Oscars Well targeting Punchestown compensation
Jessica Harrington’s dual Grade One winner held a narrow advantage jumping the final flight in the Neptune Investment Management Novices’ Hurdle, but sprawled badly on landing, losing all chance of victory.
The six-year-old ended up finishing fourth and Harrington is hoping her charge has more luck on his side on home soil, where he is likely to run over two miles.
“He’s come out of the race absolutely fine and all going well, he’ll go to Punchestown,” said Harrington.
“It was obviously disappointing what happened, but that’s racing. He’s jumped the hurdle fine and just knuckled on landing.
“Robbie (Power) said he would have won – he said he hadn’t even gone for him.
“But at the end of the day you’ve got to jump and gallop up the hill. He’s run a fantastic race to finish fourth considering.
“I think it’s quite likely he’ll drop back to two miles next time. He travelled so well in Cheltenham, almost too well really.
“It might be wrong but I just want to see how he’d get on back over two miles. We’ll just have to see.”
Harrington did end up having a Festival winner a little over half an hour later as Bostons Angel struck gold in the RSA Chase.
However, he has been signed off for the rest of the campaign.
“He won’t be going to Punchestown. He’ll be going home for his summer holidays,” said Harrington.
“It was a good performance from him and he’s now won three Grade One races, so why ask him to do any more?
“We can go into the summer dreaming with him now.”
Captain Cee Bee will bid for back-to-back Punchestown Festival victories following his fine effort in last week’s Queen Mother Champion Chase.
Eddie Harty’s star turn was far from disgraced in finishing third behind compatriot Sizing Europe over two miles at Cheltenham and the trainer is now looking forward to his next outing.
“He’s come out of the race great and we were delighted with his performance,” said Harty.
“I suppose if you were being super analytical you could say he would have run even better if the ground was quicker and they’d gone a faster pace, but we can’t complain as he’s run very well to finish third.
“All being well he’ll go to Punchestown next. He was good there last year and hopefully he can show his best again. Next season we could try him over two and a half miles, but we’ll just see how we get on.”
