Hat-trick hero Walsh seizes day
MARK WALSH booted home a 177/1 treble at Leopardstown yesterday to eclipse his namesake, Ruby. The Clane rider delivered on Sir Erec (11/10), Paloma Blue (4/1) and Simply Ned (16/1) to take his tally to five winners at the half-way point of the Christmas Festival. JP McManus’ 28/1 outsider Auvergnat breezed up in the €200,000 Paddy Power Chase but there was a sad post-script for McManus as his 12year-old Carlingford Lough collapsed and died finishing 12th.
HE JUST missed out on King George glory but trainer Colin Tizzard made it two wins in three years in the Coral Welsh National at Chepstow as Elegant Escape battled to a length and a quarter win from Ramses De Teillee.
Native River, Tizzard’s 2016 winner of Wales’s biggest jumps race, went on to win last season’s Cheltenham Gold Cup.
Elegant Escape, the 3-1 favourite owned by John Romans and ridden by Tom O’Brien, has a long way to go to emulate his stablemate but Tizzard said at the equivalent stage of their careers the two horses were ‘on a par’.
Like Paul Nicholls-trained King George winner Clan Des Obeaux, Elegant Escape, who had finished second to stablemate Sizing Tennessee in the Ladbrokes Trophy at Newbury, is only six-years-old.
Tizzard added: ‘We’ve been very fortunate the last few years having horses like Cue Card, Native River and Thistlecrack. This boy is not too far behind them now. I suppose he will have a Gold Cup entry.’
Backers of Elegant Escape barely had a worry as O’Brien set behind Vieux Lion Rouge and third-placed Yala Enki.
Ramses De Teillee moved up to challenge but a mistake four out checked his momentum.