Electrifying winner back in the hunt for more success Rider joins

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Western Gazette
YWG-E01-S2
Thursday 2 October 2014 SPORT
97
Electrifying winner back in
the hunt for more success
OPTIMISTIC FUTURE: AP McCoy and the JP McManus-owned Regal Encore clear a hurdle during the Hexham Bookmakers National Hunt
Hurdle at Hexham Races. Handler Anthony Honeyball is likely to head to Chepstow this month with The King's Theatre six-year-old, who won
at Plumpton at the end of last year. Picture by John Giles/PA Archive
MAN Of Leisure, who electrified the summer last year
with five wins in eight weeks,
is back in the hunt for more
success with the Anthony
Honeyball Racing Club.
Joining
the
Mosterton
stable as a nine-year-old maiden, the Karinga Bay gelding
hit a sensational form in handicap hurdles but a switch to
fences was not successful and
later he was laid low by a
cracked hind cannon bone.
The horse has not run since
November but is now back
cantering with Honeyball saying: “He had screws inserted
in the fracture and he is 110
per cent now. He should be
back around December/January over hurdles to get his eye
in and he will be chasing during the summer – he has the
size and scope for fences.”
Other
Honeyball
contenders this season with
quotes from the trainer:
CHANTARA ROSE: Kayf Tara
five-year-old, second on her
bumper debut and fifth in listed company at Huntingdon in
January. “She’ll run in a
bumper in October and if that
goes well she might go for the
listed mares’ bumper at Cheltenham in November.”
CITY SUPREME: Fourth in a
listed Cheltenham bumper on
his debut and fourth again at
Ffos Las in March and now
goes novice hurdling. “Mentally immature but he is growing up all the time and he’s
definitely got an engine.”
CRESSWELL
BREEZE:
Four-year-old
Midnight
Legend filly out of a mare who
won four chases. Third and
fourth in two bumpers to date.
“We’ll try another bumper. If
that goes well she’d go to Cheltenham for the listed mares’
bumper in November. If not
she’ll be novice hurdling.”
HORACE HAZEL: Five-year-old
Sir Harry Lewis gelding who
stepped up on his fourth to
Jollyallan at Wincanton by
winning an Exeter bumper in
May. “Still quite a bit of a baby
and set to go novice hurdling –
should make a lovely staying
handicap hurdler.”
JACKIES SOLITAIRE: “Ran very
well in a 3m hurdle at Ffos Las
on her last start in April but
tired in the heavy ground. She
has come back looking as well
as I have ever seen her and we
will mix mares’ races in
hurdles and handicap chases
with her.”
MARIE DES ANGES: Winner of
four races in 2012-13 but out of
sorts last winter. However, the
bonus is that she has dropped
in the weights. “If we can get
her back to where she was
there are plenty of opportunities in handicap chases or
mares’ handicap hurdles.”
ROYAL NATIVE: Won an Exeter
3m handicap hurdle last season and now lined up for a
3m3f event at Fontwell Park.
“Still feasibly handicapped to
win over hurdles. He’s a good
galloper, jumps well and will
go in a beginners’ chase at
some stage.”
THE GEEGEEZ GEEGEE: Beneficial five-year-old who was a
decent third to stablemate
Miss Mobot on his bumper
debut at Ffos Las in May and
returned there to win a month
later. “Has a great attitude and
should make a really nice handicap hurdler over 2m4f-3m.”
VICTORS
SERENADE:
Not
much has gone right since he
blundered badly and broke
bones in his hock during a
handicap chase at Chepstow
two years ago. “Sound now
and at nine remains very
enthusiastic. He needs soft
ground.
We’re
building
towards a stayers’ race.”
Rider joins admiration for
popular retiring hurdler
REACHING OUT: A racing fan at Anthony Honeyball’s owners’ day
reaches out to meet Exeter bumper winner Horace Hazel. The horse
will be sent novice hurdling. Picture by Nigel Andrews
FIT AGAIN: As De Fer is paraded. The eight-year-old suffered from
lameness in his front joints last season but is now ready to race in a
3m handicap chase. Picture courtesy of David Briers
Female jockey on brink of achieving a rare racing feat
RACHAEL Green is on the
brink of achieving a rare feat
in NH racing.
The former ladies’ national
point-to-point champion is
two winners away from riding out her claim as a female
professional jump jockey –
which will place her in an
elite club of two from women
currently competing over the
sticks in domestic racing.
The magic number to reach
is 75 and though Lucy Alexander passed that figure
some time ago her career
strike rate of 10 per cent does
not compare with Green’s 16
per cent over the years.
Green’s calm and polished
performances in the saddle
and her feel for a horse on the
home gallops have been a
major feature in the rise
among the training ranks of
her partner Anthony Honey-
ball at Mosterton near Crewker ne.
Virtually
all
of
the
31-year-old rider’s successes
in recent seasons have been
for Honeyball, her finest campaign being 2011-12 when all
21 wins were for the stable
where she is assistant
trainer.
She rode 117 point-to-point
winners, the first of them as a
19-year-old while working for
Dorset handler Robert Alner
on Ski Seal who was trained
by Honeyball’s mother Sue.
She later became head girl
at the powerful stable of
Richard Barber at Seaborough until 2009 when she quit
racing between the flags and
teamed up with Honeyball
who, at the time, was also
based at Seaborough with a
full licence.
Retirement from the saddle
did not last long. She turned
professional and has steadily
worked her way through the
claiming stage. Despite her
achievement at some date in
the not too distant future she
says she will rue the loss of
her claim but her excellent
judge of pace, cultured hands
and unruffled approach more
than compensate for the
absence of any allowance.
One of her recent victories
was aboard Fountains Blossom, an ex-Lawney Hill
five-year-old who marked her
stable debut with a runaway
performance in a 14f bumper
at Fontwell Park last month.
Honeyball said: “Fountains
Blossom is a nice filly and if
she wins her next bumper she
would go to Cheltenham in
November for the mares’ listed bumper.”
Green owned Rouquine
Sauvage and leased her to the
Anthony Honeyball Racing
Club but the horse did not
remain with the club for long
because after Green had
sauntered home by six
lengths on her racecourse
bow in another 14f Fontwell
Park bumper last October, JP
McManus bought the mare to
stay at Mosterton though she
has yet to win again.
Honeyball said: “Rouquine
Sauvage definitely has an
engine but was affected quite
badly by the virus and was
not right last season but she
should show herself in a better light this winter.”
Other jockeys riding for
the yard will be Aidan Coleman, Choc Thornton and
Daryl Jacob while Sarka
Seviolova and Ben Clarke
remain head lass and head
lad respectively.
DARYL Jacob – back among
jumping’s valuable prizes on
Saturday – has joined the
chorus of admiration for
Celestial Halo, the Paul Nicholls hurdler who has just been
retired.
While stable jockey with
Nicholls at Ditcheat, Jacob
formed a strong bond with the
gelding over a two-and-a-half
year period. The son of 2001
Derby hero Galileo won ten
times over hurdles, five of
them with Jacob on board.
Paying tribute to the
ten-year-old
the
Wincanton-based rider said: “Celestial Halo was a brilliant horse
for me. I rode him ten times,
won five races and was second
in a World Hurdle. For me the
trip to Auteuil in May last year
was something special when
we won a Grade Two – a fantastic win.”
The horse started life with
Barry Hills and was a Derby
entry though having landed a
10f Newcastle maiden by 13
lengths he was scratched from
the 2007 Epsom classic after
disappointing in the Chester
Vase. But that autumn he
showed longer trips were his
forte by finishing seventh in
the St Leger, beaten barely
three lengths by Lucarno.
Later that year he joined
Nicholls, won his first hurdle
under Ruby Walsh by 14
lengths and went on to capture
the Triumph Hurdle the following March. Next season he
was a neck second to Punjabi
in the Champion Hurdle and
was fourth to Binocular in the
2010 running.
He appeared in six Cheltenham Festivals, the last of them
in March this year under
Jacob when whipper-in in the
World Hurdle. His victories
plus eight seconds and four
thirds
from
32
hurdles
amassed prize money of
nearly £650,000 for the Stewart
Family.
Jacob rode the big-race winner for Grand National-winning trainer Dr Richard
Newland at Market Rasen on
Saturday, taking the listed
2m6½f handicap chase on
Mart Lane and picking up the
handsome prize of £28,500 for
connections.
After his third victory in 13
rides since returning from
injury in August the Irishman
said: “Market Rasen has been
very kind to me since I came
back: two rides there and two
wins. I feel really great and
fresh and I think I’m riding
really well.”
He expects to announce “a
couple of exciting things”
shortly – but one piece of good
news he is happy to impart
now is that he and wife Kelly
are expecting their second
child in March.