Saratoga provided owner JP McManus with the perfect birthday present when striking in the McCoy Contractors Juvenile Handicap Hurdle at Cheltenham.<\/p>\n
One of three horses running in the green and gold silks of McManus, who was celebrating his 75th birthday, the Padraig Roche-trained grey was a 10-1 chance under Mark Walsh.<\/p>\n
The former Flat performer made light work of the 22-runner contest, strolling home ahead of Winston Junior to emulate his half-brother Brazil’s success in 2022 for the same owner, trainer and jockey combination.<\/p>\n
McManus said: “We\u2019ve always had a lot of fun and great days here. It\u2019s a place which means so much to so many and I\u2019m delighted to see this one win for Padraig.<\/p>\n
“Every winner is special and I go back a long time with Padraig\u2019s father Christy. We won this race with Brazil a few years ago and they were praying the ground would be fast and every day it was drying out was a bonus.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019ve had winners here on my birthday before, but you never get tired of it.”<\/p>\n
Roche added: “It\u2019s near enough the same route we took with Brazil and we\u2019ve always thought this race would suit him.<\/p>\n
“Getting nice horses is half the battle in this game and I\u2019m delighted Frank (Berry, racing manager) and JP decided to buy him.<\/p>\n
“Today really mattered, but I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll find out down the road if he\u2019s a bit better than a handicapper.”<\/p>\n
McManus had more to celebrate in the very next race as he scored a one-two via Johnnywho (18-1) and Jagwar in the Trustmarque Ultima Handicap Chase.<\/p>\n
Johnnywho, who is trained by Jonjo and AJ O\u2019Neill, just managed to sidestep Search For Glory after he unseated his rider at the last before reeling in the front-running Quebecois on the run to the line.<\/p>\n
He then had to dig deep for jockey Richie McLernon with 3-1 favourite Jagwar delivering a last-gasp challenge, holding on by a head.<\/p>\n
It was a first Festival winner for AJ O\u2019Neill since joining his father on the licence at Jackdaws Castle, and he said: “That was fantastic, Richie gave him an unbelievable ride.<\/p>\n
“He\u2019s threatened to land a big one on a couple of occasions. He obviously went close in the Kim Muir last year and it\u2019s great to come back and go one better.<\/p>\n
“When I saw Jagwar coming I was just hoping we could keep our nose in front and luckily we were able to do that.”<\/p>\n
The Skelton team got a winner on the board in the Sun Racing Plate Handicap Chase, with Harry Skelton doing the steering aboard Madara for brother Dan.<\/p>\n
Madara (3-1 favourite) stayed out of trouble and relished the Cheltenham hill to come home seven and a half lengths to the good.<\/p>\n
Dan Skelton said: “We knew he had pounds in hand, but didn\u2019t know he had that much.<\/p>\n
“We have to be mindful he\u2019s comeback off injury and he has obviously improved run to run this year. He finished second at Kempton the other day and I thought he had improved again off the back of that, but I just haven\u2019t been able to train him hard because of his legs.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019ll feel our way a little and we\u2019re not going to go and push the boat out too hard. He might get 10lb or more for today and we\u2019re going to have to try a graded race.<\/p>\n
“We could think about the Melling or Sandown on the last day of the season, but we may just leave a little bit in the locker for another day.”<\/p>\n
Holloway Queen then took the concluding National Hunt Challenge Cup Novices\u2019 Handicap Chase under James Bowen, a second win on the day for trainer Nicky Henderson after Old Park Star\u2019s earlier triumph.<\/p>\n
At 12-1 the mare stayed on best of all to claim a straightforward five-and-a-half-length triumph over the extended three-mile six-furlong trip to give Bowen his first Cheltenham Festival winner.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019ve got to admit, I thought she wanted a bog! When she won at Newbury it was bottomless,” said Henderson.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019ve ummed and ahhed, we weren\u2019t going to run unless it was soft all over.<\/p>\n
“I suppose you get the same effect over three mile six (furlongs) by making it a real staying test.<\/p>\n
“She was on the transfer list earlier in the season, it wasn\u2019t working over hurdles and she was getting sulky.<\/p>\n
“James has got a rhythm with her, she just jumps and gallops once she gets out of the gates.”<\/p>\n
Bowen said of his first experience of winning at the meeting: “It\u2019s great to get a winner on the first day, I suppose it\u2019s a bit of redemption for last year because I missed the whole Festival.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019ve had some good days, I can\u2019t say it\u2019s a career highlight but it\u2019s right up there.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saratoga provided owner JP McManus with the perfect birthday present when striking in the McCoy Contractors Juvenile Handicap…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-339373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}