Making his first appearance in 791 days, Ferny Hollow made light work of five rivals in the Grade 3 Newlands Chase at Naas.

The Willie Mullins-trained chaser sat in behind the strong early pace before making ultra smooth headway up to last year’s winner of this contest Rebel Gold in the straight. Once he took it up, he was held together by Paul Townend, not extending what was a comfortable advantage, but always doing it easily. Rebel Gold held on for second from Espanito Bello in third.

The Cheveley Park Stud-owned nine-year-old, winner of the Champion Bumper in 2020, has been plagued by setbacks; this was just his eighth ever start and third over fences. His trainer was naturally pleased with his comeback effort but the next few days will be all important as to how he takes this run.

“I’m very happy with him, that he was able to do that after such a long lay off,” said Mullins. “We thought looking at the make up of the race that there was going to be plenty of pace, because a lot of the horses wanted a longer trip, so we felt there wasn’t much point taking them on.

“Paul settled him in behind and said that he settled lovely. He had done that for him once or twice before in his career and even though he’s free going, once you settle him in, he listens and responds. We were happy to use those tactics and hoped that if he got around, he would be the fastest horse in the straight, which he was.

Paddy Power cut Ferny Hollow's price for the Champion Chase to 6/1 but with that contest just 17 days away, it may well come too soon.

“He was ready to run for a while," added Mullins. "We gave him a few pops yesterday morning, he popped over a few fences and a few hurdles and I was happy with him. The conditions of this race suited him a bit better than last week, so we decided to wait with him and it worked out nicely.

“He’s in at Cheltenham so we might look at that. It might come a little soon and so we might keep him at home. It would be a big ask to go to Cheltenham on his second run. It will be all about how he comes out of this race. We’ll probably look for easier options for him I think.”

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