WHEN Santini won the Grade 1 Doom Bar Sefton Novices’ Hurdle at Aintree in 2018 he was the first homebred winner at that level for Richard and Lizzie Kelvin-Hughes, owners of Trull House Stud. Now the eight-year-old son of Milan (Sadler’s Wells) is aiming for a Grade 1 over fences, the Cheltenham Gold Cup being his focus now.

A point-to-point graduate from the British version, he was once listed as having been sold for £150,000 to Dan Skelton Racing at the Tattersalls Ireland Cheltenham Festival Sale. Instead he joined Nicky Henderson who had saddled the gelding’s dam Tinagoodnight, a daughter of Sleeping Car (Dunphy), to win over hurdles as a three-year-old. This followed her import from France where she was successful on the flat.

Tinagoodnight has had three winners to date, the first being Dusky Legend (Midnight Legend), a mare who won three times but was more often in the runners-up position, coming closest to a Grade 2 success in a novice hurdle at Cheltenham sponsored by the Kelvin-Hughes’ Trull House Stud. Santini was next and he has been followed by Rockpoint (Shirocco) whose sole success came in the Grade 2 Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham.

This is a very smart French family, but Santini is the only Grade 1 winner in the first four generations. The only other runner to come close was Gem Daly (Nikos), a son of Santini’s grandam and listed-winning hurdler Tinopasa (No Pass No Sale). That bumper and hurdle winner was trained by Noel Meade and he ran second to Trafford Lad in the Grade 1 Barry/Sandra Kelly Memorial Navan Novice Hurdle.