Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
GEM JADE
Gordon’s classy charge has rock-solid claims
ALL eyes will be on five-time Grade 1 winner Apple’s Jade when she returns to action in the Grade 2 Lismullen Hurdle, highlight of tomorrow’s card in Navan.
The Gordon Elliott, right, trained mare has proven a real star since arriving from France, where she won at Vichy as a three-year-old hurdler.
Successful three times for Willie Mullins in her first season in Ireland, Apple’s Jade finished second to Ivanovich Gorbatov in the Triumph at Cheltenham before producing a hugely impressive performance in the Grade 1 at Aintree, where she beat the Triumph winner by 41 lengths.
She rounded-off her juvenile campaign by annexing Punchestown’s Grade 1 event and, after a seasonal debut defeat last November, quickly resumed her rock-sold, top-level career.
Apple’s Jade failed by a nose to beat Irving in the Fighting
Fifth in Newcastle but then got the better of a tight finish when foiling the previously unbeaten Vroum Vroum Mag in the Hatton’s Grace in Fairyhouse.
We didn’t see the mare again until February, when she was outpointed by the classy Timini in a mares event at Punchestown.
But that run left her spot-on for the Grade 1 OLBG Mares Hurdle at Punchestown, her main target all season. And she delivered a top-notch performance there, beating Vroum Vroum Mag again.
Apple’s Jade registered her fifth Grade 1 success when slamming her rivals, headed by Airlie Beach, in the Irish Stallion Farms Mares Champion Hurdle at Punchestown.
Returning tomorrow, Apple’s Jade, ridden to her five Grade 1 victories by Bryan Cooper, will have Jack Kennedy onboard for only the second time – he rode her in the Fighting Fifth a year ago.
And, although conceding 7lb to main rival twice a winner at Grade 1 level as a novice and last seen when fourth to former champion Jezki in the Istabraq at Tipperary last month, Apple’s Jade should do the business.