Saturday, February 19, 2011
IF there was one horse to take out of Leopardstown last Saturday, with the future very much in mind, it was surely the Jessica Harrington-trained Oscars Well.
He is now entitled to head to Cheltenham for the Neptune Investment Management Novices’ Hurdle with all guns blazing.
That Neptune race looks a particularly hot contest, but the evidence of Oscars Well’s Deloitte Novice Hurdle success at Leopardstown would indicate he certainly won’t be far away.
One cannot resist making a comparison between Oscars Well and the best National Hunt horse Harrington has trained, the great Moscow Flyer.
I know Moscow Flyer was all about quick jumping and speed and that Oscars Well shapes like a thorough stayer. But you have to say there are striking similarities about the way they started life and subsequently progressed.
Oscars Well failed to win a bumper in three attempts in February, March and April of last year. After those efforts, there seemed little possibility he would prove good enough to win a Grade 1 over hurdles such as the Deloitte.
But given time to mature and putting a set of obstacles in front of him have seen improvement that has been nothing less than dramatic.
He began by splitting Gran Torino and Down In Neworleans in a maiden hurdle at Thurles in early November.
Gran Torino and Down In Neworleans are useful enough in their own right, but, with all due respect to them, they wouldn’t be let into the same field as Oscars Well now.
Oscars Well then ran away with his maiden at Punchestown and followed with an equally impressive display in a Grade 1 at Navan.
Now we can find fault all we want with the bare form of that Navan race, but he could only dismiss what was put in front of him. Compared to what he beat at Navan, of course, the six-year-old was taking on altogether stronger opposition at Leopardstown.
But the manner in which he travelled through the race and then quickened away to beat Zaidpour by five and a half lengths was just impressive.
So what about Moscow Flyer? Well, in the spring of 1999 he ran in four bumpers and failed to win.
There was absolutely no way, at that stage, anyone could for a second imagine the superstar he was later to become.
Like Oscars Well, he came back the following October a completely different horse. Harrington sent him straight over hurdles and he obliged at the first time of asking, at Punchestown.
Moscow Flyer then went on to win seven of his 12 races over flights, but his true calling was jumping fences.
He landed 19 of his 28 chases, including three victories at the Cheltenham Festival. Moscow Flyer took the Arkle in 2002 and the two-mile Champion Chase the following year and again in 2005.
He contested the Champion Chase also in 2004, but unseated Barry Geraghty, leaving the way clear for Azertyuiop.
The big difference between Moscow Flyer and Oscars Well is that Moscow Flyer never ran over hurdles at Cheltenham.
A horse like Moscow Flyer probably only arrives once in a trainer’s career, but Harrington, on the basis of what we saw Oscars Well do at Leopardstown, is clearly to entitled to at least dream that lightning might strike a second time.
ELSEWHERE at Leopardstown, Paul Carberry didn’t exactly endear himself to punters with a poor performance on the heavily-backed Cool Quest in a handicap hurdle.
Looking at the field lining up, it seemed as if Carberry was determined to have the mare racing near the front.
But when a false start was called, she could be seen clearly charging headlong towards the tape and Carberry, perhaps, concluded that dropping Cool Quest out had now become a better option.
He proceeded, however, to find every bit of trouble that was going and the contest was decided before Cool Quest hit anything approaching top gear.
She eventually passed numerous rivals in the straight to finish third behind Golden Sunbird and, to add insult to injury, Cool Quest was subsequently raised 3lbs by the handicapper.
Mind you the Cool Quest drive paled into insignificance compared to the Carberry display aboard long odds-on Martin Scruffy at Punchestown on Wednesday. Now that really was a horror show and how he escaped with merely a severe caution from the stewards was a total mystery.
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