The inform David Christie and Barry O’Neill combined to land the Hamilton Architects Hunter Chase with market principal Winged Leader, who was enjoying his first success under rules.
Winged Leader had finished fifth in last year’s renewal of the race, and he led from flag fall and maintained his position at the head of affairs throughout the contest.
The son of Winged Love was briefly joined by the Peter Maher-trained runner-up Alpha Male before the third-last fence, however the nine-year-old regained the lead quickly where he then surged clear and assumed command to go on and win by eight-and-a-half lengths.
Owned by Jennifer O'Kane and John Hegarty, the gelding has now won his last three starts on the bounce, having found success in the open division at Farmacaffley at the end of February and Kirkistown two weeks prior to that.
"He has really come of age this year. Last year myself and Barry (O'Neill) took quite a lot of stick when he got beat a couple of times,” said Christie.
"He was nearly kind of bolting and running away. It would have been so easy to turn him into a horse that you could only run flat out with.
"We rode him out the back, and rode him out the back, and a couple of times we let him down when he got there to win it and he just came second, and we took a lot of stick about it.
"It was the making of him. That's a year in getting him settled, there's a lot of work has gone into that horse - from Barry riding him to ourselves at home.
"He's only a six-year-old and he is a proper horse. I have ambitions with him. The whole thing with him was never to get too carried away and just take it wee steps at a time. If we did that, the horse would come to us. If we did the opposite we would ruin him.
"I'm delighted for the horse and for us.
"In a normal year you would be thinking of the Joseph O'Reilly or Punchestown. He is ready for that but now we are in a situation where we don't know what we are doing with plans.
"It is great that he has put that under his belt now - great for him, great for the owners and for us to have something to build on."
