Image © Healy Racing
Cheltenham Festival success last week for Ocovango has capped off a particularly successful period for the Alne Park Stud resident in the point-to-point fields here in recent times.
Cheltenham Festival success last week for Ocovango has capped off a particularly successful period for the Alne Park Stud resident in the point-to-point fields here in recent times.
Dan Skelton’s Langer Dan completed back-to-back festival wins when he followed up his 2023 victory in the Coral Cup by defeating Ballyadam by three and a half lengths last Wednesday.
It follows no fewer than 18 races in the point-to-point field this season being claimed by his off-spring, with eight of those coming across a particularly lucrative spell across five weekends of racing from the middle of February.
De Nordener has epitomised the tough individuals that he produces, with Sam Curling’s charge having maintained his form throughout a particularly busy campaign for the eight-year-old, which has seen him finish first or second in seven starts from mid-January to mid-March, with noted successes over the banks at both Knockanard and Lingstown.
Since the turn of February, the winners have been aided by a pair of doubles, firstly at Kirkistown when Victor Tango and Voleur De Terres were among the winners, whilst a week later De Nordener and Sarah Jane both returned to the coveted number one spot in the winner’s enclosure at Knockanard.
Most recently, Birmingham Alabama proved to be a welcome winner for the champion handler Colin Bowe at Kirkistown in the mares’ maiden.
The five-year-old, who was bred by Deborah Hobson, battled gamely to come out on top of a thrilling battle up the run-in at the Down venue to open her account by a neck.
After the race, the reigning champion rider Barry O’Neill was impressed by that attitude as he stated: “She was very tough; she had a nice run the first day, but our horses weren’t really firing. She ran really well today though.”
Despite two and a half months of the season still remaining, Ocovango has already recorded a season’s best total of winners, and that is a total that is set to rise further with a number of four-year-old newcomers still to be introduced.
The former Group 2 winner has four-year-old’s hunter certed for handlers such as Derek O’Connor, Ellen Doyle, Sam Curling and Tom Keating, among others,
