NICK Bland of the Money For Jam Syndicate woke yesterday morning and went straight over to the trophy for the Guinness Novice Hurdle which was won the syndicate’s beloved The Big Doyen on Thursday. He just had to check it was all still real.

Surprising enough that, because later Nick disclosed that when he and the lads got back to the apartment after making their mark on the city, they watched the race back “around 100 times.”

But you can forgive him for thinking it’s not real, so special and so difficult it is to have a winner at Galway. This is a special horse as well. A horse that the syndicate turned down what was described as a huge offer after he won his bumper as a four-year-old at Punchestown. Thursday made that all worthwhile.

“We all said no to the offer,” Bland asserts. “For the money we paid for them, and the money we were offered, it was huge, but we all said no, we were in it for the craic, and we all said we have a horse that can bring us to all the festivals; Cheltenham, Punchestown and Galway, and we’ve ticked Galway off the list now.

“All those seconds and the bad run at Fairyhouse, we can forget about them now. And now we can kind of start again with these tactics. He doesn’t like being in behind horses, he likes being out in front. When you put him in behind horses, he throws the head around and wants to get to the front. He settles better and now he’s won over two and a half miles.”

The future is brighter again for the Peter Fahey-trained gelding, but a Galway success needs to be savoured.

“It’s unreal,” says Nick. “We all watched in the parade ring together. It was unbelievable to watch him jump around so well. It was nervous enough towards the end. We lost a race at Punchestown with him so of course we were thinking about that but I don’t think the second horse was ever going to get past him.

“Watching it, I didn’t think it was real. You’re waiting for a horse to come past him. I didn’t celebrate until he hit the line and sure then it went wild!”

Nick is from Athy, which contains the largest contingent of the syndicate but Offaly and Cork are also well represented. Most of the lads are in Galway still for the weekend and will celebrate away, rich in the memory of a precious success but of course looking towards the future as well.

“Fences will suit him,” Nick says. “He’s such a big horse as well. If he jumps like that over a fence and that quick out in front, the world is at his feet.

“We were talking last night and Peter was saying he wasn’t sure what to do, whether to keep him over hurdles or start a novice chasing campaign next. We’ll be excited to see him over fences.

“We could be back in two years’ time for the Galway Plate.”