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Trainer Sam Loxton is hopeful of another big run from Caid Du Berlais when he and Will Biddick attempt to win Punchestown’s Champion Hunters’ Chase for a third time.
Friday’s race (6.35), which is sponsored by the Irish Daily Star, has also drawn an entry for the Paul Nicholls-trained Bob And Co, who will be the mount of his owner, David Maxwell.
Somerset-based Loxton said: “Caid is going over tomorrow by ferry with a number of other British runners, and I’m heading there on Friday morning with David Maxwell. I rang him this morning to see if we should declare [Maxwell’s] Monsieur Gibraltar for Cheltenham [also on Friday evening] and he offered to give me a lift.
“I have to take a Covid test tomorrow and there have been plenty of Covid awareness forms to fill in, but we are set to go.
“You can see from his two races this season that Caid is in good form. He loves racing and his attitude counts for a lot – he wears the others out trying to keep up with him.”
Caid Du Berlais routed the opposition when winning Punchestown’s Champion Hunters’ Chase in 2018 and 2019, winning by 21 lengths the first time and by 28 lengths on the second occasion. He and Biddick were denied the chance of a third victory when Covid-19 shut racing down last year and the Punchestown Festival was abandoned.
Loxton says: “The first year he was sitting handy, but On The Fringe [the five-time winner of the race] was on the bridle behind him and Rose [his wife] and I were waiting for him to go past, but Caid just pulled away. On the second occasion he had jumped five or six fences in about third position but was fighting the whole time, so Will let him go on and he was soon 20 lengths clear. Will decided to let him keep going at that speed, but we couldn’t believe he could maintain such a gallop. It was amazing that he won so easily.
“He won a little race at Warwick last time, but I thought his win at Wincanton [in March] was pretty good. It was a stern enough test against older handicappers.”
Loxton said it was an easy decision to miss this year’s Cheltenham Festival Hunters’ Chase after Caid Du Berlais pulled up in the 2019 and 2020 races. “It’s a waste of time going to Cheltenham,” said Loxton. “He goes into the stable boxes and sulks. It’s annoying, but that’s racing.”
Nineteen horses have been entered for the Punchestown race. Bob And Co has won twice this season, and was running a big race at Cheltenham until unseating Sean Bowen three out, while Ireland’s Billaway and Staker Wallace, who finished second and third in that race, are also in Friday’s line-up.
It Came To Pass, who won the Cheltenham race last year, but was only seventh in the latest running of the race, and the trio of Solomn Grundy, Stand Up And Fight and Winged Leader, are all useful Irish hunter chasers and good enough to prevent the prize crossing the Irish Sea once again.
