Ipsos du Berlais earns his Cheltenham ticket *

Ipsos du Berlais leads WEster Leader over the last image: Healy Racing

One of Saturday’s winners who will be getting a Cheltenham entry is Ipsos Du Berlais who was a somewhat surprising winner of the Noel Farrelly Memorial Hurdle. The race was named in honour of the late Garda Noel Farrelly. A proud Tipperary man, originally from Templemore, he loved horseracing and GAA and was a member of Naas Golf Club. He had a great love for Punchestown where he enjoyed being on duty at the National Hunt Festival each year. Noel Farrelly  died suddenly on 17 February 2008.

The pre race chat focused on Willie Mullins’s latest French newcomer Sergent Guib’s who was making his Irish debut and two horses on the comeback trail from serious injury – Western Leader who was having his second start at Punchestown since suffering a life threatening tendon injury almost two years ago and China Rock who was running a huge race until suffering a serious tendon injury in last year’s Gold Cup.

The Noel Meade trained Ipsos Du Berlais had put up a good performance last time out, coming third in the a Grade One novice hurdle at Navan before Christmas and he really made jockey Davy Russell work hard for every cent of the prize money.

Russell was hard at work throughout the race to keep his horse up to his job but his persistence was rewarded as Ipsos du Berlais steadily made headway to join pace setter Western Leader on the home turn. The two horses fought it out to the final hurdle with the younger horse just getting the upper hand. HE stayed on well to the line for a six and a half length victory. Sergent Guib’s finished third with China Rock taking fourth on his comeback.

Trainer Noel Meade admitted to being a little underwhelmed by his lazy winner. “I was a little disappointed with the way he ran. Davy said they went very fast and he is only a novice so it was probably a good performance. If he had traveled through the race better I’d be happier with him. He is dog lazy but he has an engine anyway.”

Ipsos du Berlais will be entered at Cheltenham but when he runs next is undecided. “He wants three miles and he will learn a lot from today but he had a hard race on heavy ground so he won’t run for a while.”

The Mighty Milan finally got off the mark at the third time of asking in the bumper. He had been placed in both his visits to the racecourse and started favourite for this on the back of the form of those two races. Katie Walsh never had a moment’s difficulty and he ran out a comfortable 14 length winner from A New Day.

Trainer TJ Nagle said, “He was entitled to win that but we will take our time with him now. Katie likes him. He is very genuine and will go on any ground. It was horrible ground out there but Katie said he kept plugging on for her. He is more of a jumper than a bumper horse so hopefully he is one for the future.”