Now Is The Hour highlighted a spectacular return to form for top trainer Gavin Cromwell when emerging on top in a thrilling Goffs Thyestes Chase at Gowran on Thursday.
Having gone over three weeks without a winner, and endured speculation about his stable form for much longer than that, Cromwell’s fortunes appear to have turned with a vengeance just in time for next week’s €2 million Dublin Racing Festival.
Two winners on the undercard were welcome but Now Is The Hour delivered the ultimate signal of better things to come when, ironically, edging Better Times Ahead, in the €100,000 highlight. The latter’s cause wasn’t helped by a loose horse on the run-in.
Claimer Eoin Staples, successful earlier on Cromwell’s The Lovely Man, pounced and drove the 8/1 shot to a head victory in a gruelling contest on testing conditions where only a handful of runners finished.
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There was an unfortunate reminder for rider Sean Cleary-Farrell what can happen you’re your luck is out after he was unseated at the last when still in the lead on Spanish Harlem. His stable companion, the well backed 7/2 favourite Captain Cody, was a faller earlier in the race.
It was a first Thyestes for Cromwell whose Gold Cup hero Inothewayurthinkin will be among the main players at the DRF.
“It’s a cruel game when it’s not going well, but when you have the bad times you appreciate the good times. I was watching it from the last and he had no stride, I couldn’t believe it when he got up,” said Cromwell after Now Is The Hour broke his duck over fences in style.
“It can happen where a horse threatens to win a big one and it doesn’t happen. It’s a fantastic way to break your maiden!
“I’d say we’ll go back to the National Hunt Chase (at Cheltenham) again. He was running a big race when he fell in it last year.
“If he doesn’t do anything else, he has been fantastic for us and we have been on the cold list for a while, so this is well appreciated,” he added.
The testing conditions proved no trouble to the veteran Home By The Lee who landed the Grade Two John Mulhern Galmoy Hurdle, beating the favourite Staffordshire Knot. It sets him up for another tilt at the Stayers in Cheltenham.
“He will go back to Cheltenham for the fifth time in March, he got brought down last year which was probably his best shot, but you never know what might happen this year,” his trainer Joseph O’Brien commented.
