Jacob's Ladder climbs another rung in Purcell Memorial

Gigginstown House Stud’s Jacob’s Ladder (5/1) had his Cheltenham-festival antepost odds trimmed today having stepped up in class to win Naas’ Grade 3 Michael Purcell Memorial Novice Hurdle, for jockey Sam Ewing and trainer Gordon Elliott.

The six-year-old registered a maiden hurdle success on his previous start in January and while upped in grade and seemingly outpaced during today’s race, showed stamina to eventually score by 3.25 lengths from Joystick which had blundered at the final flight.

Elliott’s assistant Lisa O’Neill commented “he’s done it quite nicely in the end. Sam thought he was struggling with a circuit to go but in fairness to him he showed a lot of guts.

“Sam held onto him for as long as he could up the home straight as it’s really tough going out there. He needed a good jump at the last and got it. It’s lovely for him to back up the win the last day and hopefully he can go on and build on it.

“He’s a nice, big horse and he’ll be a chaser for the future.”

Jacob’s Ladder was generally cut from 50/1s to 20s for Cheltenham’s middle-distance Turners Novices Hurdle and from 33s to 20/1 for the three-mile Albert Bartlett Novices Hurdle next month.

Quotes from Alan Magee