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**mayo** · 17 March 2013, 08:32 PM

Bryan Cooper well flagged up too...

**Royal Tan** · 18 March 2013, 02:46 PM

It was a good festival for Kerry with Bryan Cooper and Jim Culloty among the winners.

Couple of Listowel Festival winners won too. Back in Focus and Ted Veale. Looking back on quotes should probably have been on Ted. Was also the eye catcher at Leopardstown after races gallops.

Just hope JT will come though.

**Morning Glory** · 20 March 2013, 08:10 AM

Donn highlights Hennesy Day ...

As usual, there was a suitcase full of conclusions and inferences to be drawn from events on Prestbury Park last week. The impact that Hennessy Gold Cup day at Leopardstown on February 9 had on proceedings was one.

Okay, so with an unprecedented level of Irish success – 14 Irish-trained winners, in case you were on Planet Zog or in the Vatican for the week – it is hardly surprising that one of the premier days on the Irish National Hunt racing calendar is going to have an impact. But the strength of said impact is worth noting nonetheless. White smoke, if you like.

It all started at the start, with Deloitte Hurdle winner Champagne Fever winning the curtain-raiser. You might have thought that Susannah Ricci’s horse was running in the wrong race, you might have thought that the Neptune was the race for him and, if it wasn’t, if they were insistent on Pont Alexandre going it alone in the two-and-a-half-mile race, then the Albert Bartlett over three miles was the one, not the Supreme Novices’ over two. Interestingly, Willie Mullins knows more about these things than most and, under an inspired ride from Ruby Walsh (quick slow quick), the grey son of Stowaway got Festivities off to the best possible start for Ireland in general and Closutton in particular.

Dr PJ Moriarty Chase winner Boston Bob might well have won the RSA Chase on Wednesday had he not put in a little short stride for himself when Paul Townend asked him to come up long at the final fence, thereby landing the pair of them on the floor. He is all stamina and he finds plenty for pressure, so there is little doubt that he would have stayed on strongly up the hill.

Fear not, Dr PJ Moriarty Chase third Lord Windermere was there to win the RSA Chase, and Jim Culloty’s horse might well have won the race even if Boston Bob had flown the last. He was looking around him a little on the run-in, he appeared to win with a little in hand. Also, Dr PJ Moriarty Chase fourth Lyreen Legend was the one to chase him home, and the pair of them were clear of third-placed Hadrian’s Approach.

So if Boston Bob had jumped the last, the horses who finished first, third and fourth in the Moriarty Chase would have finished first, second and third in the RSA Chase, and they would have finished clear of their rivals. That is an unprecedented level of domination by representatives of the Leoparstown race.

On Friday, Our Conor danced in in the Triumph Hurdle, just as he had danced in in the Spring Juvenile Hurdle at Leopardstown on Hennessy day. In so doing he danced his way all the way to 2014 Champion Hurdle favouritism. Not only that, but Flaxen Flare, fifth in the Spring Hurdle, some 25 lengths behind Our Conor, had already won the Fred Winter Hurdle at Cheltenham on Wednesday.

Tennis Cap, who had won the big Paddy Power Handicap Hurdle at Leopardstown on Hennessy day, ran out of his skin to finish second in the County Hurdle, the race run after the Triumph Hurdle on Friday. Then Sir Des Champs, winner of the Hennessy itself at Leopardstown, ran a cracker to finish second to Bobs Worth in the Gold Cup. And if that wasn’t enough, Salsify, who had won the Raymond Smith Memorial Hunters Chase at Leopardstown on Hennessy day, went and won the Foxhunter at Cheltenham.

There were many more things to take away from the 2013 Cheltenham Festival, and we will no doubt stumble upon a couple of others over the course of the next few days. For now, though, don’t stop thinking about John Thomas McNamara. Keep him and his family in your prayers.

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2013 Cheltenham winners from the horses to follow section

2013 Cheltenham winners from the horses to follow section

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