Image © Healy Racing
“Wow, what a performance,” was how Willie Mullins described the emphatic 13-length victory of his Ballyburn in the Grade 1 Gallaghers Novice Hurdle.
“Wow, what a performance,” was how Willie Mullins described the emphatic 13-length victory of his Ballyburn in the Grade 1 Gallaghers Novice Hurdle.
Sent off as a warm favourite having beaten the previous afternoon’s Supreme winner Slade Steel in a similar Grade 1 at the Dublin Racing Festival, Paul Townend was always in his comfort zone aboard the six-year-old.
Striking the front after the penultimate flight, he soon ended the race as a contest as powered up the run-in for an effortless 13-length defeat of Jimmy Du Seuil.
That impressive victory was a second Grade 1 success of the campaign for the horse who had made a winning start to his career last season when winning on his then owner Wilson Dennison’s own home turf at Loughanmore, having been trained adjacent to that point-to-point course by Colin McKeever.
Following on from Envoi Allen, Bob Olinger, and Sir Gerhard, he became the fourth winning point-to-point graduate to claim the day two opener from the past five years, and his trainer was blown away by the performance.
“A lot of people have been talking about it, but this was the first time he has wowed me,” he said.
“That was some performance. For Paul [Townend] to take a look around turning for home - that must have been the feel the horse was giving him. Then to see him opening him up - I was afraid, are we going to have an Annie Power moment at the last, he went into it so fast. But he pinged it and was away again, and to come up the hill like that… Wow, what a performance.
“Paul says he [Ballyburn] pretends to be keen. He looks keen, he’s awkward with his head, even walking round the parade ring he’s all the time shaking his head. Paul says he looks keener than he is; it’s just his head carriage and the way he does things, but he doesn’t actually pull as hard as it looks he does.
“When you see what Slade Steel and the rest of our team did yesterday - we had a good team yesterday - and I said, wow, that really puts the form back into [a word I can’t decipher, Ben, sorry].
“He could be anything. That was a Champion Hurdle performance in my book. You’d love to be going chasing with his pedigree and size and scope, but imagine - there you are, with Lossiemouth for the Champion Hurdle next year. I’ll have to have a word with Ronnie [Bartlett] and David Manasseh, who own the horse. I don’t know, we might just get on chasing and try to make a Gold Cup horse out of him, I don’t know. He’s out of an Old Vic mare and he’d love that.
