FRUSTRATINGLY for Warren Ewing, his two runners at Portrush on Saturday, Bold Soldier and Bold Enough, both finished second in their respective divisions of the Dennison Commercials four-year-old maiden. However, later that night he saw one of his former charges, Brain Power, land the Grade 1 American Grand National Hurdle at Far Hills in New Jersey.

True, the Nicky Henderson-trained, Nico de Boinville-ridden Kalanisi gelding didn’t win as anyone would have liked and true, the eight-year-old bay never officially ran for Warren.

However, the Co Antrim point-to-point handler cum fish merchant did buy Brain Power as a three-year-old from his breeder, Dave Harvey, at the 2014 Derby Sale and was very much involved when the gelding won a Newcastle bumper the following February on his one and only start for James Jenkins.

Racecourse debut

Connections were well aware how good the horse was on his racecourse debut, as he had previously won a couple of schooling bumpers at Maralin, and they supported him into 11/4 favouritism under 3lb claimer, Peterjon Carberry. He has since won once over fences and now six times over hurdles for career earnings of £480,513.

Earlier this month, another graduate of the Ewing nursery, Cabaret Queen, landed the J.T. McNamara Ladbrokes Munster National at Limerick for the trainer/jockey combination of Willie Mullins and Paul Townend.

The 2012 British-bred by King’s Theatre ran twice between the flags for Warren, taking a heavy fall in a four-year-old mares’ maiden at Borris House in early December 2016 but recovering quickly to land a similar race at Dromahane towards the end of that month.

A half-sister to the winners Internal Transfer (by Kayf Tara) and Floki (by Kalanisi), Cabaret Queen then joined the Dan Skelton yard, winning a hurdle and two chases. She moved to Mullins over the summer and was second in a two-and-a-half-mile chase at Listowel before winning at Limerick.

Maiden win

Interestingly, when Cabaret Queen won her maiden in Co Cork she finished half a length ahead of Shimmer’s Rock who has since won a bumper for Pat Fahy and a hurdle for Pat Collins. The 2012 Westerner mare is out of Thuringe (by Turgeon), dam also of the now retired King’s Theatre gelding The New One who won 20 of his 40 starts for trainer Nigel Twiston-Davies including the Neptune Novices’ Hurdle (2013) and the Aintree Hurdle (2014), both Grade 1 contests.

The pair were bred in Northern Ireland by Ronald Brown who will be hoping that Twiston-Davies will have a successor to The New One in The Newest One, Thuringe’s 2015 gelding by Oscar who was entered for the bumper at Cheltenham this afternoon. The bay is due to run in the same colours, those of Sarah Such and Gino Paletta.