Willie Mullins has endured a difficult start to this winter’s campaign over jumps, including the loss of his outstanding chaser Vautour, but his luck took a turn for the better in the Grade Two Clonmel Oil Chase on Thursday when the fall of Outlander at the final fence allowed Mullins’s Alelchi Inois to record a fortunate success.
Outlander, the winner of the Grade One Flogas Novice Chase at Leopardstown in February, was one of about 60 horses to leave the Mullins yard in September following a dispute over fees between the trainer and their owner, Michael O’Leary.
He is now in the yard of Gordon Elliott, the current leader in the early stages of Ireland’s jumps trainers’ championship, and seemed sure to add another decent prize to Elliott’s total as he approached the last fence with three lengths to spare over Alelchi Inois.
Bryan Cooper, who returned to action on Wednesday after more than a month on the sidelines, drove Outlander into the fence but he failed to pick up and took a crashing fall. Both horse and rider were quickly on their feet, and Alelchi Inois, who had been staying on strongly from two out, was left in front. He went on to beat Clarcam, a stable companion of Outlander, by five lengths with Monksland a further five lengths away in third.
Alelchi Inois and Ruby Walsh were finishing to considerable effect and would probably have run Outlander to no more than a length had he stood up, but Clonmel’s run-in is barely 15 strides long and the fall almost certainly cost Outlander the victory.
“We had fortune on our side and he was probably jumping a bit slow for that type of contest,” Mullins said, “but he jumped safe and it paid off in the end. The rain probably hadn’t soaked into it yet being the first race on the track and everything played into his hands.”
Alelchi Inois has a definite preference for good ground and was sent to Merano in Italy to finish third in one of the country’s most prestigious chase events in September. His appearances may now be limited before better going returns in the spring, when a run in the Grand National at Aintree is a possibility.
“We might go up in trip with him,” Mullins said. “We were thinking about going the cross-country route, but possibly the Aintree National is an option next year. After his run in Italy we were happy he’d stay, and he wants further than that [2½ miles]. The reason we were going cross-country was to get better ground on those tracks. Once the ground turns we won’t have much for him.”
Soft ground now seems certain to prevail at Haydock Park on Saturday for the Betfair Chase, and the going could yet determine the rider of Coneygree, the 2015 Gold Cup winner, in the first Grade One event of the British campaign.
Aidan Coleman was declared to ride Coneygree when a seven-runner field for Saturday’s race was finalised on Thursday morning, while Richard Johnson, the first choice to replace the injured Nico de Boinville in Coneygree’s saddle, is declared aboard Philip Hobbs’s Menorah.
However, if the ground deteriorates so significantly that Menorah is a non-runner, Johnson will switch to Coneygree. “We’re of the understanding Richard is riding Menorah,” Sara Bradstock, whose husband Mark trains Coneygree, said on Thursday, “but if for any reason Menorah doesn’t run, then Richard will step in. Aidan is fully aware of the situation and is fine with it.”
The field for Saturday’s contest also includes Cue Card, the winner in 2013 and 2015, and Silviniaco Conti, who took the race in both 2012 and 2014. Irish Cavalier, who beat Cue Card in the Charlie Hall Chase at Wetherby last time out, is also in the line-up, along with Sandy Thomson’s Seeyouatmidnight and Vezeley, from the French yard of trainer Emmanuel Clayeux.
“The ground is soft at the moment,” Kirkland Tellwright, Haydock’s clerk of the course, said on Thursday, “but there is quite a bit of rain about.
“I am still hoping that we will still be at least majority soft on Saturday, but we will just have to see what happens.”
The possibility of deep ground is the only concern for Rebecca Curtis, the trainer of Irish Cavalier, ahead of Saturday’s race.
“He’s in the form of his life, he really couldn’t be better,” Curtis said on Thursday, “but my only worry is that there is so much rain due.
“Now he’s a bit older he does handle the softer ground better, but there’s no doubt he’s at his best on nice ground, as all his best form is normally in the spring.
“He’s still only seven and I hope he’s still improving. Each year so far he’s improved a stone, so I hope that continues.”
The New One, who was expected to make his first start over fences at either Ascot or Haydock Park on Friday, has been ruled out of an immediate chasing debut by Nigel Twiston-Davies, his trainer.
The New One’s victories over hurdles include the Grade One Neptune Investment Management Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival in 2012 and he will be one of the highest-rated British-trained hurdlers to move on to chasing in recent seasons. However, Twiston-Davies said on Thursday that his eight-year-old “needs another week” to recover from an injection into a joint.
Ascot should still see the debut of a potentially top-class chaser on Friday, however, as Nicky Henderson’s Different Gravey is among four declared runners for Prince’s Countryside Fund Beginners’ Chase over two-and-a-quarter miles.
Different Gravey was one of the most impressive handicap winners of the 2015-16 season when he ran away with a competitive event at Ascot in February from a mark of 149. He was then stepped up to Grade One company at Aintree in April but did not seem to get the three-mile trip behind the outstanding Thistlecrack in the Liverpool Stayers’ Hurdle.
