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Cheltenham 2021 - Review

The week belongs to Henry De Bromhead, Rachael Blackmore and Jack Kennedy. Minella Indo won the Gold Cup having lost the RSA on the line this time last year. Everyone loves a comeback story and this is one because following that defeat there was a fall at Leopardstown at Christmas and a very ordinary run in February. I thought he was very overrated and even though he fit the age range  (the last 3 winners of the race were 7 or 8 years old), I over looked him for Al Boum Photo. Funnily enough it had the feel of when Al Boum Photo won in 2019 because there wasn't a lot of talk about him. I still expected him to be beaten even when he flew the last but A Plus Tard couldn't run him down. He proved me and the doubters wrong today by adding the top prize in National Hunt racing to that narrow second last year and the Albert Bartlett two years ago. What a Cheltenham record! Fantastic for Jack Kennedy as well. He's had some week too - Black Tears beating the hot favourite Concertis
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Flat To The Max battles hard at Bellewstown

Flat To The Max went in the last race on the Thursday night of the 2019 Bellewstown Festival. He was dropping down in trip to 1m 4f having ran a lot recently over 2 or 3 furlongs further but Sporting Life had him in the conversation for who would win this. Aubrey McMahon had the ride and his 7lb claim took the horse down near the bottom of the weights though all but one of the jockeys had a claim of some sort. The field of eight was reduced to seven when Hasanabad was made a non runner.

Max got away well and was disputing second early on with Born By The Sea behind the leader Welcome To My World. Odds on favourite, the Willie Mullins trained Mr Adjudicator, with top amateur Derek O'Connor onboard, was watching the race from the back of the field at this point. As they hit the six furlong marker, the front 3 had opened up a gap of three lengths back to Royal Illusion and the rest of the field. Max had taken second place by this stage and was sitting in the slipstream of the leader ready to pounce as they hit the straight but the threat was coming from behind as Born By The Sea came up on the outside and Royal Illusion found room along the rail as Mr Adjudicator tried to get up from last place. Max was now in third battling with the favourite to get a place but it was thebother Mullins horse, Royal Illusion who took the lead in the final furlong and went on to win from Born By The Sea and Mr Adjudicator. Flat To The Max ran another great race to finish 3 lengths back in fourth and Alex reported that the yard were delighted with the run in what was a very competitive race. Mr Adjudicator had won over hurdles at Auteuil last time out and not long before that was 8th in the County Hurdle at Cheltenham while the winner had also won his last race at Leopardstown. Great run from Born By The Sea first time out since last August.

Flat To The Max has been in the mix in all his races so far. He's probably as good as horse as we have at the minute and the plan has always been that he would get us a runner in the big festivals this summer. He didn't get a run at the Irish Derby Festival but with Galway on the horizon hopefully he'll  have the Gordon Elliott Racing Club heading west for that.





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