RACING:HURRICANE FLY was so impressive routing the best opposition around at Punchestown yesterday evening his only competition for the foreseeable future looks like being the reputations of legendary Champion Hurdle winners of the past.
Willie Mullins’ superstar completed an unbeaten five-from-five season with a five-length defeat of stable companion Thousand Stars in the Rabobank Champion Hurdle that represents possibly his best performance.
Since Hurricane Fly has now won nine Grade One races that is some statement, but even Mullins and Ruby Walsh couldn’t prevent a touch of awe from their voices at what the 1 to 2 favourite managed yesterday.
“That was just awesome, the best I’ve seen from him,” said the trainer, who brought his festival tally for the week so far to seven with Uncle Junior also winning yesterday.
Walsh, when asked if there is another Champion Hurdle in Hurricane Fly, grinned: “He could win a Group One on the flat too if he wanted!”
The raw ability that Hurricane Fly has shown this season means such a statement can hardly be dismissed as fanciful and he is now operating at a level that meant he could look the legendary Istabraq, a visitor to the races yesterday, square in the eye and not blink.
Bookmaker reaction to his contemptuous dismissal of former champ Binocular, as well as Menorah, was to cut him to as low as 7 to 4 for a Champion Hurdle repeat at Cheltenham next year.
“What we did this year has been good enough for me, but hopefully he can do it again. The focus will be on Cheltenham and back here,” said Mullins, appearing to rule out a tilt at next month’s French Champion Hurdle.
Instead, Thousand Stars could be going to Auteuil for a Champion Hurdle warm-up in the Prix La Barka, although Mullins is also pondering a flat campaign with the fast-improving grey.
But even the ever-diplomatic champion trainer managed to convey the impression that Thousand Stars could keep improving for a long, long time and not even come close to his stable companion.
The cross-sea challenge on the big race may have petered out, but the visitors dominated the rest of proceedings with Richard Johnson landing a big race double headed by Spirit Of Adjisa’s 16 to 1 surprise in the Grade One Cathal Ryan Memorial Novice Hurdle.
The Tim Vaughan-trained seven-year-old made all to hold off Prima Vista by a short head, with First Lieutenant in third. The odds-on So Young was last of the six.
Wishfull Thinking also made most of the running under Johnson to defy topweight in the novice handicap chase, while his old rival Tony McCoy had an armchair success on Kid Cassidy in the novice hurdle. Whatwillwecallher was an emotion-filled winner of the fillies bumper for Cork trainer Robert Tyner, whose teenage son Jack died earlier this year after a fall in a point-to-point.
YESTERDAY’S crowd of 25,186 was down almost 3,500 on 2010. There was also a significant drop in Tote business, with €897,967 compared to last year’s €1,130,486. Bookmaker takings were €1,881,686, a drop of €319,268.
