Allaho (Ruby Walsh) leads Minella Indo at the last© Photo Healy Racing
Allaho booked his ticket for the upcoming Cheltenham Festival by landing the Grade 3 Surehaul Mercedes-Benz Novice Hurdle at Clonmel.
The French import was a beaten favourite on his first start for current connections in a bumper at the Leopardstown Christmas meeting but justified confidence here in decisive fashion.
The well-backed 100/30 favourite was quite keen throughout and travelled well to challenge when making a mistake at the penultimate flight.
Ruby Walsh got a willing response when asking for an effort to lead before the last, and he pushed the promising five-year-old out on the run-in to score by four lengths.
The front-running Minella Indo kept on to take the runner-up spot, while Moskovite was a further eight and a half lengths back in third.
Paddy Power cut Allaho into 12/1 (from 25/1) for the Albert Bartlett Novice Hurdle.
Winning trainer Willie Mullins said, "He is a nice horse who disappointed me hugely in a bumper at Christmas, compared to the work he had been doing at home. The form did work out though and he was green at Christmas which was the problem.
"We saw it again today as he was very green about getting going to win his race. He had been very free throughout the race so to come off a pace like that pulling as hard as he did and pick up, I was very impressed with him.
"He looks a real chaser in the making and we ran him in that race to see where to go at Cheltenham. Having gone a mile in that race, I thought if he won that the Ballymore could be the race for him because he was very free. He's in that and the Albert Bartlett and he'll go straight to Cheltenham now.
"Maybe with that race out of his system he might settle better the next day."
(TW & AM)
