Success for Blazing Khal in Thursday’s Paddy Power Stayers’ Hurdle at Cheltenham will complete a remarkable return to top-flight success for his trainer Charles Byrnes.
It is a decade since the Co Limerick trainer landed the Stayers’ crown with Solwhit, but just a couple of years since his training career looked on the rocks following the notorious Viking Hoard controversy.
Byrnes had his licence suspended for six months by the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board after he was judged “seriously negligent” in his supervision of Viking Hoard following the horse getting “nobbled” with a sedative in the stable yard at a Tramore meeting in 2018.
The identity of the person who administered that sedative was never established but Viking Hoard was found to have 100 times the safe limit in his system.
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Byrnes was adamant he was not negligent but failed in his appeal against the penalty in a case that generated huge publicity ,which the trainer said was upsetting for him and his family.
When he secured his licence again in September 2021, championship success at Cheltenham was hardly the priority, but the way Byrnes has turned around his fortunes has been remarkable.
A total of 19 wins in Ireland during the current jumps season is topped up by three more in Britain.
Big race success had also been achieved on the flat with Run For Oscar turning the Newmarket Cesarewitch into a rout last October.
That only underlined Byrnes’s reputation as a maestro of working the handicap system in his favour, but it is strictly Grade One stuff on Thursday in Cheltenham’s day three feature.
A win would be amplified even further by Byrnes’s son Philip taking the reins on Blazing Khal.
Without a top-flight victory to his name so far, Blazing Khal is up against a field of Grade One winners
He was on board when the talented but fragile horse returned from 14 months on the sidelines to win Navan’s Boyne Hurdle.
Blazing Khal picked up another problem in that race and was confirmed for the Stayers last Friday, with the trainer admitting preparations haven’t been ideal.
Wary bookmakers mean Blazing Khal has continued to top betting lists in advance of what will be just his 10th career start, however.
Without a top-flight victory to his name so far, Blazing Khal is up against a field of Grade One winners.
They include the defending champion Flooring Porter who is bidding to emulate Inglis Drever as a triple-winner. Big Buck’s continues to be the Stayers benchmark with four wins in 2009-2012.
The 2020 winner Paisley Park is back again and is one of just two home hopefuls, a tally equalled by a pair of French starters – including the course winner Gold Tweet.
In an Irish-dominated affair, there will be a lot of support for Jessica Harrington’s Ashdale Bob following the trainer’s confirmation last week that she is undergoing treatment for breast cancer. Victory in the Stayers’ Hurdle would complete her collection of festival championship events.
Blazing Khal is the unknown factor in this race, with a profile that includes nothing as substantial as Teahupoo’s Hatton’s Grace defeat of Klassical Dream and Honeysuckle back in December.
Gordon Elliott’s hope confirmed his stamina over three miles with a smooth Galmoy success in Gowran and looks a prime hope for Davy Russell.
In terms of known factors Home By The Lee’s claims are impressive too.
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He has seven and a half lengths to make up on Flooring Porter from this race a year ago and looks to have progressed more than that in his last two starts. His success at Leopardstown over Christmas looks as persuasive a piece of form at the distance as there is this season.
Joseph O’Brien will have ambitions with flying three-year-olds such Al Riffa this spring, but a Stayers would also be a notable addition to his already bulging collection of big-race wins.
In the circumstances a victory for Blazing Khal will probably mean more to Byrnes. Just edged out when his representative Byker was runner-up in Tuesday’s Boodles, were Blazing Khal to go one better it would be a restoration to racing’s top table that once seemed unlikely.
