Second season novice, Poetic Rhythm, made his experience over hurdles count, when he claimed the biggest prize of his burgeoning career at Chepstow on Sunday – the Grade 2 Persian War Novices’ Hurdle.
The winner of a bumper on the corresponding card 12-months earlier, the Flemensfirth gelding was the subject of some market support in the build-up to the off of the 2m3f contest, and he repaid those supporters with a gutsy success.
Always to the fore, Paddy Brennan sent the six-year-old to the front approaching the eighth flight, and utilised the chestnut geldings’ stamina reserves as he kicked-on early in the home straight.
Fergal O’Brien’s charge was strongly pressed over the final couple of obstacles by both Amour De Nuit and the expensive Land Rover Bumper winner Vision De Flos, but Poetic Rhythm repelled their challenges to win in game fashion by a length and a quarter.
Third in all four of his outings in four-year-old maidens for Roisin Hickey, Poetic Rhythm has already repaid the £35,000 his current connections paid to acquire him at the Tattersalls Cheltenham December sale, with plenty of promise to look forward to.
A terrific renewal of the Persian War Novices' Hurdle goes the way of Poetic Rhythm for trainer @FOBRacing: pic.twitter.com/9gwQ71yvlr
— At The Races (@AtTheRaces) October 15, 2017
Enda Bolger’s Ballyoisin completed the Graded double for Irish point-to-pointers with victory in the Grade B Chase at Cork.
Another to race close to the pace, the now six-year-old always travelled very powerfully in the hands of seven-pound claimer Donal McInerney to pick-up the running at the second-last, and the writing was soon on the wall for his rivals, as he pulled clear to beat Doctor Phoenix by three and three-quarter lengths.
Like Poetic Rhythm, Ballyoisin is also a graduate of four-year-old maidens, having won his point-to-point at the first time of asking at Belclare in March 2015.
