Willie Mullins, who will saddle Black Hercules in the Kinloch Brae Chase at Thurles on Thursday afternoon, said on Wednesday he remains puzzled by the eight-year-old’s failure to reproduce the form that made him one of the most impressive Grade One winners at the Cheltenham Festival last season.
Black Hercules was quoted by bookmakers for both the Gold Cup and Ryanair Chase at this year’s Festival after his success 10 months ago, when he beat Bristol De Mai and L’Ami Serge to win the JLT Novice Chase.
He has finished well beaten in Grade One company on both his starts since, however, when last of five in the Grade One John Durkan Chase in November and then behind his stable companion Douvan at Leopardstown’s Christmas meeting.
“He’s been disappointing,” Mullins said. “He was showing me that he’d improved [over the summer] earlier in the season but when I ran him, what he’d shown at home didn’t come out on the track. So we’re just hoping for the best, and it’s going to be a tough test tomorrow.”
As the only previous winner of a Grade One over fences in the six-strong field on Thursday Black Hercules is giving away weight all round and is unlikely to start favourite with Henry de Bromhead’s Sub Lieutenant, who was ahead of Mullins’s runner when third in the John Durkan, expected to head the market.
The runners who followed Black Hercules home in the JLT are both prominent in the betting for big races on Saturday as Bristol De Mai is the second-favourite for the Peter Marsh Chase at Haydock and L’Ami Serge, who is back over hurdles, is the ante-post favourite for the Champion Hurdle Trial on the same card.
Neither horse has registered a win since the Festival last year, however, which does leave open the possibility that Black Hercules’s form at Cheltenham was not all it seemed. Two subsequent Grade One winners have emerged from the race: Outlander, who was a faller four out, and Zabana, who whipped round at the start and lost his jockey.
“It’s been a bit frustrating so far this year but at least we’ve still got plenty of the season left,” Mullins said. “He’s got 8lb to find with Sub Lieutenant and that’s a tough assignment. We just have to keep hoping that he’ll start to show his real form on the track.”
An eight-race card at Thurles concludes with what must surely be one of the classiest hunter chases in recent memory. The five-strong field includes Mullins’s On His Own, who was touched off by Lord Windermere in the 2014 Cheltenham Gold Cup, First Lieutenant, who took the Grade One Betfair Bowl at Aintree in 2013, and Foxrock, a regular runner in both Grade Ones and top handicap chases in recent seasons.
With Salsify, a dual winner of the Foxhunter Chase at Cheltenham, also in the field, the runners have won well over £1m in prize money between them.
Mouse Morris, the trainer of First Lieutenant, said on Wednesday: “It’s unreal to be meeting horses like this in a hunter chase, it’s like a mini‑Kinloch Brae.
“He’s in good form, he ran well in a point-to-point the other day and was only just touched off. He’s 12 now and he’s not what he was, obviously. Whether we are able to think about the spring, we’ll know more after this.”
Beyond Conceit was the most impressive winner on the card at Newbury on Wednesday, striding 10 lengths clear to take a two-mile novice hurdle on his first start for 1,267 days.
Nicky Henderson’s eight‑year-old was useful on the Flat, but had suffered a series of problems since finishing fourth in a handicap at Glorious Goodwood in July 2013.
“I think the patience of the owner [Fitri Hay] has to be congratulated,” Henderson said. “He had tendon problems before we had him, then he fractured his pelvis in the summer. It is lovely to see him back and he thoroughly enjoyed himself and I expect he will have an entry in the Supreme [Novice Hurdle at Cheltenham].”
