NAAS REPORT:GOLDEN SILVER will be one of up to 30 Willie Mullins-trained horses travelling to the upcoming Cheltenham festival and both horse and trainer remain in peak form at just the right time.
Mullins saddled a 49 to 1 four-timer at Naas yesterday with the 2 to 13 favourite Golden Silver having little more than a school around in the Grade Two Paddy Power Chase to secure a €30,000 plus first prize.
The top two-miler has the option of taking a hike up in distance for the Ryanair Chase at the festival but Mullins is increasingly favouring another crack at Big Zeb et al in the Queen Mother Champion Chase.
“The more I think of it, unless the ground gets very lively there, we will probably go for the shorter race. He’s never won beyond two miles and a furlong so it looks like we’ll be taking on Big Zeb again,” the champion trainer said.
“I didn’t do much with him since he beat Big Zeb at Punchestown but he seems to enjoy racing and jumped a lot sweeter today,” he added.
The strength of the Mullins yard was underlined further in the Grade Two novice hurdle as the apparent first choice of the trainer’s runners, Day Of A Lifetime, was withdrawn with a stone bruise, allowing Paul Townend switch to Dare To Doubt. That mare wasted little time getting to the front and even an untidy leap at the last couldn’t prevent her winning easily.
Go Native won the race two years ago ahead of a Supreme success at Cheltenham and Dare To Doubt got quotes of as low as 25 to 1 for the same race after her five length defeat of Prima Vista.
However, Mullins is targeting a valuable mares event at Limerick two days before Cheltenham with her and explained: “Her style of racing may not suit going across so we’ll keep her home.”
The favourite in this race, Darwins Fox, finished out of the money and was found to have a respiratory infection afterwards.
Samain could be Weatherbys Champion Bumper bound following an impressive victory yesterday in a bumper that has thrown up subsequent festival winners in Hairy Molly (2006) and Pizarro (2006.) “He’s improving and looks to be better left-handed. That performance looked well up to scratch. That looked a good bumper,” Mullins said of the winner who is as low as 10 to 1 for Cheltenham. “The ground mustn’t be too bad there as this is a good ground horse.”
Townend and Mullins had earlier combined to score in the opening maiden hurdle with Johnny McGeeney who overcame the testing ground conditions to beat Great Value by four lengths.
“He seems to be improving as he hated the ground. Pure fitness won it for him,” Mullins said.
The third Grade Two on the card contained no Mullins runner and it was the favourite Roi Du Mee who wound up beating off his market rival Ad Idem by a couple of lengths for jockey Davy Russell.
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary enjoyed a treble yesterday but Roi Du Mee will probably miss Cheltenham and be kept at home for the Powers Gold Cup at Fairyhouse. One O’Leary owned horse that will go to Cheltenham though is Rivage D’Or who led home a Dessie Hughes one-two in the three mile handicap hurdle.
“That’s what we wanted. We’d like to run him in the Pertemps at Cheltenham and he needed 4-5lb extra,” Hughes said.
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