Betdaq Punchestown

Champion Hurdle

(GRADE 1)

VROUM Vroum Mag unveiled yet another impressive array of attributes as her increasingly varied career took another notable step forward in the Betdaq Punchestown Champion Hurdle yesterday evening.

As expected, the centrepiece of the penultimate day of the meeting went to a Willie Mullins-trained, Ruby Walsh-ridden and Susannah Ricci-owned mare but with Annie Power absent it fell to Vroum Vroum Mag to become the star turn. Fresh from her mares’ hurdle triumph at Cheltenham, the seven-year-old faced a different test here as she had to drop back to two miles and take on geldings for the first time since coming to Ireland.

As she has done since she came to these shores Vroum Vroum Mag showed that all things come alike to her as she dealt with a six runner field that featured the Champion Hurdle second, My Tent Or Yours and Fighting Fifth hero Identity Thief.

This latest success made it 10 wins from as many starts for Mullins, an identical record to that of Douvan, and it was just four days before that horse made his Irish debut that this mare journeyed to Wexford for a mares’ beginner’s chase.

By the time she lined up here Vroum Vroum Mag’s standing as yet another Mullins mare of rare quality was already assured but the path that she has taken over the last 17 months has been a remarkable one. After being kept exclusively to fences last season she won at distances up to two and three quarters miles and looked a potentially top notch stayer.

However, those top notch three milers have a striking blend of speed and stamina, which this daughter of Voix Du Nord evidently possesses. In her first try at graded level over two miles she looked especially assured and comfortable at all stages and the multitude of routes that she could follow is dizzying. Quite understandably Willie Mullins wasn’t committing to any particularly with her next term.

SMOOTH

The race itself went quite smoothly for the 4/6 favourite as she initially looked on from second before then taking over the lead from Identity Thief after the third flight. Throughout the race Vroum Vroum Mag looked to do everything at her leisure and she then started to pour on the pressure coming away from the second last. At this stage My Tent Or Yours cracked but Identity Thief dug in well to remain a threat.

It did appear as though the mare had things under control as the last flight loomed and, although Identity Thief did close in again on the run in he still went down by a length and a quarter. My Tent Or Yours was third with Fethard Player fourth.

“We didn’t realise that she had as much as speed as she does until we worked her the week before Cheltenham and at that stage we were wondering had we put the wrong mare in the Champion Hurdle. We were gobsmacked by how she worked,” recalled Mullins.

“At one stage last year people were talking in terms of the four miler at Cheltenham for her but she’s shown there today that she’s good enough to go down the Champion Hurdle route if we wanted to. I don’t want to make any commitments about next season. We’ll just see how all the horses come back from grass.

“We’ve just been keeping her to mares races and let her climb the ladder and get her confidence and we hadn’t intended running here – yesterday’s race over three miles was the target,” added Mullins.