For the fourth year in the last six running’s, the Grade 1 Neville Hotels Novice Chase went the way of an Irish point-to-point graduate with Fury Road leading home a 1-2-3 for the sport’s exports on the final day of the Leopardstown Christmas Festival.
Sporting first-time cheekpieces after a narrow defeat in the Drinmore at Fairyhouse, the 7/1 shot who had won his four-year-old maiden at Dromahane for Pat Doyle, loomed alongside his stablemate and fellow pointer Run Wild Fred at the final fence.
From there Jack Kennedy was always confident and the seven-year-old son of Stowaway was able to take control of the race to pull eight lengths clear of the recent Troytown winner with the Grade 1 Cheltenham Festival winner Vanillier a further ten lengths back in third.
“He disappointed me the last day, I thought that he had a great chance in the Drinmore but he kind of pulled up when he got to the front so I put cheekpieces on him today and it seemed to suit him.
“Jack (Kennedy) was sweet on him and said that the bit of drier ground probably suited him.
“His novice hurdle form was very good, if you go back to that run against Monksfish and Latest Exhibition that was very good form.
“I would imagine he will go for the three-mile novice at Cheltenham.
Of the runner-up Elliott added: “I’d say he could have done with ten more jumps, he jumped brilliantly and would have been a good winner if you had taken the other lad (Fury Road) out.”
145
— RTÉ Racing (@RTEracing) December 29, 2021
Fury Road takes the Grade 1 Novice Chase in style
1 Fury Road 7/1
2 Run Wild Fred 9/4f
3 Vanillier 5/2
4 Max Flamingo 28/1
| Watch the #Leopardstown Christmas Festival live on @RTE2 and @RTEplayer https://t.co/AZlEpmDpcs pic.twitter.com/D2EbBuqB2f
The victory completed a good afternoon at the Foxrock venue for Irish Pointers with Journey With Me becoming the ante-post favourite for the Ballymore Hurdle after his winning hurdling debut in the Pigsback.com maiden hurdle under Rachael Blackmore for Henry de Bromhead.
The Mahler gelding, a four-year-old maiden winner at Ballindenisk for Michael Murphy, preserved his unbeaten tag when easily brushing aside the Grade 1 Bumper winner Kilcruit.
"I'm delighted with him. He won his bumper and point-to-point well. He's just a lovely horse and did it really well; he stays well. This generally is a very decent maiden hurdle, Stattler won it last year," said the Co. Waterford trainer.
"We were hoping to head to Navan for a maiden hurdle recently, but the ground was a bit good, so we waited for here. It's turned out to be the right decision and hopefully he'll be okay in the morning.
"He's one of the few to buck the trend of our Christmas, so that's great. It must mean he's a good horse to win this week."
👑 A second winner of #LRCChristmas for @rachaelblackmor!
— Leopardstown RC (@LeopardstownRC) December 29, 2021
JOURNEY WITH ME upsets Kilcruit in the @Pigsback_IE Maiden Hurdle for @HenrydeBromhead 👀pic.twitter.com/7pxbXCCSuA
