SEVEN races, five Irish-bred winners and a pair from France. Thursday was a complete reversal in 24 hours, and the near Gallic whitewash of Wednesday was soon forgotten.
Though the Ryanair Chase is considered as the main event on day three of the Cheltenham Festival, for me the Grade 1 Stayers Hurdle takes centre stage, and what a showcase this year’s race was for older horses, 11-year-olds finishing first and third.
Great joy for owner/breeder of the winner, Sean O’Driscoll, and how proud he was of Home By The Lee (Fame And Glory), one of just a small handful of winners this week with no inbreeding going back five generations.
On his fifth attempt to win the Stayers, Home By The Lee put up the best performance of his 35-race career, one that encompasses an unbeaten career in bumpers, three wins over fences, and seven hurdle victories, among then two editions of the Grade 1 Christmas Hurdle at the Leopardstown Christmas meeting. For his owner, Home By The Lee is “the horse of a lifetime”.
Joe Crowley
O’Driscoll raced the gelding’s dam Going For Home (Presenting) who won a point-to-point. She was trained by Joe Crowley after being purchased by his daughter Frances Smullen at Goffs for €16,000. The family connection continues as Crowley’s grandson Joseph O’Brien trains Home By The Lee.
Going For Home has three racecourse winners, another who won a couple of point-to-points, and there are some youngstock in the wings. In addition to Home By The Lee, she bred his own-sister Beautiful Citi (Fame And Glory) who won a couple of bumpers, a hurdle race and was placed in a listed hurdle for O’Driscoll.
Home By The Lee is the best horse in his family since Neblin (Nebbiolo). Out of the Thursday winners’ third dam Linbel (Linacre), Neblin was a multiple scorer in Ireland before joining Toby Balding for whom he brought off a notable double with Stan Moore in the saddle. In 1987, Neblin won the Tote Gold Trophy at Newbury quickly followed by the competitive County Hurdle at Cheltenham.
WITH the late withdrawal of Fact To File, many expected Jonbon to carry the McManus colours to victory in the Grade 1 Ryanair Chase, but Henry de Bromhead, Robcour and Darragh O’Keeffe had other ideas, and last year’s runner-up ran out a commanding winner.
Bred in France by Murielle Guillerm, Heart Wood was sent as a yearling to be sold at Tattersalls Ireland, but returned to his country of birth after selling for €10,000. He won a listed handicap hurdle at Auteuil before landing in de Bromhead’s yard in Waterford. His fifth chase win is his first success at the highest level, though he has been placed in the Drinmore at Navan and in an Aintree Grade 1.
Heart Wood is the second Grade 1 winner sired by Choeur Du Nord (Voix Du Nord), and both this season. The other is Kaid D’Authie who won at the Dublin Racing Festival and who was going well when falling at the 13th in the Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase. Standing for €8,500 this year, after starting out at €1,500 in 2018, Choeur Du Nord won two of his three starts over hurdles.
Major talent
A half-brother to the dam of four-time Grade 1 winner Benie Des Dieux (Great Pretender), Choeur Du Nord is emerging as a major talent in the stallion ranks, and at 14. He has 13 blacktype winners, and they include Heart Wood’s full-sister Miss Wood, a Grade 3 winner and Grade 1-placed. He has three other Grade 1 performers, notably the Challow Hurdle second Klimt Madrik.
It was a French-bred 1-2-3 in the day’s other Grade 1, the David Nicholson Mares’ Hurdle, and six-year-old Wodhooh (Le Havre) struck for Gordon Elliott. Placed when trained by Sir Michael Stoute, Wodhooh has tasted defeat once in 11 starts over hurdles, behind Lossiemouth at Aintree last year. She was value when bought by Ted Durcan for 50,000gns at the Tattersalls July Sale three years ago.
With a top-class flat pedigree, Wodhooh will be an interesting mare to breed from. She is one of two winners out of an unraced Dubawi (Dubai Millennium) mare whose own dam, Brigitta (Sadler’s Wells) is a full-sister to Group 1 two-year-old winner Commander Collins, and a half-sister to US champion sprinter Lit De Justice (El Gran Senor).
THE opening Grade 2 Ryanair Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle was won by White Noise (Kingston Hill), bred by brothers Jimmy and John Lawlor. She most recently finished second to another daughter of her sire in a Grade 2 mares’ hurdle at Warwick.
At the time I wrote: “It is hopefully only a matter of time until White Noise becomes a blacktype winner”. Little did I know it would be at Cheltenham. Placed on her only start in a point-to-point for Sean Doyle, having being purchased for £25,000 at Goffs UK, she has won four times and placed twice in six outings over hurdles.
White Noise is the first winner for the unraced Sounds Poetic (Yeats), and Declan Lavery bought her four-year-old unraced half-sister All Noise (Maxios) for €6,000 last July at Tattersalls Ireland. Sounds Poetic is a daughter of Sounds Charming (Presenting), also unraced and dam of four winners. Sounds Charming’s grandam bred the Grade 1 hurdle and chase winner Classical Charm (Corvaro), runner-up in the Cheltenham Champion Hurdle.
Ask Brewster
Group 1 Coronation Cup winner Ask (Sadler’s Wells) spent his last five years in England after leaving The Beeches Stud. Best remembered as the sire of yesterday’s Gold Cup contender The Jukebox Man, he sired Ask Brewster who won the Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Chase on Thursday.
Highest level
Bred by John O’Mahony, Ask Brewster sold to Jerry McGrath at the Goffs Land Rover Sale for €12,500, won a point-to-point, and sold for £50,000 at the Goffs UK Aintree Sale. He has won over hurdles and his fifth chase win came on his tenth outing over fences. He is the first winner out of Latest Instalment (Mahler), a half-sister to Grade 1 Hennessy Gold Cup winner Last Instalment (Anshan), one of three wins he enjoyed at the highest level.
Padraig Barry bred Supremely West (Westerner), and raced him when he won a Tramore bumper. He sold to join Richard Newland, won two more bumpers and three hurdle races, and sold to owner Jimmy Fyffe for £24,000 at the Goffs UK Spring Sale last year. Moved to Dan Skelton, the eight-year-old took home more than £60,000 when winning the Pertemps Network Final.
Westerner (Danehill) stood his entire career at Castlehyde Stud and enjoyed much success with his National Hunt winners, among them Grade 1 scorers Ferny Hollow, Skyace, Cole Harden, Western Warhorse, Gilgamboa and Captain Cutter.
BRED by Maurice Day, Meetmebythesea (Watar) put up a career best performance to land the Grade 2 Jack Richards Novices’ Chase. You would be forgiven for not recognising the six-year-old’s breeding, and it is a fairytale result.
The gelding’s sire Watar (Marju) was a dual Group 2 winner for Hamdan Al Maktoum, in the Prix du Chaudenay at three and Prix Maurice du Nieuil as a six-year-old. He stood for a number of years at the Day’s Moortown Stud, and the only time a fee was published in 2019 it was listed at €1,000. That was the year Meetmebythesea was conceived.
Meetmebythesea is the last of five foals out of Lake Wakatipu (Lake Coniston), three of which were named and raced. The first was a son of Water, point-to-point winner Drumlee Lake. Lake Wakatipu raced 41 times. At four she won three times, and at seven she won over hurdles.
If you trace the family of Meetmebythesea back five generations, to Gonzesse (Prince Chevalier) who was foaled in 1958, he is the only runner in the family to earn any blacktype. Meetmebythesea is the sole runner by Water to do likewise.