites, whose form on the day reads 2326.

Petite Parisienne won the battle with Kalkir

The first was the Spring Juvenile Hurdle, from which the Triumph Hurdle winner has come the last three years in a row (Tiger Roll was 2^nd in this race last year before winning at the festival, Our Conor won this in 2013 en route to an impressive Triumph success and Countrywide Flame was 3^rd in this in 2012). Kalkir was 5/4 to get Mullins off to a good start, but it was stablemate Petite Parisienne that beat him in a battle on the run-in. It’s hard to make any excuses for Kalkir and both will head to the Triumph, but his loss will arguably do nothing other than strengthen Peace And Co’s claims to Triumph Hurdle Glory.

The next Grade 1 was the Deloitte, won last year by Vautour on his way to Supreme success. Firstly, I would have liked to see Douvan campaigned in the same way that Vautour was by running in this pre-festival, as he would have had to prove himself against some good Grade 1 winners and would certainly have left less questions to be answered heading towards the Supreme. The way it is, Douvan surely still has more to prove that Vautour did at this time last year (he had beaten The Tullow Tank among others).

Nichols Canyon would be an interesting Neptune runner

Alvisio Ville was the 11/10 Mullins favourite and again he was beaten by a stablemate; Nichols Canyon has now won two Grade 1’s since taking to hurdles and has done nothing wrong other than unseating once in Grade 1 company at Leopardstown. He could still go in any one of the Supreme, Neptune or Albert Bartlett, but it looks likely that he’ll run in the Neptune and he’s currently disputing ante-post favouritism at 8/1.

Windsor Park put in a great run in 2^nd and has to also be taken into consideration in whatever race he ends up being aimed (probably the Neptune too).

The Flogas Novice Chase was the third Grade 1 of the day and Apache Stronghold won very impressively for Noel Meade, bringing him towards the top of the ante-post markets for the JLT and the RSA. If he, Vautour, Gilgamboa and Ptit Zig ran in the JLT, it could be a fantastic contest, and that’s before we even begin to consider the possible entries in the form of Valseur Lido who finished 2^nd behind Apache Stronghold yesterday and Gitane Du Berlais who was an eye-catching winner of the Scilly Isles Novices Chase.

Carlingford Lough was a hugely popular winner for the retiring
AP McCoy

Finally, the big race of the day was the Hennessy Gold Cup, with some very real Cheltenham Gold Cup contenders battling it out (admittedly on a very different track) en route to the festival. Carlingford Lough was thought by some to be the unlucky horse in the Lexus and was an extremely popular winner today, providing AP McCoy with a big-race win on what is almost sure to be his last visit to Leopardstown. The Gold Cup is the aim after yesterday’s win, and it's interesting that two Galway Plate winners in  Road To Riches and Carlingford Lough are heading towards the Gold Cup this year.

Foxrock kept up some very consistent form to finish a fairly close 2^nd behind him travelling and jumping well, while Lord Windermere ran a much better race than in the Lexus and was encouraging to anyone who is supporting him to retain his Gold Cup crown at the festival. He hit the front after jumping the second last brilliantly and held the lead for a while before falling back to finish 3^rd in a very respectable run.

On His Own jumped marginally straighter than in the Lexus

On His Own’s habit of jumping to the right has been his downfall in the past and he improved on this today from the Lexus run. He jumped right at a few obstacles but not as violently as he has done in the past and the problem which resurfaced at its worst on St Stephens Day seems to have improved slightly since – still a problem, but to a lesser extent.

Boston Bob wasn’t being aimed at today, nor was he being aimed at the Lexus, and connections know what they’re doing so it would be no surprise to see him improve on better ground at Cheltenham in March and it’s worth noting how much he has drifted – I’m not suggesting a bet in the Gold Cup but we can expect some improvement.