Image © Healy Racing
Irish point-to-point graduates have now won four of the last five editions of the Grade 1 Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle after Slade Steel struck in the opener to the 2024 Cheltenham Festival.
Irish point-to-point graduates have now won four of the last five editions of the Grade 1 Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle after Slade Steel struck in the opener to the 2024 Cheltenham Festival.
A debut four-year-old maiden winner at Dawstown for Pierce Power in May 2022, the now six-year-old added a first triumph at the highest level to his CV when he outbattled Mystical Power.
Rachael Blackmore’s mount had raced keenly throughout the early exchanges, and the always prominent Telescope gelding took full advantage of his racing position in a steadily-run contest as he briefly led the field before the last.
Although Mystical Power did edge into the lead, Slade Steel showed great tenacity to battle back and win going away by a length and a half.
“Delighted, it’s brilliant. Really happy with him,” trainer Henry de Bromhead said. “Rachael gave him a super ride and fair play to the Robcour team, they said Ballyburn has beaten us twice and we need to just avoid him, so that’s what we did and it’s worked out really well for us.”
“He’s always been a pacey horse. He won a bumper for us, which is saying a lot for one of ours. The view was - in fairness, it was the Robcour team and they were spot on - that Ballyburn has beaten us a few times now and that’s the one thing we don’t need to do again. They were spot on. I wasn’t too bothered, and when the rain came you knew it would be more of a test.
SLADE STEEL wins the @skybet Supreme! %uD83D%uDCAA
— CheltenhamRacecourse (@CheltenhamRaces) March 12, 2024
The way he rallied after up the hill %uD83E%uDD2F pic.twitter.com/eUbK3guFSc
“It’s lovely to see the young horses like him coming through. We’re very fortunate in the support we get, we get gorgeous horses to train, and thankfully we can get the odd result.
“Rachael was superb, brilliant as usual. Cool as a breeze. She said she couldn’t believe how well she was going turning in. I was slagging her, saying she obviously wanted a lead longer to let the other horse go past her, but no, she said the horse was just a little bit slow at the last and that probably helped her. It was brilliant.
“This is an amazing place. We’ve had a lot of luck here. It’s done so well; they look after us so well; it’s a cliche, but it’s our Olympics, and we’re lucky to be able to take part.”
Meanwhile, Thomas Costello could not hide his delight as the Clare amateur rider came close to finishing placed in the Grade 1 contest.
His mount Asian Master, a winners-of-two victor at Belclare last season, came within a neck of snatching the third spot from Firefox.
“It was fantastic, unbelievable,” he said. “The stuff that dreams are made of. He jumped savage. I suppose the ground probably took the sting out of his seed more than anything else, but we had an unbelievable run. It’s something to build on.”
