ANY Second Now won on his racecourse debut last month at 66/1 and at the weekend showed that it was no fluke as he overturned the odds-on Willie Mullins runner Crack Mome to take the honours in the Grade 2 Sky Bet Moscow Flyer Novice Hurdle at Punchestown. How good he might be is debateable at this early stage, but he is a horse that could scale the heights.

Bred by Noreen McManus and racing in the colours of her husband JP, Any Second Now is a five-year-old son of the hugely successful Oscar, and he is the first gelding and first winner for his Topanoora dam Pretty Neat. She was obviously useful and having finished runner-up on her debut in a bumper, she was pulled-up by AP McCoy on her only other outing over hurdles and retired to stud.

Pretty Neat is unlucky not to have had a previous winner as her Milan daughter Wipe Your Eye was second on her only ever racecourse appearance over hurdles a few years ago. There is a four-year-old full-brother to Any Second Now and younger fillies by Yeats and Flemensfirth.

LONG ASSOCIATION

This is a pedigree that the McManus family has had a long association with. Pretty Neat is a half-sister to three winners and she is out of Fast Time, an unraced Be My Native full-sister to Aunt Aggie who carried JP’s colours to success in the Grade 3 For Auction Novice Hurdle. Her record was overshadowed however by that of her half-brother Time For A Run, that son of Deep Run being one of many Cheltenham Festival winners for McManus when he landed the Coral Cup for trainer Edward O’Grady and jockey Charlie Swan. Over fences he won the Grade 2 Leopardstown Chase and he was Grade 1-placed over hurdles and fences.

Time For A Run is out of the Menelek mare Hourly Rate and her siblings include Hi’ Upham, the dam of the brilliant Native Upmanship, a multiple Grade 1 winner including the Punchestown Chase and the Melling Chase at Aintree twice. Hi’ Upham is also the grandam of Enda Bolger’s Grade 1 winning chaser Gilgamboa.