Sam Winner takes preliminary triumph at Cheltenham
The main event may be four months over the horizon but that does not mean that the sifting process for the Triumph Hurdle winner is not on in earnest already.
The Grade Two JCB Triumph Hurdle Trial has only produced one winner who has gone on to claim the Triumph Hurdle itself, Katchit in 2006, but Sam Winner could do no than win with a fair degree of authority.
The well-backed Titan de Sarti was still in contention at halfway but lost his pitch jumping the fourth last and then pecked at the penultimate hurdle. Noel Fehily, having held up at the back, took up the running coming to the second-last flight and Sam Winner then came home 15 lengths clear of Grandouet, with Plan A in third.
Plan A for most juvenile hurdlers goes little further than this season but Paul Nicholls buys just about every horse with fences in mind and one look at Sam Winner shows that he is no exception. “You can see that,” Nicholls said. “That’s why I bought him. Ant [bloodstock agent Anthony Bromley] knows the sort we like that are going to make a chaser one day. He’s been really good at home –we’ve liked him from day one – and it was just a matter of getting him strong enough and forward enough to run today.
“He’s having a good blow, which is a good sign, but he’s been an awesome jumper since he first came in. He had three runs at Auteuil [finishing second each time] and if they can jump round there, it’s good form. The best thing is he finished racing over there in April and had a good summer break out at grass.”
As for Plan A, Nicholls was none too sure. “Until you run them, you don’t know how good they are, but we’ve got a better idea now. The hurly burly of the Triumph Hurdle isn’t going to worry him because he’s a big horse and e jumps well. What I wouldn’t want to do is risk him on fast ground, but we’ll run him while we can.”
This was Fehily’s sixth winner this week for Nicholls in his role as temporary stand-in for Ruby Walsh, who is currently recovering from the broken leg he sustained in a fall at Down Royal last Saturday. “He feels like a very nice horse,” the jockey said. “They went a very strong gallop early doors and I let him take his time. He’s made up the ground so easily and galloped all the way to the line. He’s entitled to be favourite for the Triumph Hurdle after that.”
Alan King made it two winners at this year’s Open meeting when Devil To Pay, ridden by Charlie Huxely, won the Ultima Business Solutions Novices' Handicap Hurdle by a short-head and Jennie Candlish saddled her second Cheltenham winner with the Alan O’Keeffe-ridden in the Listed Jardine Lloyd Thompson Handicap Hurdle.
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