Citizenship the highlight of a memorable weekend

It was great to record a double at Leopardstown on Saturday, add another winner on Sunday and also have Oscars Well running such a brilliant race in the Irish Champion Hurdle, despite hating the ground.

I had suggested last week that most of my runners over the weekend would have prospects and was hoping to pick up one or two winners. To bag three was a bonus and six of the eight runners were in the first three.

Citizenship winning the Boylesports.com Handicap Hurdle wasn’t a surprise – my third winner of the valuable pot after Dance Beat and Studmaster, his form and weight gave him a good chance — but to do it without having any luck at all was remarkable. In a competitive 30-runner contest like this, you generally need everything to go your way and, instead, everything that could go wrong did go wrong.

As they turned into the back straight, I turned to Emma and Kate and said: “Well this isn’t going to happen today”.

The plan was to settle in the first nine or ten but he landed in the back of another horse at the first and was nearly brought down. He was just making a bit of ground coming to the first hurdle down the back when Baracas fell and somehow he was the only horse that managed to be interfered with.

He was around 16th as they turned for home but absolutely flew up the straight. He went past the rest of them like they were standing still and he was galloping. I couldn’t believe it when I saw his little white face powering past them. It was a great ride by Robert, who had to get down to his minimum weight.

I might have to put in a call to Paul Nicholls over the weekend as he holds the key to whether or not Citizenship gets into the Betfair Hurdle at Newbury next Saturday. At the moment, Paul has Brampour topping the weights and if he came out, Citizenship would get in because he got a 10lbs penalty for winning at Leopardstown. If that is the case we’ll have to go and try to repeat Spirit Leader’s win in 2003.

The same applies to the County Hurdle in Cheltenham, which Spirit Leader also won nine years ago. With a €100,000 bonus on offer if he can add this to last week’s win, you just have to take your chance.

We were very pleased with Maller Tree’s third in the opening maiden hurdle, while Spanish Auriga jumped well and just didn’t pick up as quickly as the rest of them. Parramatta also ran well in her first bumper considering she’s a buzzy enough filly, but not as well as another debutant, Jezki.

A full-brother of Jenari’s, he got into all sorts of trouble and had to come very wide, but showed a very good attitude in toughing it out. He might be a prospect for the Cheltenham bumper – a race I won five years ago with Cork All Star – but I’m not sure yet.

Burn And Turn definitely won’t be going to Cheltenham. She didn’t get an entry because chasing was always likely to be her future but she was very impressive on Sunday in ground that she would have hated. She jumped brilliantly and battled on well up the straight. She heads for the Deloite Novice Hurdle next week.

Oscars Well won that race last year and I was delighted with him last Sunday. He also hated the ground and the pace wasn’t as strong as he might like but he still turned around the form with Thousand Stars and Unaccompanied.

He is improving with every run and I would expect him to come on again. He’s a horse that hits top form in spring. It’s next stop Cheltenham and the Champion Hurdle for him now.

We worked Bostons Angel at the Curragh during the week and we were very happy. He’s back to himself again after having had to miss out on the Lexus and is on track for the Hennessy next week where we will be hoping for a big run. But we can talk more about that next Saturday.

We are going to work Steps To Freedom on Tuesday and then run him in a mile-and-a-half conditions race in Dundalk. That should tune him up nicely and it will be on to Cheltenham for the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle from there.

We don’t look like having any runners over the weekend as Born To Benefit only got as far as first reserve in today’s handicap hurdle at Fairyhouse.

It’s a slight calm before the storm though, with Leopardstown upon us again next week. From there, we’ll only be a month away from a return to the magic of Prestbury Park.