Jack Kennedy perhaps put one hand on a first jockeys’ championship with success on Teahupoo at Punchestown in Thursday evening’s featured Ladbrokes Champion Stayers’ Hurdle.
Gordon Elliott’s star became the first horse in 25 years to complete the Cheltenham-Punchestown Stayers double and bolstered Kennedy’s chances of repelling Paul Townend for the jockeys’ crown when the season ends on Saturday.
Kennedy is suspended for that final day and although Townend has some Willie Mullins hotpots to look forward to over the next 48 hours, a six-winner lead (123-117) represents a formidable gap.
However, if Kennedy is odds-on with some firms to haul his battered body over the championship line in front, the ammunition Mullins can still supply Townend got underlined again on Thursday.
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Townend’s defeat on the 1-3 favourite Gaelic Warrior behind stable companion Il Etait Temps in the Barberstown Castle Novice Chase might yet prove pivotal in championship terms but the outcome resulted in another new record for Mullins.
It was a 35th Grade One success of the season for the Irish and British champion trainer, beating his previous benchmark set in 2016.
In the four remaining top-flight races this week, Mullins has a trio of heavy odds-on favourites, as well as six of the 10 runners in Saturday’s champion four-year-old hurdle.
If the Grade One programme in Ireland and Britain gets criticised as bloated – there are 37 and 40 such races respectively compared to only nine in France – it represents yet more statistical proof of Mullins’s stranglehold on the sport’s top-class action.
Once again, the sport’s most influential figure handed the credit for his new feat to the owners and staff in his Co Carlow yard, although the scale of his dominance across the sport means he is only one shy of Dermot Weld’s Irish record of 4,377 winners.
Il Etait Temps supplied three of the 35 Grade Ones this season and upset Gaelic Warrior who had easily beaten him at both Cheltenham and in Limerick over Christmas.
“I think Gaelic Warrior probably didn’t like the ground and it might just be drying up too much for him. He might be more of a winter horse. When he won here last year Paul [Townend] thought he didn’t move as well on it, even though he won.
“I didn’t think he was as flashy jumping. He’s an extravagant jumper and he wasn’t that at all today,” Mullins said.
Il Etait Temps was nevertheless Mullins’s sole winner on day three, bringing his total for the week so far to a comparatively meagre five considering his best ever tally is 19.
His old rival Gordon Elliott trails him by just one this week after Tehaupoo highlighted a 1,009-1 hat-trick for the Meath trainer. Maxxum scored at 28-1 in a handicap hurdle while Wingmen landed the bumper at 18-1.
Nevertheless, it was bittersweet success for Elliott after the fatal injury sustained by Teahupo’s stable companion Sire Du Berlais in the big race.
JP McManus’s 12-year-old, winner of last year’s Stayers at Cheltenham, was at the rear of the field and being ridden along by Mark Walsh when pulled up injured before the third last flight.
It was an undeserving end for a veteran performer having his 34th career start which contained a hat-trick of Cheltenham festival wins among seven victories in all.
“I’m absolutely heartbroken and he’s been a horse of a lifetime for us at Cullentra,” said Elliott. “Everyone is in bits over it, the girls and the lads at the yard. He’s been unbelievable so we’re all gutted. It takes the gloss off the whole week if I’m honest.”
Although Kennedy has been in the wars, both on the track and in the stewards’ room, three recent whip bans totalling 30 days will give him plenty time to recuperate.
Asked after Teahupoo’s victory how his body is holding out after a number of recent tumbles, he typically underplayed things. “It’s been better. But the likes of this is what keeps you going.”
He added: “It’s very important obviously. Even without the championship or anything, just delighted for the horse. He has been great to me. He is really after stamping his authority on the staying division.
“He’s a pleasure to ride, he makes things very easy for you. Going straight to Cheltenham from Fairyhouse and here from Cheltenham has suited him. He’s getting better, so hopefully he keeps going that way.”
Tehaupoo is already a 5-2 favourite to retain his Stayers crown at Cheltenham next year for owner Brian Acheson’s Robcour operation.
“I was really worried coming here because the horse didn’t let himself down on the ground last year.
“He was Robbie Power’s last ride here in the Champion Hurdle and finished last and I was thinking if it would be in the horse’s head. They are emotive creatures and they do remember stuff,” Acheson said.
“That’s really important for Jack – but Paul Townend isn’t going away,” he added.
There was an English winner in the mares’ novice hurdle as Sam Twiston-Davies got Casa No Mento home for his father, Nigel.
English rider Nico De Boinville landed the opener on Jessica Harrington’s Pigeon House but later got a two-day suspension for careless riding on Chantry House in Maxxum’s race.
The 14-year-old Singing Banjo repeated his 2021 success in the La Touche over the banks course for trainer-jockey Barry Walsh. It was a first win for Walsh since taking his training license.
Thursday’s festival action had an official attendance of 18,289, up three per cent on the corresponding 2023 figure of 17,783.
