Staker Wallace belatedly opened his account under rules at the age of ten with an authoritative success in the re-arranged Earl of Harrington Memorial Maiden Hunter Chase.
Sent off as the 4/7 favourite having been last seen on the racecourse finishing fourth behind It Came To Pass in the Cheltenham Foxhunters, Enda Bolger’s charge tracked the pace-setting Fanamix throughout before joining Denis Murphy’s hat-trick seeking five-year-old heading out on the final circuit, as the top three horses in the betting filled the first three positions.
Once Fanamix and Jamie Codd made an error at the fifth-last fence, the odds-on favourite moved to the front and from that point Barry O’Neill was always confident.
Although his main market rival Super Citizen, who had finished third in the corresponding race a year earlier, valiantly tried to give him something of a challenge rounding the home bend, a swift leap at the penultimate obstacle from Staker Wallace ended the hopes of his challengers.
The JP McManus-owned bay ultimately returned a length and three quarters clear of the 7/2 second favourite Super Citizen, with outsiders Cloudy Tuesday and Prefad running big races to defy their prices and finished third and fourth respectively.
Staker Wallace - fourth in the Foxhunter at Cheltenham and off the mark for the season for Enda Bolger and @bononeill1 at @LimerickRaces pic.twitter.com/GRkGBnyglT
— Racing TV (@RacingTV) December 30, 2020
