Cloy joy for Hourigan
Hi Cloy took his third Grade One prize of the season when leading home an Irish-trained one-two-three in the John Smith’s Melling Chase at Aintree.
The hard-working gelding put a disappointing run at the Cheltenham Festival and an even worse effort at Navan just three days later well behind him with a sparkling performance.
Rising star Andrew McNamara hit the front turning for home aboard the 14-1 winner but the pair were made to dig deep as Fota Island stayed on grimly under Tony McCoy.
However, the Michael Hourigan-trained winner had enough in the tank to prevail by three-quarters of a length, while Mariah Rollins completed a clean sweep for the raiding party a further 13 lengths back in third, with Don’t Be Shy best of the home team in fourth.
Hi Cloy will now be stepped up in trip to three miles where he will face a match with stablemate Beef or Salmon – none the worse for his mishap in the Betfair Bowl 24 hours earlier – in the Heineken Gold Cup at Punchestown later this month.
Central House, who was visored for the first time, set a testing early pace under Paul Carberry with Impek settled in second on the rail.
However, that pair quickly dropped away with 100-30 favourite Impek ultimately being pulled up along with Fondmort, who was beaten by the halfway stage as the scars of his Cheltenham exertions told.
Indeed such was the nature of the race that only five of the 11 runners managed to complete the course and so Hi Cloy deserves particular credit for his performance given that he was right with the leaders all the way.
Hourigan said: “The plan was the National but at 11st 9lb I thought he had too much weight. I changed my mind at the last minute but we might run him in it next year.
“He is basically a very good horse on his day and this is his fourth Grade One victory. He was always off the bridle at Cheltenham when he was probably ridden too conservatively and then at Navan the ground was just deplorable.
“Today the plan was to pop him out and he loved it. They went a good lick but he jumped brilliantly.
“I want to run him again at three miles now and he’ll probably run in the Heineken. I think if he was ridden properly he would get the trip all right and he’s a horse with a lot of gears.”
Hourigan confirmed plans for Beef or Salmon, who will now run in a hurdle event at Fairyhouse before going to Punchestown.
“It’s a ’winners-of-one’ over hurdles and so he is eligible and it will help to give his confidence back – it’s either on the Easter Sunday or Monday,” he said.
“I don’t really know what happened yesterday but I’m pleased to be smiling again because I didn’t much feel like smiling then.”
McNamara, 22, admitted he feared he had gone too soon aboard the winner.
“At Cheltenham we took our time with him and he was playing catch up the whole way and didn’t have the speed to do it,” he said.
“We said today we would jump out with them. I was a bit handier than expected but there was no point giving away the ground so we held on to it. I thought we would be struggling but he was going so easy that I had to go on when Central House started to drop away.”
Fota Island’s trainer Mouse Morris took defeat on the chin, having already seen his charge beaten by a horse ridden by McNamara once before when second to Newmill in the Queen Mother Champion Chase last month.
“He ran a good race – he was just beaten by a better horse on the day,” said the trainer.
“He stayed on well and they were well clear of the third – there are no excuses.
“He’s certainly a better horse on better ground and if he’s OK, we will look at Punchestown or Sandown.”
