Image © Healy Racing
The all-time winning-most point-to-point rider Derek O’Connor added a fifth Cheltenham Festival success to his illustrious CV when he guided point-to-point graduate Corbetts Cross to an impressive victory in the Maureen Mullins National Hunt Chase.
The all-time winning-most point-to-point rider Derek O’Connor added a fifth Cheltenham Festival success to his illustrious CV when he guided point-to-point graduate Corbetts Cross to an impressive victory in the Maureen Mullins National Hunt Chase.
The pair had come acropper in their Cheltenham warm-up at Fairyhouse a month earlier, but there were no fears in the jumping department for the seven-year-old who cruised through the slowly run 3m6f contest.
Approaching the final fence, O’Connor looked to be full of confidence and that proved to be justified as once he sent Emmet Mullins’ charge to the front, he swiftly put the race to be in a matter of strides.
Powering up the hill in the first time hood, the pair had stretched 17 lengths clear of the favourite Embassy Gardens by the winning line in what was some compensation for Corbetts Cross after he had run out at the last in the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle 12 months earlier whilst in a challenging position.
A Kildorrery maiden winner in 2022 for Eugene O’Sullivan, Corbetts Cross was the third winning pointing graduate on day one following the successes of Slade Steel and Chianti Classico, whilst for O’Connor, it was his first festival victory since the 2019 Kim Muir victory of Any Second Now in the same JP McManus silks.
O’Connor said: “It was a super performance. Emmett has done a wonderful job. He has prepared him to perfection. We had a mishap in Fairyhouse and I’d take the blame. I made the decision during the race to go for a gap, and it closed on me and we had a mishap. It was a bad preparation and it was my fault, but Emmett has recouped it and he turned up here in great shape.
“Last Thursday morning we had a schooling session and it was just like you’ve seen today - beautiful to watch. He schooled in the hood - I’m not sure what the reasoning for the hood was; maybe to get him to relax while he’s racing, but it all helped and his performance today was brilliant.
“It was a very simple race today. With a small field like that, a great bunch of riders and horses with a lot of experience - it’s meant to be for novices but to get into the race you had to have run over the trip and completed a certain amount of times, and the riders have to have a certain amount of experience, so it is a better quality race than it used to be, and has a higher standard of horses and jockeys. It was actually a very good race today.
“It’s not for me to say [whether this might be a springboard to Grade One races] but I think that was a very good performance. Top drawer.
“Today was important and got us off to a good start. Whatever happens for the rest of the week, happens.”
