Carlingford Lough lands Gold Cup win for Kiely

The only National Hunt card in the season to boast four Grade 1 contests, headed by Carlingford Lough’s Irish Gold Cup triumph, was a thoroughly intriguing one although the overall impression of last Saturday’s action at Leopardstown was that it posed more questions than it answered. Firstly to Carlingford Lough, who turned in a miraculous effort to win the day’s feature for the second year in succession. Trainer John Kiely certainly worked the oracle in restoring his charge to the peak of his powers, yet for much of the race Carlingford Lough appeared to labour on the testing ground. Indeed, his cause looked a forlorn one, until he began to scythe through the field off the last bend.

Had Valseur Lido and Ruby Walsh stayed together after the last, it would have been intriguing to see how the conclusion would have unfolded as the first-named had just struck the front and was still firmly on the bridle. However, Carlingford Lough’s finishing effort, accentuated by rider Mark Walsh’s prudent decision to sit well off a grueling pace on very testing ground, would have made him hard to contain.

A crack at the Cheltenham Gold Cup, in which he finished ninth last year, is a possibility for the winner while he could instead go down the Grand National route. He would have to carry close to top weight at Aintree but he certainly would have the class to play a part in the Liverpool spectacular.

After missing his intended Christmas engagement, Road To Riches had to settle for second and looked to perform some way below the level he reached last season. Better ground will help his cause later in the season, but he will need to step forward significantly if he is to match or better his third in last year’s Gold Cup.

In the opening Grade 1 on the card, Ivanovich Gorbatov was expected to cement his status as the long time favourite for the Triumph Hurdle, yet he laboured in fourth in a race where Willie Mullins supplied the first three home. Top honours here went to Footpad, who came from off the pace to account for stablemates Allblak Des Places and Let’s Dance. Footpad had previously shown a decent level of form, still this was his best effort by some distance and he will line up with a decent chance in what looks a very open triumph.

Stablemates

His stablemates both acquitted themselves well and there was plenty to like about the manner in which Let’s Dance stuck to her task after helping to force a good pace. The favourite, who did well to survive a bad blunder four out, is surely capable of much better, but has questions to answer. In what is looking a very open year for juvenile hurdlers, it is hard at this stage to pinpoint the chief Irish hope in the four-year-old division.

Willie Mullins also picked up the other Grade 1s on offer, although there was another surprise in the offing in the Deloitte Novice Hurdle, where Bleu Et Rouge defeated Tombstone as the odds on Bellshill posted a below par effort in third. Bleu Et Rouge has clearly come forward well from his promising fourth to Long Dog at Christmas and is now an interesting and lively Cheltenham contender.

With Bellshill failing to match his previous form and Up For Review well held at Doncaster the previous week, the Irish challenge for Cheltenham’s novice hurdles has taken a couple of knocks in recent weeks and has perhaps tempered the sky-high expectations that were starting develop.

Elsewhere, the likeable Outlander maintained his understated but stylish rise through the ranks over fences with an assured victory in the Flogas Novice Chase. He produced a polished display to see off a field that included the likes of Pont Alexandre and Zabana and is a worthy challenger for either RSA or JLT Novices Chase glory. Both contests will require a further step forward though, and the likes of No More Heroes and Killultagh Vic remain the chief Irish hopes for those races.

To stay with Leopardstown, there was a striking winner on show in Blazer who absolutely bolted up in the two-mile handicap hurdle to leave behind the form he showed in two outings over fences since coming to Ireland.

The ease with which he won would suggest that he is one to be reckoned with in one of the Cheltenham handicaps.