Hurricane's festival prospects improve

WILLIE MULLINS believes Hurricane Fly will make the Cheltenham Festival if he continues to recover from a setback at his current rate.

Already a dual Grade One-winner, the French import was pulled out of Sunday’s Deloitte Novice Hurdle at Leopardstown at the 11th hour after being found slightly lame on the morning of the race.

While Mullins admits it is hardly the best preparation for the Festival, the improvement the five-year-old has shown has given him sufficient encouragement to believe he will make the line-up although his target has yet to be confirmed.

“He’s just doing little canters, it’s not ideal but he’s got a splint coming,” said Mullins. “You can stop with a splint or you can bring it out but I’ve elected to keep going, if I stop I’m not going to make Cheltenham. He won’t be doing any fast work.

“He is improving day by day and the intense pain that was there on Saturday and Sunday is easing. He let me put my hand on it today whereas the other day he wouldn’t. I don’t know about Cheltenham at this stage. Certainly this happening three weeks before is not ideal, it’s an unusual one as it’s on the outside, maybe it’s just a bang.

“The progress he has made from Sunday is good and if he makes the same progress over the next six days, I think we’ll get there all right,” said Mullins.

Mullins admits he is unsure whether he made the right decision in running Wednesday’s impressive Punchestown winner Quevega so close to the Cheltenham Festival.

The five-year-old finished just two lengths behind her stablemate Hurricane Fly in a Grade One event at Auteuil last June but had been off the track until her recent comeback. Sent off an odds-on favourite, she duly powered away from her rivals in impressive style and the David Nicholson Mares’ Hurdle in under three weeks is next on her agenda.

“I wondered whether to run her at Punchestown or send her straight to Cheltenham but we decided to run. I’m not entirely convinced I did the right thing but we will know in three weeks’ time,” said Mullins.

“Sometimes when they have that first run for a while they go backwards rather than forwards. Ruby (Walsh) thought she’d won with enough in hand though and I’m just hoping she didn’t have a hard race.” Quevega is a best-priced 7 to 1 for the mares event at Prestbury Park.

Grade One-winning chaser Thyne Again collapsed and died during a routine canter on the gallops yesterday. Liam Burke’s stable star finished fifth in the Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup at Leopardstown last weekend and his Co Cork handler is understandably devastated by the news.

“It’s terrible news and to be honest it hasn’t really sunk in yet,” said Burke. The eight-year-old Thyne Again won six of his 18 career starts, including the Baileys Arkle Perpetual Challenge Cup at Leopardstown in January 2008.