The fluctuating nature of the battle to be champion trainer this season got highlighted on Sunday with a 260-1 cross-country 'five-timer' for Gordon Elliott which helped renew his lead over Willie Mullins.
If Mullins started by saddling the opening winners at both Navan and Thurles – appearing to maintain the momentum from his previous weekend’s six-timer – then Elliott wasted no time hitting back.
Just three weeks after saddling a remarkable 41,276-1 six-timer at his local track, Elliott responded with four more winners at Navan (paying 73-1) headlined by Death Duty’s Grade Two novice hurdle success.
Elliott also saddled Shattered Love to win at Thurles, taking advantage of a fall by Mullins’s odds-on favourite, Asthuria, leaving no doubt who got the better of the latest Sunday exchange between Ireland’s dominant trainers.
Elliott’s lead over his rival in the championship is back over €400,000 going into the lucrative Christmas action on the back of a day which wound up with the odds-on Samcro beating Mullins’s Good Thyne Tara in the Listed Bumper at Navan.
Highly regarded
“We’ve eight days now doing nothing but we do have a good bunch for Christmas and we’re in a good position,” Elliott said.
“The Graded race and the Listed are the races are the ones you want to be winning so it’s been a good day.”
Samcro had only half a length in hand of Good Thyne Tara but is clearly highly regarded and scored in a race won by Death Duty a year ago, and Don Cossack in 2011.
“We like him a lot and we’ll look to the future with him. He might have a month off now and have only one more run this season,” said Elliott.
If Bryan Cooper had enjoyed a relatively straightforward task on Death Duty then the jockey excelled when getting Automated home in the €50,000 Tara Handicap Hurdle, pouncing late to beat Scoir Mear.
“It was a peach of a ride. When the horse gets there he doesn’t do a lot but you couldn’t have written that ride better,” praised Elliott who quickly followed up with Glenloe in a maiden hurdle.
The sole blot on an otherwise excellent day for the season’s leading trainer was a 42-day suspension from racing for Labaik who once again failed to jump off after lining up for the Grade Two novice hurdle.
Labaik had previously done the same thing at Laytown and in Fairyhouse’s Grade One Royal Bond Novice Hurdle earlier this month.
