HURRICANE SEASON: Hurricane Fly staked his claim to win a third Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham in March with an emphatic victory over two powerful young pretenders in Leopardstown’s Ryanair Hurdle. He’s around 4.6 on BETDAQ for the big race in March.
No Irish racing on Monday so a chance to look back on Hurricane Fly’s fantastic win yesterday.
The nine-year-old achieved a world record 18th top-level victory in this Grade One contest.
It was Captain Cee Bee who attempted to put some pace into the race in the early stages after overtaking early leader Thousand Stars going to the second flight.
The 12-year-old raced into a clear advantage going down the back straight but the rest of the field largely ignored the leader, preffering to fight a private battle in behind.
Jezki, in the same ownership as Captain Cee Bee, first set about closing in on the leader after the second-last flight.
But he didn’t quite have the tactical pace to match his rivals at that vital stage and was hemmed in by Danny Mullins aboard Our Conor, leaving Tony McCoy’s mount with nowhere to go going to the final flight as the pacesetter dropped back.
Hurricane Fly, meanwhile, was travelling powerfully down the outside of the pack, and when Ruby Walsh asked the winner to go clear the response was immediate.
The 11/10 favourite stayed on strongly to score by two and a half lengths, with Jezki, switched out wide by McCoy to get past Our Conor, staying on late for second place.
Mullins said: “It was a hugely tactical race and Ruby was very cool on him.
“At one stage I thought the leader (Captain Cee Bee) had got away in front, and Ruby had to quicken up a bit sooner than he would have liked to.
“We spent a long time getting him to settle and, as a result, he’s inclined to go to sleep early in his races. Because of that, we’ve changed slightly the way we’ve trained him.
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