Virginia Considine will have taken particular pleasure from seeing yet another of her former point-to-pointers win a Graded prize in 2021 when Royal Rendezvous brought up a hat-trick when he showed his battling qualities to land the Grade 2 PWC Champion Chase at Gowran Park on Saturday.
The Co. Meath handler is most famously associated with having started off the star two-miler Shishkin to win his maiden at Lingstown and he has since progressed to win at successive Cheltenham Festivals in the past two seasons.
Now she also has Royal Rendezvous flying the flag for her operation with now nine-year-old having enjoyed a particularly profitable couple of months having landed the €250,000 Galway Plate during the Summer – a success which was backed up on Saturday on what was his first start in Graded company.
The King’s Theatre gelding had fallen when in front in the closing stages at Borris House back in 2017 before gaining compensation when winning in Castletown-Geoghegan whilst also owned by Considine in partnership with Fiona Magee who herself is a well-known producer of young horses.
It is the colours of Dr Peter Fitzgerald, the Managing Director of Randox Health, on whose land the annual two-day Killultagh, Old Rock and Chichester point-to-point in Largy takes place, that Royal Rendezvous now carries to continue the pointing connection.
This latest success for Willie Mullins’ charge now takes his prize money over the quarter of a million Euro mark.
Put The Kettle On may have been a late NR, but the race did not disappoint - a brilliant finish to the @PwCIreland Champion Chase at @GowranPark1 sees Royal Rendezvous strike under @dan2231 pic.twitter.com/Nkus05vGvE
— Racing TV (@RacingTV) October 2, 2021
