The David Christie pair of Ask D’Man and Global Assembly heads a field of five runners for Tuesday’s INHSC Supporting Point-to-Points Hunter Chase at Fairyhouse, the first hunter chase of the new season.
Absent since winning the Champion Novice Hunter Chase at Stratford in May 2022, the Fairyhouse contest marks a welcome return to action for Ask D’Man who also has a Clonmel Hunter Chase success to his name.
Now a nine-year-old, the Ask gelding sports the colours of Jennifer O’Kane and John Hegarty, silks that have been carried at a high level in the hunter chase division in recent years by Vaucelet, and the chestnut, who must carry top weight due to those hunter chase successes, will be joined in the small field by his stablemate Global Assembly.
Ask D’Man under @bononeill1 returns to the winner’s enclosure @stratfordraces after landing the https://t.co/OkPkmQekaT Champion Novices’ Hunters’ Steeple Chase - for the John Corbet Cup. pic.twitter.com/xzPiAwPQvs
— pointtopoint.co.uk (@pointtopoint) May 27, 2022
Ray Nicholas’ six-year-old, who ran the former Grade 1 winner The Storyteller close in open company last season, will renew rivalries with Grange Island, after that horse had his measure by a head in a thrilling conclusion to the Clonmel maiden hunter chase at the beginning of the year, the race that was won a year earlier by Ask D’Man.
Liam Burke’s singed off on last season on a disappointing note when pulling-up at Cork and finishing tailed off in Tipperary, but it was a campaign that saw him finish just three quarters of a length adrift of Billaway at Naas.
The field is completed by the three-time point winner Keep Me Posted and Seamus Murnane’s Dromleigh, an older maiden winner in Kildorrery.
Gordon Elliott has won the past two editions of the Fairyhouse point-to-point bumper with Glenglass and Search For Glory, and D B Cooper will make his first start for the in-form Meath trainer after he was purchased for £225,000 following his debut Ballyknock success for Ballyknock in the spring.
He will be joined in the field by fellow first-time-out winner Jeroboam Machin who now represents the respected Emmet Mullins and Paul Byrne combination having opening his account in a Durrow auction maiden for Cormac Doyle.
The recent Damma House scorer Lucky Venture is the only other winner in the line-up with a trio of maidens completing the field – Aill Dubh, Mount Gallion and River Agent.
The going at Fairyhouse was described as Soft, Heavy in places on Sunday morning with approximately a further 15mm of rain forecast for Sunday night into Monday.
