The sharp upturn in Michael O’Leary’s fortunes at Ireland’s biggest Christmas meeting continued here on Thursday, when Ryanair’s chief executive avoided the awkwardness of presenting the prize in the feature event – the Ryanair Hurdle, no less – to Willie Mullins, the trainer he ditched in a dispute over training fees three months ago. Better yet, O’Leary did so by winning the race himself, with one of the horses he removed from the most successful stable in Ireland.
Petit Mouchoir made most of the running to beat Nichols Canyon, the Mullins-trained 4-9 favourite, by a comfortable seven lengths. He ran at all three major spring Festivals for his former handler last spring, and finished second in Grade One contests at both Aintree and Punchestown, but Thursday’s success was his first at the highest level. The manner of it suggested that it will not be his last.
In hindsight, this should probably have been Petit Mouchoir’s second Grade One win, as he was still travelling strongly when he fell in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle at Newcastle in November. He showed no ill-effects from that mishap here, setting a good gallop under Bryan Cooper as Ruby Walsh was content to sit in behind on Nichols Canyon. The winner then found an impressive and immediate turn of foot to accelerate away from Nichols Canyon after the second-last, and he was full value for his healthy winning margin at the line.
Bookmakers were all but unanimous in cutting Henry de Bromhead’s runner to 10‑1 for the Champion Hurdle in March, and that looks a very fair each-way price in a market headed by Mullins’s Faugheen and Annie Power, the last two winners of the race, neither of whom has seen a track this season.
“It’s been a little bit trying,” de Bromhead said of his week to this point. “I never expect anything like that, I was just hoping that he would run well and he looked to be going very well at Newcastle when he fell. But you never know, and that was just awesome.
“I think we’d have every right to consider the Champion Hurdle on that performance. He was a good horse last year with some great runs at the back-end, and bar Newcastle with the fall, he’s done nothing wrong with us. He’s a lovely horse to do anything with, I’m just blown away.”
Cooper had also had an unproductive week before Petit Mouchoir’s success, with a run of 16 losers which included fancied runners in several of the meeting’s Grade One races. “I don’t ride a lot of proper two-milers,” Cooper said. “It’s usually the three-mile chasers I’ve been riding over the last couple of years, but he’s got a lot of gears and we wanted a strong-run two miles.
“I went out and set a good gallop and he jumped very well. You wouldn’t know that he’d got a bad fall the last day, it didn’t seem to knock his confidence. I was waiting for Ruby to come and do me going to the last as he’s been doing that for the last four days, but thankfully I got one on the board.”
Mullins finished the meeting with 14 winners from the 28 races, a remarkable achievement even by his standards, but he missed out in both Grade One events on the final day as Our Duke took the three-mile novice chase for Jessica Harrington. This was an increasingly rare success for a small owner-breeder against the cash-rich operations of owners like O’Leary and Rich Ricci, as Our Duke was bred at home by a small family syndicate.
Our Duke was also moving up from a beginners’ chase to a Grade One and his inexperience was obvious in several slow jumps, but he showed great determination from an unpromising position turning in to run down Coney Island, the favourite, in the final strides.
Our Duke would probably benefit from the experience of another run between now and the RSA Chase at Cheltenham, for which is now no better than 12-1. Harrington, though, feels that he will not take a lot of racing and so may send him straight to the Festival.
“Everything he did last year was probably only a bonus for what hopefully he’ll go on and do this year,” she said. “He was caught out today on his second run over fences [because] he had to go and jump quickly, and he did make mistakes. But he’ll have learned an awful lot from today.”
