The sheer vastness of racing as a sport means that no matter how big the main operators get, the chance of a rags-to-riches story emerging is always live.

They don’t get more rags than a £600 castaway mare from the Willie Mullins yard and they don’t get more riches than a live chance of Cheltenham Festival. That’s Skyace, the mare owned by the Birdinthehand syndicate and trained by Shark Hanlon, who takes on the Mares' Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham next week.

“I’ll never forget, when the hammer came down over in Ascot,” Shark says laughing. “The lads who own were watching the sale live out in Dubai and two minutes late Cathal (McHugh, head of the syndicate) rang me and he said: “Has she three legs or four?”

“I said you leave her with me and I’ll look after her for a couple of months and we’ll get her going. She just needed time, she was a weak filly. I couldn’t believe we bought her at the price we bought her at, we were prepared to give a good bit more.

“We went to Tipperary with her over three miles for her first run. I said to the boys: 'Listen she’s going well but she’ll probably need the run.' She won easy and it was her ability that brought her through the race.”

Four days

Skyace won her next start at Gowran nicely but that was followed by four defeats as the summer days dwindled and the big name horses came out to play.

She was a 66/1 shot when she went for a Grade 3 mares’ novice hurdle at Down Royal’s two-day meeting at the end of October and she could have been 660/1 in-running before she powered home between rivals for Jody McGarvey, collaring Queen’s Brook, the 6/5 favourite and last season’s Champion Bumper third.

They called it a fluke, a flash in the pan and a headscratcher in various pieces of analysis afterwards and the time experts said the two-mile contest fell apart pace-wise, allowing Skyace to come through. Maybe those appraisals played into her pre-empted chance next time out - she was a 28/1 shot for the Listed Voler La Vedette Mares Novice Hurdle at Punchestown.

That contest took place in the thick fog so it was difficult to get a read on it, but when the field came back into vision in the straight, Skyace was five lengths clear pulling away from a smart field of mares, to whom she was conceding weight all around.

McGarvey, in the saddle again and booked to ride next week, asserted after the race: “She won a maiden on the bridle, she won a novice hurdle on the bridle and she went to Down Royal and won a Grade 3. I don't know what more she has to do to prove to people that she's as good as she is.”

It seems like she’ll have to do a bit more because she is at a top price of 14/1 for the Mares’ Novice but Shark, speaking after she did her last piece of significant work earlier today (Tuesday), naturally believes he has a live chance of a first Festival success, having hit the bar when Hidden Cyclone finished second to Dynaste in the 2014 Ryanair Chase.

“She is super. The plan was always to go to Punchestown in December and if she ran well there, the Mares Novice would be next. I honestly think that she’s after improving from her break.

“There’s a few good mares in the race but I don’t think it’s an outstanding renewal. She’s definitely entitled to be there and listen if we could finish in the first three, wouldn’t it be a dream for the boys that own her?

“Put it this way, if Gordon Elliott or Willie Mullins or Henry de Bromhead trained her, she’d probably be 3/1. The only reason she is the price that she is, is because I’m training her, a small trainer. I think she’s entitled to be a lot shorter.”

Supported

Skyace has been supported in recent days and could yet go off signifcantly shorter than her current odds. Shark is right when he says it doesn’t look an outstanding renewal with bookmakers going 5/1 the field. The marginal market leader is Royal Kahala, trained by Peter Fahey (who features in Cheltenham 2021 pull-out free with The Irish Field this Saturday.)

Rosey’s Hollow, trained by Jonathan Sweeney in Cork is also prominent in the betting in a race that has long been criticised for its introduction to the Festival. That is because of a perceived cause of dilution of quality from the other Grade 1 novice hurdles but it’s surely too narrow-minded to hold that view when you have the likes of Hanlon, Fahey and Sweeney with three big chances, two of them owned by syndicates.

“It would be an unreal story," Shark says. "I think all of the Irish racing scene will be cheering her on. I know Willie will probably have about 10 or 12 winners but I just want one little one! To buy a mare for such small money and end up in Cheltenham, it’s everyone’s dream. It’s everyone’s dream bar the man that sold her!

Willie doesn’t begrudge me having her going well. Maybe if I bet him at Cheltenham and one of his was second he might be!

“She’s a lovely filly, straightforward filly and fair dues to Willie Mullins, anytime she wins he’d always give me a text or a call. Willie is a gentleman and he always was. He doesn’t begrudge me having her going well. Maybe if I bet him at Cheltenham and one of his was second he might be!”

Timing has been key to the aspects that have allowed this story to develop but unfortunately, it’s all going to happen on a year when no owners or crowds will be allowed on course. That has denied the Dubai-based Birdinthehand syndicate a dream day out but Shark seems confident they’ll do their best to have a good time.

“It’s great for them,” Shark says. “I know they can’t go and we can’t go have a pint together or anything but I guarantee if this one happened to win they’d make up for it in Dubai anyway. I think they have some kind of hotel booked out on the day of the race.”

Of all the places in the world you could be right now, rightly or wrongly Dubai seems to be the only one for a party. Maybe that’s a good omen for Skyace.

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