BLUE’S UPPERCUT KOS BARBER FIELD

Lord fights to seal Grade 1 win

BATTLING

FINISH

Paul Townend on

Blue Lord (green silks) gets the better of Coeur Sublime

yesterday

BY

IN the absence of stablemate Gentleman De Mee, Blue Lord started favourite for the Barberstown Castle Novice Chase and delivered in a battling finish with Coeur Sublime to give Willie Mullins his seventh Grade 1 winner of the Festival.

Ridden by Paul Townend, the 2/1 favourite triumphed by only a head after a protracted duel, the pair having been left clear when long-time leader Saint Sam (a stable-companion of the winner) blundered badly and almost unseated Sean O’keeffe at the second last fence.

It was a seventh win-in-a-row in the race for Mullins, and an eighth in nine years. And Mullins, on the nine-winner mark for the week, said: “Once he gets to the front, he thinks he has his job done. He probably wants two and a half miles, so we might start him, like a lot of ours, in the John Durkan here, or he could go down the champion chase route.

“Saint Sam ran a cracker until the mistake. I wasn’t sure there was enough pace in the race for Blue Lord, so I couldn’t believe how much he pulled out.”

Henry de Bromhead completed a Thursday double (bringing his tally for the week to three), saddling Magic Daze (Robbie Power) to win the Pigsback.com Handicap Chase and 25/1 shot Tag Man (Davy Roche) in the bumper, for which the Mullins-trained James’s Gate, third in the Cheltenham Bumper and sent off a red-hot 4/9 favourite, finished a disappointing fourth.

“I’m delighted with that, particularly for his owner Roger Brookhouse,” said de Bromhead, “He hasn’t been racing for a while and it’s brilliant that he’s here.”

Lilith, ridden for Anthony Honeyball by Rex Dingle, became the first British-trained winner of the week when taking the Close Brothers Mares Handicap Chase at the expense of Western Zara.

LALTHOUGH the Festival has lacked much of its traditional buzz on each of its three days, the Punchestown management reported a Thursday crowd of 21,357, compared to 20,756 in 2019.