Death Duty and Davy Russell© Photo Healy Racing
Death Duty completed a Grade One treble on the day for Gordon Elliott and Gigginstown House Stud with victory in the Bar One Racing Drinmore Novice Chase at Fairyhouse.
With the formidable combination having already landed the Royal Bond Novice Hurdle with Mengli Khan and the Hatton's Grace Hurdle with Apple's Jade Death Duty was the 8/11 favourite to extend his unbeaten record over fences to three in the hands of Davy Russell.
Each of the five novices jumped soundly in the main, with Death Duty leading the pack throughout. Rathvinden was right in his slipstream rounding the home turn, but Death Duty had too many guns and stayed on strongly on the run-in to score by three and a quarter lengths. Snow Falcon kept on one paced a further two and three quarter lengths away in third.
Death Duty wins the Grade 1 @BarOneRacing Drinmore Novice Chase! @Fairyhouse pic.twitter.com/8571zLULMy— At The Races (@AtTheRaces) December 3, 2017
Death Duty wins the Grade 1 @BarOneRacing Drinmore Novice Chase! @Fairyhouse pic.twitter.com/8571zLULMy
Elliott, “This is what it’s all about to train three Grade One winners on the one day is unbelievable. To do it at one of my local tracks in Fairyhouse is great and I’m delighted
“He’s a horse I’ve always liked but maybe I was getting it wrong last year saying he wanted three miles. Davy said there today that he has loads of speed. He’s won another Grade One for us and we’ll enjoy today and see what happens.
“He could be more a JLT horse. He’s definitely not slow, and you might not see him over three miles again this year. In fairness he went to Cheltenham last year and didn’t travel over and was very light over there. I was probably a bit naïve and shouldn’t have ran the horse as he wasn’t right after the race. Thankfully he came back and showed how good he is today.
“I thought he jumped very well today and I don’t think there are too many faults in him. We’ll see how he is after this before deciding where we go next.”
Russell said: "You can do what you want on the likes of this horse. He's a good horse.
"He jumped very good today and Gordon was happy for me to do what I wanted.
"It's great to get the opportunity to ride these horses. Gordon is so good to us and spreads them out well."
Boylesports make Death Duty 8/1 (from 10/1) for the JLT Novice Chase, while Paddy Power go just 6/1 (from 8/1).
