Asterion Forlonge and Danny Mullins impress in the Chanelle Pharma Novice Hurdle© Photo Healy Racing
Asterion Forlonge maintained his unbeaten record with a dominant display in the Chanelle Pharma Novice Hurdle at Leopardstown.
The grey son of Castal Path had previously won a point-to-point, bumper and a maiden hurdle but took this huge step up to Grade 1 company in his stride.
The Willie Mullins-trained gelding set a good pace along with well-backed 5/4 favourite Easywork and quickly settled the issue off the home turn.
The 4/1 chance was driven clear before the final flight by Danny Mullins and kept on strongly on the run-in to beat Easywork by nine and a half lengths.
Mt Leinster was let down by a number of jumping errors and finished a further four lengths back in third.
Willie Mullins said, "I'm surprised and I'm delighted. I had him down as a two-mile-and-six or three mile horse.
“The last day he won at Naas was a mile-and-seven. I had a three-mile horse down in Cork and he got beaten so I said to myself 'now I've this fella in the wrong race over two'.
“It looks like I'm wrong and he's a two-miler. He has a huge cruising speed and I said to Danny 'go out and make the running, you're not making it for our other two you're making it for yourself so try and get the fractions right'.
“He's never fast at home but he obviously covers a huge amount of ground and can keep that gallop up for two miles flat out.
“Looking like that he looked like he could be a Supreme Novice horse and that was the furthest thing from my mind three weeks ago.
“We'll see what happens. I think this fella can stay, I think he's easy enough to ride. I always had him down as a stayer. If the owner has something else for the Supreme we can chat it out.”
The champion trainer reported a clean bill of health for his runners yesterday saying, “They are all good and I don't have any bad stories this morning. Hopefully it will be the same tomorrow morning.
“There are a couple of nicks and cuts but that's normal in racing.
“I thought apart from the disappointments Chacun Pour Soi is a star and we may have found another one in Appreciate It in the bumper because I think that was a huge field of horses yesterday. He must be a really good horse.”
Danny Mullins said, “It was a proper good performance. We went an even gallop and picked up well in the straight.
“In fairness to Diarmuid (Keeling) who looks after him, and looked after Champagne Fever before, said he reminded him of Champagne Fever.
“We’ll need to step up to get to his level but that was good and hopefully he’ll keep improving.
“He jumped a bit right early on and then later on he went a bit left. I’d say that could be just greenness rather than a kink. He’s galloping strong where you need him and that’s what you want.”
Betfair cut the winner into 5/1 (from 16/1) for the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, while BoyleSports go 7/1 (from 20/1).
(GC & AM)
