Image © Healy Racing
Last season’s champion under-21 rider Shane Cotter registered a first winner under rules when he guided Trixie Barry’s Bartlemy Boy to land the Alan Ball Memorial Hunters Chase.
Last season’s champion under-21 rider Shane Cotter registered a first winner under rules when he guided Trixie Barry’s Bartlemy Boy to land the Alan Ball Memorial Hunters Chase.
Sent off as a 13/2 shot following consecutive victories at Liscarroll and Dromahane, the big-striding son of Pether’s Moon showed prominently early when racing alongside the Cheltenham Festival seventh Plan Of Attack over the opening three fences before the keen-running Lifetime Ambition was sent to the front.
Pat Doyle’s odds-on favourite, who had finished third in the Aintree Foxhunters, was headed at the exit of the back straight by Plan Of Attack, with both Bartlemy Boy and Dundaniel making it a break group of three in the home straight.
Shane Cotter sent Bartlemy Boy to the front at penultimate obstacle, and despite losing his whip, the Ballynoe native was able to push him out to record a three-quarter length victory over the 40/1 outsider Dundaniel, with Lifetime Ambition a further length and a half back in third.
“I hadn’t ridden him before, Michael rang me on Friday evening, I was up in Necarne, to see if I would ride him as I used to be good friends with his son,” Cotter said.
“When you get a chance like that you take it with two hands.
“He always just does enough for you, he would never really take you anywhere but I always knew I was going to win jumping the last, he was idling going to the line, but when your man came to his girth he went again.
“He is very good to jump, nimble even, when he is in tight he is very good. He needs a good, strong gallop, because if he was just in front by himself he would be idling the whole time, he would be looking at everything. When Rob [James] went on I was delighted to have him take me as far as I could.”
For the Cork trainer it was a case of a plan well executed.
“It was the plan and it came off, and we gave our friend Shane Cotter his first track winner which made it extra special,” Trixie Barry said.
“It’s a family affair and it just couldn’t have worked out any better, the horse is improving all the time
“It is a bit of hard luck for Alan O’Sullivan, he had to ride the other horse for his uncle Eugene, he won the last two point-to-points on him.
“He is jumping better and he is getting better, he is a huge horse, so we will keep him point-to-pointing and hunter chasing – that is the plan.”
