PADDY POWER FUTURE

CHAMPIONS NOVICE

HURDLE (GRADE 1)

EVENTFUL, dramatic, bizarre – none of these adjectives even begin to describe an extraordinary renewal of one of the country’s top novice hurdles where victory finally went to Wiskey Sour.

The winner, a dual premier handicap winner at Galway in the summer, is now two from two over hurdles and his triumph made it three consecutive victories in this race for Willie Mullins. However, all this pales into insignificance when one considers what preceded the Luke McMahon-owned gelding’s victory.

INDIFFERENT

Mengli Khan was a strongly supported evens favourite to notch up his second Grade 1 victory of the season but he turned in a decidedly indifferent round of jumping before then running out at the second last hurdle when leading.

This paved the way for chief rival Real Steel, who looked to be struggling badly through the first half of the race, to take control. He then was joined by his strong-travelling stablemate Sharjah on the run to the final flight and the last-named looked to be going especially well at this point.

Further calamity awaited though as Sharjah and Real Steel fell independently and the David Mullins-ridden Whiskey Sour, who was in the process of running a nice race on his first outing for almost five months, deftly picked his way through the melee to carry the day. He came home 19 lengths ahead of Le Richebourg, while Hardline was a further length back in third.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” was the neat and entirely accurate summation of Willie Mullins. “When Mengli Khan ran out it looked as though we were going to finish first, second and third but it was extraordinary what happened at the last. After losing the previous race in the stewards’ room it really would have capped the day if the two fallers had brought down Whiskey Sour.”

PECKING ORDER

Given the rather dramatic nature of the race it will be sometime yet before a definite pecking order is established amongst the Irish novices. Sharjah looks a potentially top-drawer sort and Real Steel did very well to put himself into contention after toiling at an early stage.

Mengli Khan’s jumping will need to be a lot slicker – and it has been on his three previous runs this term – when he makes his next venture into this grade.

Winning jockey David Mullins said: “The plan was to drop him in but he fell asleep on me. I’d say the ear plugs have done the trick for him and he’ll be a lot sharper the next day. He’s only a small horse but he makes up for it in heart.”