AUVERGN’ OUT!
JP McManus reigns supreme yet again thanks to Auvergnat
NO one quite has the SP on the €200,000 Paddy Power Chase like JP McManus, whose green and orange silks were carried to victory for a magnificent seventh time by Auvergnat yesterday.
At 28/1, the level support for Auvergnat was not as hefty as it was for another of JP’s eight runners, Any Second Now, which was backed off the boards before the off, from 8/1 to 5/1 favourite.
The late flurry hinted at a wee interest from McManus but it was Auvergnat who held the aces as he delivered for trainer Enda Bolger and three-pound claimer Donie McInerney in a clean sweep for Limerick.
McInerney, 24, was first in for work in Bolger’s yard on Christmas Day morning and was first past the post yesterday as he celebrated the biggest winner of his career.
Victory compensated for a final fence calamity on St Stephen’s Day where his mount, The Ballyboys, ran out at the last when looking all over a winner at Limerick.
Here, McInerney had no such alarms as Auvergnat was foot perfect and stayed on resolutely to win by six and a half lengths from Vieux Morvan, who led for much of the second circuit and threatened another big-race scalp for Joseph O’Brien.
But this is a race which McManus had made his dominion and he traditionally aims plenty of arrows at the target as witnessed by the presence of Fitzhenry in third, Any Second Now (fifth) and Blazer (sixth).
Clearly, the McManus trainers are aware that JP likes to leave his imprint in this race anddummy Bolger can be added to those who have delivered in the valuable three-mile handicap for horses rated a little below elite class. ‘This is where we want to be,’ said Bolger, who is more familiar with banks races, such as the iconic La Touche Cup, Ireland’s longest race, won by Auvergnat under 12 stone 2lbs in a head-bobber from Josie’s Orders last April. Carrying 10st 2lbs yesterday (McInerney’s three-pound claim came in handy) must have seemed like a featherweight for the eight year-old who was fitted with blinkers for the first time and executed his business like a veteran. ‘He’s been around and always shown us there was one of these races in him,’ said Bolger, who went close with Gilgamboa behind Minella Foru — both McManus horses — in the 2015 ‘Paddy Power’. Victory for Bolger compensated for the eclipse of Ballyoisin in the Paddy’s Rewards Club Chase where Simply Ned was simply sublime as he reeled in Footpad. Unlike last year, when the British-trained challenger was second past the post to Min, but won the spoils in the stewards’ room, there was no debate. The best horse won the race and in doing so, Simply Ned, rising 12, punctured a hole in the Champion Chase balloon of Footpad who had drifted to 10/1. ‘This has been our Cheltenham, we can go for a drink now,’ said Cumbrian trainer Nicky Richards. ‘He loves it here and we’ll be back in February. The only one to put him in his place in this race was Douvan, the year Sizing John was second.’
Willie Mullins felt Footpad was going to win at the last but, on reflection, acknowledged there may have been an issue with sharpness. ‘Ruby felt he might have blown up,’ he said.
That was Simply Ned’s fifth consecutive appearance in the race and his record is ultra-consistent. It reads: third (2014), 9/1; second (2015), 14/1; third (2016), 12/1; first (2017), 16/1; first (2018), 16/1.
He was held up by man of the moment Mark Walsh as Great Field set a decent, if not breakneck, gallop. Turning in, Walsh was scrubbing along on the inner in sixth place but by the last, he’d switched out and had stoked up a head of steam.
Even so, when Footpad flew the last it looked like the jolly had flown but inside the final 150 yards Footpad faltered and Simply Ned, relishing the Foxrock turf, reeled him in to win by half a length.
Thirty-five minutes later, there was reparation for the MullinsWalsh combo as Aramon (6/1) scooted clear in the Paddy Power Future Champions Novice Hurdle.
‘I was pleasantly surprised that he did it in that manner. We’ll continue down the Grade One route now,’ said Mullins after Aramon entered the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle picture with a 10-length success from Sancta Simona.
The last fence at Leopardstown is often problematic and the twomiler for novices was no different as Real Steel crashed out under Paul Townend when upsides Paloma Blue. As Paloma Blue (4/1) pounded clear to give Mark Walsh his fourth winner of the meeting, Bryan Cooper was entitled to curse his luck.
Only 24 hours earlier, Cooper was stood down with concussion after a fall at the last flight, thus missing a winner on Paloma Blue, who continued the fine festive form of trainer Henry De Bromhead.
‘His jumping is still a bit dodgy,’ acknowledged De Bromhead. ‘He was looking around a bit, even coming to the last.’
Earlier, Walsh ignited a 177/1 treble on Sir Erec (11/10 fav) in the opening Paddy Power Maiden Hurdle, prevailing by a neck from Ruby Walsh on Tiger Tap Tap in an exciting finish.