Road To Riches, who improved throughout the 2014-15 jumping season to join the top rank of staying chasers, made a solid start to his latest campaign with victory in the Grade Two Clonmel Oil Chase at Clonmel on Thursday. Noel Meade’s eight-year-old, who finished third behind Coneygree in the Gold Cup at Cheltenham in March, beat Bright New Dawn by six lengths and is priced at between 16-1 and 20-1 for the 2016 Gold Cup.
Road To Riches was one of three horses in a field of five carrying the purple and white colours of Michael O’Leary’s Gigginstown Stud operation, but started at odds-on with Bryan Cooper, O’Leary’s principal jockey, in the saddle.
Felix Yonger, a Grade One novice chase winner at Punchestown in April, was the second-favourite for Willie Mullins and Ruby Walsh, Ireland’s champion trainer and jockey respectively, but the nine-year-old could not deliver a significant challenge as Road To Riches made all the running to record a comfortable success.
Noel Meade, who trains Road To Riches, was Ireland’s champion trainer six years running between 2002 and 2007 and the runner-up behind Mullins for the next five seasons too.
Big-race victories had started to become more elusive before the emergence of Road To Riches last season, however, and Meade could saddle his gelding in several Grade One prizes before a return to Cheltenham in March.
“I thought maybe the track and trip and ground might not be right for him, but he was ready to go,” Meade said. “He did everything we wanted, really.
“The John Durkan [Memorial Chase at Punchestown on 6 December] has been talked about, but as always with the Gigginstown horses, there will be a meeting and everybody will have their say about where they want to go and what they want to do and then the decision is made.
“I would say the Lexus [at Christmas which Road To Riches won last year]. I don’t know about Gordon [Elliott’s] horse [Don Cossack] but I think they are thinking about the King George [at Kempton on Boxing Day].”
Mullins and Rich Ricci, the most significant owner in his yard, took the Grade Three TA Morris Memorial Mares’ Chase as Vroum Vroum Mag, the 1-4 favourite, extended her unbeaten run over fences to six races.
“She’s in the Hennessy [at Newbury later this month] but I’m not keen to go for that,” Mullins said. “There’s a race at Carlisle [on 29 November], we could look at that, and we’ll keep her to mares’ races but if she keeps winning, she’s going to have to meet top horses at some stage.
“It looks as though she’s come back as good as she was last year and she’ll improve a huge amount from that.”
Modus, the runner-up in the Champion Bumper at Cheltenham’s Festival meeting in March, made an impressive debut over hurdles at Taunton on Thursday and is now top-priced at 20-1 for the Supreme Novice Hurdle at next year’s Festival.
Modus was trained by Robert Stephens when he finished one-and-a-half lengths behind Moon Racer in March, and went on to finish third, beaten four lengths, behind Bellshill in a Grade One bumper at Punchestown’s Festival meeting. He was sold to JP McManus for £190,000 in May and was ridden by Barry Geraghty, McManus’s No1 rider, when he made his debut for Paul Nicholls in Taunton’s novice hurdle over two miles and three furlongs.
Modus was impressively fluent at his hurdles and travelled easily throughout before quickening three-and-three-quarter lengths clear of General Ginger after another good jump at the final flight. He is 20-1 for the Supreme Novice Hurdle with Boylesports and Sportingbet, in a market headed by Moon Racer, who has not run since his win at Cheltenham, at 8-1.
Geraghty will be reunited with a potential Grade One winner over fences at Cheltenham on Friday afternoon when he rides More Of That, his 2014 World Hurdle winner, in a two-and-a-half mile novice chase on the first card at the track’s three-day Open meeting.
Geraghty was the beneficiary of a rare misjudgement by Tony McCoy at last year’s Festival, as McCoy chose to ride McManus’s At Fishers Cross in the World Hurdle in preference to More Of That. Jonjo O’Neill’s seven-year-old was beaten on his only subsequent start at Newbury in November 2014, however, and has not been seen on a racecourse since.
More Of That is at least a stone ahead of today’s field on hurdles form, but has questions to answer after his disappointing performance nearly a year ago and was ruled out of last year’s Festival after reportedly breaking a blood vessel during an exercise gallop at home.
He could be emerge as a leading contender for one of the Festival’s Grade One chases on Friday, but could just as easily disappoint once again and Dell’Arca (1.40), whose trainer David Pipe hit form at this meeting last year, is an interesting outsider at 9-1.
Minella Present (1.05) is progressing well and has strong claims in the opening handicap chase, while Josies Orders (2.50) can be another winner for Enda Bolger and Nina Carberry over Cheltenham’s cross-country course.
